Hello, new user here. I will be officially laid off soon with a decent severance coming my way and am considering taking a break (maybe 1-2 mo) before starting to job hunt because I feel so burned out right now.
For those of you who took a break after a layoff, I’d like to know if you are glad you did or if you regretted it. I am aware of how challenging the current market is right now.
I feel like I’m in a good position to relax for a bit (see below), but I also want to be smart about things. It took me a long time to claw my way out of debt over the years and build some savings.
About me:
45, no partner or kids
Field: Communications (marketing, corporate)
Debt: none
Residence: rent
Severance amount: 54K (pre-tax)
Other savings: 40K liquid (HYSA + mutual funds); 110K in Roth; 250K in 401K
Other income: unemployment ($530/wk pre-tax)
Insurance: will continue paying same premium as an employee for 3.5 months, then COBRA kicks in.
ETA: Monthly expenses approx 3K; reside in metro Detroit
Thanks for any insight or experience you are comfortable sharing!
Layoff coming at the end of the year with severance….. thinking about a break
byu/serenity_now_80 inpersonalfinance
Posted by serenity_now_80
26 Comments
I would not feel good about relaxing without job hunting with basically no savings
Key information needed: monthly expenses, possibly location (major city, rural, etc)
What is your burn rate?
I’d start applying for stuff day one. You can be choosey what you take.
You can find a job and not start for a month. You have no idea how long it’ll take to find one so you should start looking ASAP.
A deciding factor for me would be how many other people in your field will also be getting laid off. Will they be able to secure jobs while you’re taking a break and will you have an opportunity to get a job after your break if everyone else is getting jobs while you’re taking a break.
I wouldn’t take a break. Market isn’t that good right now. Take a week. Then imagine that week with no money and insurance, no apartment living at your parent’s house 😉 You may have many applications and interviews before getting hired. I’d consider the layoff, finding some interview clothes, and updating resume, linkedin, indeed, ziprecruiter, glassdoor, etc your break. You deserve a week though. Good luck.
Your burn rate is 3k/mo and you’re receiving 54k in severance. Congrats! You could take a whole year break if you want to. A month or two is definitely ok.
Check in your place of residence what the rules are around unemployment. If you need to show that you’re applying to jobs, maybe you should spend the first week (or some free time before you actually get laid off) updating your resume and searching through jobs to see what kind of roles appeal. You’ll probably want to apply to things that you don’t believe you’ll be able to get. If you do get it, great! If you don’t, you’ll still be able to show the unemployment folks that you’re actively applying.
Hope you are financially ready for a 6-12 month “break” with today’s job market.
Spend an hour or two every day applying to jobs. You can take a break for the rest of the day. Rinse and repeat. When you get an offer, it will take a couple of weeks for drug test, background check etc where you can take full rest.
The challenge with taking full rest and then starting a job search is that every day that goes by without having a job lined up will make you feel further behind.
Is your burn rate really $3K/mo? Like really really? It seems like if you are getting a 54K severance you probably were earning a good income but your retirement savings not that high
If you are really truly spending 36K per year, then yes a few months off should be ok.
Pssh you’re doing fine! I left my last job and took a 2 month break. Best decision ever.
Why not cover both, apply for your new job, if it’s offered just negotiate an delayed start period of 2months.
You have plenty set aside – so nothing to stress about take a couple of weeks then see how you feel.
Keep in mind UI takes into account your severance payment before they start paying you any money.
How much YOE do you have in your field? Job market isn’t great but I think it highly depends on your skill set and industry. I’d say take a break!
With your severance and unemployment I don’t think it’s as terrible as others are making it out to be. I remember I got laid off just before things were easing up after COVID and I took 4 weeks off to hike the Colorado Trail. It took me 1.5 months of applying to find another job but I was receiving unemployment and did UberEats/DoorDash on the side to supplement income.
You will get the break you want even if you start shotgunning out applications today. The market is terrible and companies move glacially slow even under good circumstances.
With such low living expenses I think I you’ll be ok if you take a month or two to unwind. Or give up the apartment and go live in Thailand for a year and teach English!
Personally, I would start applying now. Doesn’t need to be super serious, but at least get your resume in order and do a couple “Easy apply” applications on LinkedIn a day. I’ve been casually job hunting, it often takes a couple weeks to hear back from job applications (if you hear back at all) in my experience. With a little luck you’ll have a couple phone screens lined up and ready to go by the time you’re ready to start taking job hunting seriously. It’ll be better for your mental in the long term to apply now, rather than wait 2 months to apply then having to wait another month+ before you start hearing back from anything with the pressure on.
The best feeling is getting a severance, then getting a new job, and lastly telling the new job you can start in 6 weeks. Those will be one of the most comfortable 6 weeks of your life.
Instead of taking a full time break, work a “part time” hunt. It’s draining so it will help to give yourself permission for time off, while still making progress
The point of savings and unemployment benefits is to provide you with some stability so you arent desperately taking the first job that comes.
What you can do is apply and just see what you get. It would take a month or two to go through a hiring process anyway, and when they ask for a start date you just say you have some family travel planned already and can start after that.
2003. Took me me 11 months to find a job
2008-2010. Took 2 years to find full time
work
I don’t care how much money you have, not having a job will always give you stress.
COBRA is a rip off. You’re paying the full amount of the insurance, look at your pay stubs and see what your employer has been paying for your insurance. Then add that to what you were paying
Book your tickets travel a little am sure new avenues will open up. You deserve a break
I was laid off just before the pandemic hit in 2020. I took a month off to ski, hike, visit some national parks and then took another month to prep and find a job so that we had healthcare (my ex wife wasn’t working at that time and I felt like we needed health insurance because covid was a big unknown back then).
I am so glad I took that break, and in retrospect I wish I had taken a longer break. Everything worked out with the finances and we survived Covid, so I guess there’s a hindsight bias.
At $3K a month, you can afford to coast for as long as your unemployment keeps paying, looks like it will be 26 weeks starting next year. You only have a deficit of $1K a month or about $250 a week. If you can switch to ACA after your 3.5 months are up for health insurance, you might be better off. You may have to pay full price for a plan (no subsidies) if your severance is paid out next year. All the best!
Ive done both. I think.what you want to do is casually look and interview with the expectation the real search is happening in 3 months and just don’t sweat it, don’t prepare, and expect not to get it and see what happens.
You want the experience of talking about your latest move so when you are searching you have the story already down and you want to decompress as layoffs always happen after a pretty crummy preamble as companies play games before breaking the news.
Job searching is a numbers game, you want to give your pitch to everyone and anyone before it really matters and the story is tight.
Take a little break, but spend a bunch of that time learning how to use AI tools specifically for the field of Marketing and Communications. Including what the industry is saying, and where the respected think tanks are leaning.
When you do start interviewing you will want to know more than your interviewer on this topic.
Take the break you need, but find an excuse like volunteering or a side hassle etc. for your resume as anything over 3 months gets attention and with the recent market, it might take some time to find another position.