1. Why I Wrote this

I've been laid off twice in the last six years.

So I'm not writing this from the outside looking in. I'm writing it from the chair you might be sitting in right now. I know the email. The strange quiet afterwards. The 2am maths. The way your own name suddenly feels unfamiliar once the job attached to it disappears.

I also do this for a living. I'm a career coach, and I've sat with a lot of people on the worst professional day of their year. So I've seen a layoff from both sides. My own inbox, and the other side of the table, helping someone else find their feet again.

Here's what I have noticed. Most of the advice out there is either written by people who've never been through it, or by people who've smoothed all the sharp edges off six months later. It's thin. It's tidy, but it skips the parts that hurt, and the parts that actually help.

So I wrote the guide I wish someone had handed me. No toxic positivity. No "everything happens for a reason." Just honest, practical steps for preparing for a layoff, surviving the process, and coming out the other side with your confidence and your options intact.

Wherever you are in it, whether you can feel it coming, you're in the middle of it, or you're picking yourself back up, there's something here for you. Start at the beginning, or jump straight to the part you need most.

Every section ends with a ready-to-use AI prompt. These aren't gimmicks, but working prompts that turn each step into something you can act on today, from calculating your runway to drafting your negotiation to sanity-checking a dodgy job offer.

Copy them, add your details, customise them, and put them to work.

I write about work, careers, and staying in charge of your own path every week in my newsletter, Stuff that MattRs. This guide pulls the layoff-shaped parts into one place. If it's useful, that's where the rest of it lives.

I'm sorry you're here, but I'm glad I can help.