On January 22, 2014 I was laid off from Target less than 10 months after joining the company. I was at my previous employer for the better part of a decade where I was fortunate enough to not be impacted by a number of different layoffs over the years-none of which compare in size to what unfortunately is happening at Target right now. Because I knew a number of people who were laid off over the years I was always hyper-aware that was always possibility for me as well.
As I was being recruited to Target one of the questions I most vividly remember asking was regarding job stability. I was told that historically Target doesn't have a practice of laying off team members-the only examples I was given in the recent history of the company were from 1987 and 2009-both occurrences coinciding with large downward trends in the stock market where layoffs impacted a number of employers, not just Target.
Shortly after joining there was somewhat of a hiring freeze of new employees as team members were rolling off of Canada project teams and moving to domestic teams. From my experience hiring freezes were often a precursor for staff reductions. I didn't want to read too much into the hiring freeze in the summer of 2013 as Target historically had done things differently than other companies. Then in October of 2013 the first round of layoffs impacted around 200 team members. Following that there were more rumors of layoffs and I remember anxiety setting in with a lot of people I knew and worked with. Being the newest member of my team I knew that seniority was one of the factors considered in making a decision on who stays and who goes. I knew the people making the decision on who gets let go would see that I'm the newest employee and it made sense for me to go over anyone else. It made 100% sense to me as well that if anything happened to my team I was going to go so I started to prepare myself in October for what would happen if/when round 2 of layoffs happened.
On this very same message board 14 months ago people were adamant, guaranteeing layoffs would happen on January 15th, 2014. To my surprise I came in that day and didn't see boxes and Target bags or private meetings on anyone's calendar. When layoffs didn't happen that day I legitimately thought layoffs may not happen for the foreseeable future. Cut to one week later on January 22, 2014 I come in at 7:55 am and see a 15 minute private meeting invite from my VP at 9:30 that morning. I looked and saw boxes and Target bags so I knew what was coming in that meeting. Having braced myself for months that this would happen I breathed easier the week after the rumored January 15th date didn't come true. Even with years of experiencing layoffs and knowing a number of people who were impacted there was still this moment of, "this is really happening, what am I going to do, where will I go, when will I get another job" when I knew I was going to be impacted by the layoff. That moment of confusion, not knowing what will happen next lasted 5 minutes as I told my wife (who also worked at Target at the time and was not impacted) and others what was happening (I was one of only 2 people impacted on my immediate team so most were unaware of exactly what was happening) . She and others on my team couldn't believe it and didn't believe it until around 10 am when all of my access had been shut off.
That feeling of what, why and when went away by 8:10 that morning because I knew what to do having seen a number of layoff success stories in the past. I updated my resume, my LinkedIn profile and connected with former colleagues. What I found to be the most successful mechanism in gaining traction to find my next opportunity was connecting with recruiters. I went to LinkedIn, typed the name of a company I was interested in working for then added the word "Recruiter" to my search (i.e. United Health Recruiter). I then found the recruiters who were filling the openings for the type of role I was looking for. I worked with a number of really good recruiters throughout that process. I was fortunate enough to meet one of the best recruiters I've ever worked with who helped find an amazing opportunity for a position I currently have. I was fortunate enough to be able to accept a better offer than what I received previously from Target within 5 weeks of being laid off. I found that most recruiters I reached out to were very interested in my Target experience and thought highly of team members. I hope that's the case for anyone who has or may be impacted in the future in their search for what's next in their career. From my experience there were a ton of opportunities and a lot of people willing to help find something even better than I could have imagined that day I told my position was eliminated.
This board is filled with a lot of "he said, she said, rumor has it, I heard this, keep your head up or the sky is falling" type anonymous posts. I wanted to share my story to give everyone who has been or may be impacted a real example of what will be in your future if you put yourself in a position to be successful. If anyone is looking for connections or networking please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn below. Best wishes for future success to everyone whether that is at Target or elsewhere. Regards,
linkedin.com/in/troybalego