Back to work 30 days after a layoff
Six years at one company, then a layoff email. A signed offer thirty days later, at a higher base.
- Timeline
- 30 days
- Applications
- 19
- Interview loops
- 5
- Base salary
- +6%
Tomas (a pseudonym) was a product manager laid off after six years at the same company. The hardest part was not the CV. It was not knowing what the market wanted from a PM in 2026, and the fear of watching a gap grow on the timeline.
The first week I applied to everything and heard nothing. That scared me more than the layoff itself.
A plan instead of panic
- Day one: an honest read of his profile against a hundred live PM postings, which surfaced two realistic directions
- Week one: CV and portfolio rebuilt around shipped outcomes, every line with a number
- Weeks two to four: a steady cadence of verified openings, five to seven a week, tracked in one place
The part that actually mattered
The tracker turned out to matter more than the CV: follow-ups went out on time, no interview loop was dropped, and the preparation notes for each company lived next to the application. Nineteen applications became five interview loops. Day 30 brought a signed offer, at a base six percent higher than the old role.
Names are pseudonyms and some details are blurred to protect privacy.