When your job is taken from you

“I have some bad news. Your position will end as of…”

When you haven’t chosen something new yourself, but are told that your current role will cease to exist, it often hits hard. It immediately shakes your sense of security and your self-confidence.

Because beyond the uncertainty about your income, you often lose much more. That is exactly what makes it so disorienting.

What you actually lose

• A piece of your identity. “What do you do?” was always an easy question. Now you don’t quite know how to answer, and every answer feels unnatural: between jobs, exploring my next step, taking a break…
• Structure and rhythm. The alarm clock, the Tuesday meeting, lunch and the short walks with colleagues.
• Belonging. The team carries on without you. However understandable the decision, it feels like rejection, sometimes even like being shut out.
• Control. You didn’t choose this. Someone else decided on this turn in your life, and that touches your sense of autonomy.

Everyone responds differently. It’s worth exploring which loss affects you most, and allowing yourself to grieve it.

The in-between space

The old is over, the new isn’t here yet. This phase has a name: liminal space, from the Latin limen, threshold. It’s the moment a door closes behind you, while no new one has opened yet.

Some people want to cross that threshold as quickly as possible: applying right away, drawing up an action plan, having a new stock answer ready for “So, found anything yet?”. Others need more time to come to terms with the anger, the rejection or the incomprehension.

If you move on too quickly, you often carry the old along without noticing: the same role, the same kind of organization, the same patterns of thinking and doing. And with that, you miss an opportunity.

Because the in-between space isn’t just emptiness. It’s also a place to ask yourself who you are at this point in your life. What matters to you? What skills and interests do you have, in the broadest sense? And what do you want to bring into the world?

Taking time doesn’t mean sitting still. Especially when there are bills to pay, you do what is practically necessary. But you can make room for these questions at the same time, even if it’s just an hour a week. The one does not exclude the other.

From applicant to conversation partner

Skip those questions, and before you know it you’re trying to fit yourself into a job description. You tick as many boxes as you can, and perhaps start making compromises again.

But if you take the time to get clear on what you want, what you can do and what you stand for, you sit at the table very differently. The question is then not only “What do they think of me, do I fit their box?”, but also “What do I actually think of this company and the people across from me? Do I feel at home here? Does this make me happy?”

That clarity shows, in what you say and in how you carry yourself. It brings more balance to the conversation. You’re not just the applicant, but a conversation partner who asks questions in return, considers whether it’s a good match, and may even help shape the role itself.

Take Judith (not her real name). After fifteen years as a team leader at an insurance company, her position was eliminated. Her first reflex was to apply for exactly the same role, at a similar organization.

When she took the time to look back, she discovered that what she had enjoyed most was guiding new colleagues. In her next job interview, she didn’t just ask what was expected of her. She proposed setting up an onboarding program herself. That role now exists, and she’s the one doing it.

A door you didn’t open yourself

Losing your job against your will is painful, and grief is part of it. At the same time, many people tell me that this very break brought them closer to themselves and led to better choices. Because they dared to use the in-between space to choose again.

Which loss affects you most, and what does that say about what truly matters to you?