Coping with redundancy: who am I without my job?

When I was made redundant, I didn't just lose a job. I lost the answer to a question I'd been asked for years: what do you do? I had wrapped so much of my identity around the big job that, without it, I wasn't sure who I was supposed to be. What was I interested in? How should I introduce myself? Where did I belong now?

Jarrod Cocksedge and I met in a pub, brought together by someone connecting people who had been made redundant or left traditional employment. We'd both lived in Australia and returned to the UK. We recognised something in each other's experience before we'd properly started talking.

Jarrod hadn't himself been made redundant. He had returned to London after working in senior advertising roles overseas and found that the next opportunity didn't arrive as it had before. He began The Badlands podcast, recording conversations with people navigating redundancy and life outside the careers they knew. The feelings that kept coming up were familiar to him too: loss, loneliness, self-doubt and feeling invisible.

Coping with redundancy is partly about practical decisions. But it's also about what happens when the life you knew stops recognising you. We wanted to talk about both, without rushing to the bit where someone says it was all for the best.

Redundancy grief: more than losing a salary

Jarrod describes going from a senior job that occupied almost every waking hour to a phone that didn't ring. No emails to answer first thing. No meeting that needed him. Habits he'd built over years suddenly had nowhere to go. The absence felt much bigger than an empty calendar.

Through his conversations and his own therapy, he began to understand the experience as a form of grief. There can be loss of routine, purpose, relationships, status and the future you assumed you were heading towards. Redundancy grief isn't the same experience as bereavement, but grief can be connected to losses other than death.

It wasn't a neat progression for him. Being active and talking to people could help, then a quiet stretch would bring the feelings back. He could feel excited about something new and crash again afterwards. That's his experience, not a set of stages everybody must pass through.

If you're wondering how to get over redundancy, it may help to stop treating it as a task you should have completed by now. Getting through an interview doesn't prove you've finished grieving. A difficult day doesn't erase the progress you've made. There isn't one emotional deadline that fits everyone.

Loss of identity after redundancy: who am I without my job?

Jarrod kept introducing himself as someone who worked in advertising, even when he wasn't working in advertising any more. It took time to say that out loud. Eventually, when somebody asked what he did, he said he didn't have a job. The other person initially assumed that meant he was wealthy enough not to need one.

What changed his perspective wasn't a better professional label. It was spending time with his son. To his son, he wasn't a former regional director. He was Dad. His child hadn't lost the person he knew because a title had disappeared.

It was the story I'd been telling the world. And they're two totally different things.

Loss of identity after redundancy can expose how narrow our introductions have become. You're still the person with friendships, humour, interests and responsibilities outside work, even if those parts have had less room lately. Who am I without my job? is a real question. It doesn't have to be answered by finding another impressive title as quickly as possible.

Feeling ashamed after redundancy

I asked Jarrod whether denial was rooted in shame. We are taught to want secure employment, a good title and the ability to provide. Losing those things can feel like a public failure, even when you know a business decision has been made.

Take it professionally, not personally.

He talks about people who had delivered strong results and still lost their roles during restructuring or changes in ownership. His point isn't that the consequences aren't personal. Losing income is deeply personal. It's that a decision about a role is not a complete assessment of the human being who held it.

Self-worth after losing your job can be hard to separate from the employer's decision. Knowing that intellectually and feeling it are different things. Jarrod took time to disentangle them. You can be angry about how you were treated without accepting that the decision defines what you're worth. And if you have concerns about fairness or discrimination, get independent advice rather than assuming you must simply accept it.

Feeling invisible when unemployed—and the loneliness after job loss

Invisible was the word Jarrod returned to. He had come back to a city where his network had changed while he was away. People had moved jobs. Opportunities weren't appearing. Sitting at home scrolling LinkedIn made him feel further from the world he wanted to rejoin.

Loneliness after job loss isn't only missing close colleagues. It can be losing ordinary contact: the quick question, the familiar voice, the assumption that someone expects you somewhere. His podcast began with real conversations, partly because he needed people to talk to. He discovered that many of them needed the same thing.

Jarrod's advice is blunt: step away from LinkedIn and speak to people. Have coffee. Meet someone. Go to an event. His recommendation to stay off the platform for a month is a personal view, not a rule for your job search. If it helps you find relevant roles, use it. If scrolling leaves you feeling smaller without producing anything useful, consider giving it a defined place rather than the whole day.

Lost confidence after redundancy: how to begin rebuilding it

If you've lost confidence after redundancy, you may know you're experienced and still struggle to believe anyone wants what you can offer. Silence from an application can start sounding like a verdict. Another person's promotion can become evidence that everyone else is moving forward except you.

Jarrod reminds listeners that they didn't reach their previous position entirely by luck. There was work, perseverance and ability behind it. Losing the position doesn't retrospectively remove those things.

How to build confidence after redundancy isn't a question he answers with a motivational speech. For him, time, conversations and understanding himself differently mattered. A career consultant helped him explore what he shouldn't do, which he found unexpectedly useful. Narrowing the possibilities gave him more direction than being told he could do absolutely anything.

There is something useful in that for the rest of us: start with something more specific than becoming confident. Have one conversation. Look at what you actually enjoyed doing and what you don't want to repeat. Ask someone who knows your work for a grounded perspective. Those are editorial suggestions drawn from our discussion, not a guarantee that the next opportunity will arrive immediately.

Coping with redundancy at 40, 50 or 55

Jarrod had been given a familiar script: school, university, a good job, then work until retirement. Finding himself outside that script with years of working life still ahead felt disorientating. He thought he had done what he was supposed to do. Why wasn't the next chapter happening?

Whether you're coping with redundancy at 40, coping with redundancy at 50 or coping with redundancy at 55, the question can carry responsibilities an enthusiastic reinvention story leaves out. Rent or a mortgage. Children. A partner's income. Savings that won't last indefinitely. Our conversation doesn't offer an age-specific formula, and we shouldn't pretend those circumstances are interchangeable.

Jarrod is clear about his own relative financial security. Having space to explore is a privilege. He knows talented people doing delivery work or painting and decorating because bills need paying. He isn't dismissing that work; he's acknowledging that the immediate need for income can shape the choices available. Taking a job to stabilise your finances isn't a failure to reinvent yourself.

How to cope with redundancy stress: start with the immediate needs

Jarrod describes responding to uncertainty by doing more: spreadsheets, networking, tasks, constant problem-solving. Activity was a way of convincing himself things would be okay. But he hadn't left enough room to stop and think clearly.

His advice is to take a beat and address the fundamentals, especially food and somewhere to live. That isn't telling someone with bills to ignore the job search. It's recognising that immediate insecurity can make every decision feel like an emergency. Getting a clearer picture of what needs attention can help separate today's tasks from the entire future.

How to cope with redundancy stress may also involve support outside career advice. If anxiety, low mood or sleep problems are affecting daily life, speak to your GP or a qualified mental-health professional. You don't have to wait until you've found work to deserve help with how this feels.

What to do after being made redundant in the UK

Our episode is about the human experience, not employment law. If you're asking what to do after being made redundant UK, put practical advice alongside emotional support. Acas, GOV.UK and Citizens Advice can help you understand the questions to ask about your own circumstances. Employment rights and support can differ depending on where you live and your situation.

• Keep the relevant letters and paperwork, and clarify your leaving date, notice, final pay and any proposed redundancy payment.
• Get independent advice if you are unsure about the process, your rights or something you have been asked to sign; don't leave questions about deadlines until later.
• Look at essential spending and income, and check what benefits or other support you may be eligible for.
• Choose a manageable next step for the job search or career planning, rather than expecting yourself to solve everything in one day.
• Tell someone you trust what is happening, especially if you are carrying the worry on your own.

Those are practical signposts added here, not legal guidance from Jarrod. Eligibility and entitlements need checking individually. The point is to give the urgent questions somewhere useful to go, rather than expecting yourself to become an expert while you're still in shock.

How to talk about being unemployed

Jarrod's introduction changed gradually. He stopped speaking as though the old role was still his present life. There wasn't a perfect replacement sentence waiting for him; being honest was part of the change.

If you're wondering how to talk about being unemployed, you don't owe everyone a full account of what happened. You might say, I've been made redundant and I'm looking at what comes next. Or, I'm looking for work in this area and would appreciate an introduction. Those are possible words, not quotations from Jarrod. They make room for the truth without making unemployment your whole identity.

Feeling relieved after redundancy doesn't cancel the grief

Before my redundancy, I had suspected it was coming and lived in dread. Every night could become another rehearsal for the worst-case scenario. When it actually happened, part of me felt relief: the thing I'd feared had happened, and now I could begin dealing with it.

I had been miserable in that job. Afterwards, interviews for similar roles produced a strong feeling that I was heading back into the same situation with a different name above the door. I still needed to make money. But I began asking how I could work in a way that fitted my values better.

Feeling relieved after redundancy doesn't mean the loss was easy or that you didn't care. You can miss the security and not miss the job. You can grieve the ending and feel grateful that the dread has stopped. Looking back, I think it was the best thing that happened to me. I couldn't have known that at the time, and nobody else has to reach that conclusion about their own experience.

Starting again after redundancy, without solving your whole life

You can do anything now was one of the least helpful things people said to Jarrod. Too many possibilities produced paralysis, not freedom. He needed to work out what fitted him, and he needed time to loosen his attachment to only doing what he'd done before.

Some people he spoke to returned to their industry. Others moved into adjacent work or tried something different. Starting again after redundancy doesn't have one respectable shape. It can be temporary, practical, uncertain or creative. It doesn't need to produce an inspiring announcement.

What stayed with me was the invitation to separate a role from a person. A job can end. A way of living can change. That doesn't mean the whole of you has been declared unnecessary. You are still here, even when the inbox is quiet. And you don't have to work out the next twenty years before you're allowed to take the next step.