Talking about it
How to answer it in interviews, how to tell your family, how to bring it up with mates.
In progress4 min @ 250 wpm↓ 1,178 words
§ Journey
How to answer it in interviews, how to tell your family, how to bring it up with mates.
The hardest part of being made redundant was not the money or the job search. It was the conversations. The same story, told for the fortieth time, to a different audience, each one wanting a slightly different version. You get good at it, eventually. The first ten times are awful.
Three audiences. Three registers. One underlying truth.
You will be asked, in some form, every interview: "So why did you leave your last role?"
The bad answer is long, defensive and includes the phrase "to be fair". The bad answer apologises for something that is not your fault. The bad answer mentions specific people in your old org by name (charitably or otherwise).
The good answer is 30 seconds, mechanical, and lands like a fact. Three sentences:
That is it. Practise it out loud, into your phone if you have to, until it sounds true and feels boring. It needs to feel boring. Boredom in your own voice on this answer means you have processed it. Interviewers can hear the difference between rehearsed-and-resolved and rehearsed-and-raw.
If they push ("Why your role specifically?"), you can add one line: "The strategy shift meant [function] became a centralised capability, and my level of role was duplicated." Calm, structural, no villain.
What never to say in an interview about a redundancy:
Tell your partner the same day. Not on the train home. Not after dinner. Not "once I have a plan". The day it happens.
Sit at the kitchen table. Or wherever you actually talk. Open with the fact:
"I was made redundant today. The package is approximately X. I have not signed anything. I want us to talk through what this means."
Three things help:
What does not help: minimising it ("It is fine, it will be fine"), catastrophising it ("I do not know what we are going to do"), or going silent for three days while you process before telling them.
Your partner is a teammate, not a stakeholder you brief once a quarter. The conversation is iterative. Plan another sit-down for the weekend.
Age-appropriate, but do not delay. Kids overhear everything. The version they overhear is worse than the version you tell them.
Under-7s: "Daddy's job has finished, and I am going to be home a bit more for a while until I find a new one. Nothing in our house is changing." That is the whole speech.
8-12s: Add slightly more honesty. "My old company decided to change how they organise things, and my job was one of the ones that was no longer needed. It is not because I did anything wrong. I am going to be looking for a new job. Family stuff (school / sport / weekends) stays the same. If you have any questions, please ask."
Teenagers: Treat them more like adults. Tell them the rough timeline, that there will be some belt-tightening (and what that means specifically, no streaming services, no new shoes for a few months), and that the family is fine. Teenagers handle truth, they do not handle vague reassurance, because they can smell it.
What kids worry about: are we going to have to move, am I changing schools, are mum and dad going to fight more, am I still going to do my Saturday sport. Answer each one directly. The specifics matter more than the philosophy.
This is the one men avoid the longest. Six weeks in, they still have not told the lads.
Tell them. Casually. In context. The script that works:
"Mate, did I tell you I got made redundant in April? Yeah, restructure, package was decent, having a look around now."
That is it. The awkward part lasts about 90 seconds. After that, the good ones will have a story (their cousin, their old manager, themselves four years ago), an intro to offer, or just a beer to shout. The bad ones will say something clumsy and you will know more about them than you did before.
What you are not doing: making it the centre of the night, leading with it, or apologising for not having mentioned it sooner.
Bring it up at the start of the catch-up, not the end. End-of-night confessions feel heavier than they need to. Front-loading it lets the rest of the conversation breathe.
Some men post the "open to work" announcement. Some men do not. Both are fine.
If you do post: keep it short, factual, forward-looking. State what happened, state what you want next (specific role / sector / location), and give people one clear thing to do ("happy to chat over coffee in [city] if you are working in [space]").
If you do not post: turn on the green #OpenToWork frame visible only to recruiters, update your headline to reflect what you do (not where you used to do it), and make sure your profile is current.
The post is for the network. The profile is for the search. Two different jobs.
You will, at some point in the first month, be asked "how are you holding up?" by someone you do not know well, and the question will land differently than they meant it. You will tear up, or get angry, or change the subject sharply. That is fine. It happens to most men. It does not mean you are not coping.
If it happens often (multiple times a week, weeks in a row), call your GP and ask for a referral to a psych under a Mental Health Care Plan. Ten subsidised sessions a year. Use them.
State the fact. Move forward. Trust who you are.
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