Perhaps, with pop culture references, timely hashtags, and photos of handsome young men sipping mojitos on the company’s branded swing, it was bound to go viral.
“And just like that, today marks the last day at Peloton Interactive,” Colin Burke’s LinkedIn post from February 2022 began. “After three years, I was fired this morning along with thousands of other friends and colleagues.”
After documenting his time as Peloton’s social influence marketing reign, thanking him and celebrating his achievements, Burke announced his search for brand marketing or social influence “everything”. “Feel free to find a chance or send me information!” the end.
The post garnered nearly 15,000 likes and 700 comments, and Burke received nearly 2,000 private messages offering tips and job interviews. “Now, obviously, people are laid off every day, and there is a template,” Burke, 25, said. “At the time, I didn’t know what I was doing.”
LinkedIn, which was launched in 2002 as a job search site, has gradually become another de facto social network. As workers become brave to bring “the whole self” to work, imbuing the professional persona with personal life has become equal parts public and beneficial. So have built your personal brand—even if you’re a lawyer or an accountant. The “discarded” posts, which have flooded feeds in recent weeks and fueled everyone’s anxiety, reflect that change.
For a recently laid-off worker desperate for a new gig, Burke’s viral experience is almost too good. But the phenomenon is becoming less rare by the day. As hundreds of thousands of layoffs hit knowledge industries like technology, media, and finance, workers – mostly younger ones – are coming en masse to share their grievances and despair on the site where the future boss is most likely to see them.
Posts mentioning “layoffs” or “retrenchment” increased by 78% from November to December 2022 compared to the previous month, according to data provided by LinkedIn to fortune “Open to work” posts increased by 22% between November 2021 and November 2022. And, if words fail, more than 18 million global members have added the “Open to Work” frame to their profile photos.
The trend is in line with Dr. Janet Lenaghan, dean of Hofstra University’s Frank G. Zarb School of Business. “Gen Z will make up 25% of the workforce by 2025, and they’re growing up sharing all kinds of personal information on social media,” Lenaghan said. fortune. “It’s really taken away the shame that the older generation might feel about things like layoffs.”
The power of a well-timed personal story
Burke, who was one of the 2,800 people Peloton fired last February, approached the viral post pragmatically. He feels the need to thank the people he works with, but as a marketer, he knows the value of a timely personal story.
“You have to think when you write, ‘I want to sound grateful for the experience… which can be hard,'” he said. “I wrote a few hours after I was fired at 8:30 on a Tuesday.”
Nikita Kulkarni, 28, was on medical leave from her three-year job designing content and writing UX at Instagram when she was fired in December 2022. Around 7 a.m., she received a “difficult decision” email. An hour later, before he’d told most of his friends, he ran off a short LinkedIn post with much less talent than Burke’s. He is not a model to be able to die; the only other post he saw that day was his colleague’s, which had gone viral on LinkedIn with 500 likes.
Kulkarni added #metalayoffs to increase reach and publish – “in a fugue state” at the time, he says. The post has since garnered 831 likes and 62 comments, mostly from people he knows, and compliments from coworkers: “Nikita is awesome, hire him!”
Lenaghan advises laid-off workers to take a break before showing up. “You should not discount the emotional impact of layoffs; you need a few minutes to process,” he said, adding that you should look ahead when the dust settles. “Your dismissal is not the time to destroy your former employer, but to apply the knowledge and skills and confidence that you have acquired and will bring opportunities next job.”
Convention would suggest workers strike while the iron is hot. But not every young man who has been fired in recent weeks has been quick to share his story on social media. Abigail O’Neall, 29, was fired from her account coordinator role at the creative agency in early December. A friend who shared his layoff story on LinkedIn inspired him to create his own.
In an effort to match LinkedIn’s style, O’Neall said she took on a more serious tone—something she felt contradicted her real-life feelings. But this incongruous official rhythm kept O’Neall from publishing. “Are the people who know me like that, what happened to them? Did they suddenly start drinking the corporate Kool Aid?” he said.
He also felt that successful posts like Burke’s represented a measure of certainty he wasn’t sure about. “On LinkedIn, you have to be like, ‘Hello, I’m unemployed, but I really like my job and I’m looking for something in this industry,'” he said. “And I just wasn’t there.”
Posting may not lead to jobs, but it helps break the stigma of layoffs and make connections
As the workforce changes, LinkedIn’s layoff posts will become more acceptable, changing norms and standards of behavior, said Lenaghan, Hofstra’s dean. He doesn’t predict it will replace the traditional application process entirely; the latter still records other technical details, such as cover letters and background checks. But these LinkedIn posts “really” help job hunters make initial contacts, he said.
Kulkarni can testify. After a few weeks of communicating with people who contacted him from the post, he used the old method. But her post continues to pay dividends — she says being fired “almost engenders a certain sympathy” because people want to help.
A day before the interview, Kulkarni spoke to a recruiter from a large tech company who said he had heard he was fired and offered to speed up the interview process. “There’s no way he would have known if it wasn’t for my post,” Kulkarni said. “This is a step up, because historically, there was a stigma. Now we turn the stigma on its head. If this is a lot of people who have been laid off, we can’t be all bad at our jobs.
“The way Gen Z talks about mental health and grief and all these difficult topics is part of being human, now it’s easy to find an online community, whereas my dad was all about secret shame,” she added.
Burke also ended up finding his current role as brand manager at Nike the old-fashioned way: applying through the HR portal with a résumé and cover letter. Instead, he recommends anyone who has been fired to make a LinkedIn post—if only to get the agency back.
“The layoff is something that happens to you; it’s a number on a spreadsheet,” he said. “It sucks, especially with Gen Z, because we think we’re unique, but layoffs remind us that we’re not special.”
It was the shame he felt about the layoff that held O’Neal back, even though he thought he would be “very successful” with the post. He is currently in two second-round interviews and admits that if there are no offers, he will give up.
“I know it works, but it’s so weird — it’s a dichotomy [LinkedIn being] It’s a very powerful tool, and so is the website,” he said. “I was like, why am I scrolling through this? Can’t I get out of this? It’s cringe, but effective.