I want to share with you a story about my client. Let’s call her Christine.

This woman happens to be a rockstar.  A total baddie when it comes to work and climbing the corporate ladder. Her last position was at a Fortune 500 company where she reached the Director level and was compensated handsomely.  

But as is the story with so many of us in the modern work world, this status came with a price tag of its own.

Over the years and through many organizational shifts, Christine found herself in a toxic work culture, under bad leadership and with a direct manager who sucked, leaving her with a severe case of burnout.  Her health, mental and physical, was in distress.  And the icing on the cake? Her dad had passed away a year ago and intense grief was spiking frequently and with little warning.  This grief would disregard any consideration for the fact that she had a high pressure job with goals to deliver at high velocity.

So after a brief medical leave, she had to quit.  Her health was at stake and the reminder from her father of how precious and short this life really is, left her with no choice but to begin prioritizing her well-being and getting healthy.  And for her, that meant quitting her job without another one lined up.

This was almost exactly a year ago.  After some initial months of recovery, the job search began.

Reminder: The more senior you are or the higher you have progressed up the “food chain” the longer you can realistically expect your job search to take.  There are less roles available and the competition is more fierce.

So…what is the point of all of this?

Fast forward eleven months and Christine had been interviewing like it’s her literal job and had yet to land an offer.  She was beginning to feel discouraged but was not losing hope and was doubling down on the effort.

The most recent ego blow came after she made it to “final rounds” with a small start up, that she convinced herself she was interested in despite the fact that the salary being offered was 30K lower than her minimum target. 

Her and I connected, and she was not in a great place about it.  This rejection had hit pretty hard.  Hit differently.  She had been at this for almost a year now and money was running low.  To top it all off, her partner had recently lost his job too so the pressure was really on.  She was taking all the feedback into consideration but still, she was beginning to grow weary.  She let me know that she was going to take some time away to process.

When we checked in a couple weeks later, I was expecting to hear about her strategy moving forward and the lessons learned from the last round.  But that’s not how the session went.  

To my surprise, she had quite the update for me! Someone in her network had reached out about a role with a remote first company (on her wish list), with great work life balance (affirmed by many backchannels), and had already been fast-tracked through the whole process!  She was just waiting to hear back.  Our session became compensation negotiation focused. 

In an epic turn of events, this let down of the last opportunity was transformed into her dream role seemingly dropping from the heavens and landing in her lap…with a thud.  A 230K yearly annual salary type of thud. 10K higher than the last toxic job she had left!

When she relayed all of this to me, Florence and the Machine’s “It’s always darkest before the dawn” song started blasting in my head and I felt like belting out the lyrics…dancing even! (in a whimsical, Florence-inspired leaping through the air, victory style kind of way).

What a reminder! Thank you God. Thank you universe.  

Because, magically, it truly is always darkest before the dawn.  What matters isn’t the let downs or the rejections or the setbacks.  What matters is how quickly we get up, bounce back, and keep our head in the game.  That we stay consistent and keep getting our reps in.  How much we still trust that it’s all going to work out despite the doubts the inevitable pop up in our head.  That we have to intentionally punch out like a game of whack-a mole.

I hope this message lifts up the spirits of anyone who’s been at it awhile and has yet to see results.  Anyone who is feeling discouraged during their job hunt. 

I believe in you.  Keep believing in yourself, keep showing up, keep doing the work. Never give up, never settle for less than your worth.  It’s all going to work out in the end, I promise!

With gratitude, 

The Layoff Queen