While no one wants to be on the receiving end of a pink slip, it’s a reality many workers face each year. Nearly 700,000 people have lost their jobs so far in 2025, according to global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
U.S. News talked with workers who shared 10 real experiences of job loss — and how they bounced back. In some cases, getting fired was just what they needed to find the career of their dreams.
[Read: 12 Signs You May Be Facing a Layoff]
Employee Must Decide: Maternity Leave or Job
For Laurie Eldred, motherhood meant the end of her employment. When her daughter was born six weeks premature, her doctor recommended that she delay placing her newborn in daycare. As her return-to-work date approached, however, human resources said that wasn’t possible.
“They said I needed to return at that date or they needed to let me go,” Eldred shared in an email. “I tried to explain, but they didn’t want to hear about it.”
The Family and Medical Leave Act didn’t apply to Eldred’s job — which ironically was with a social services agency that worked with families — and so she left her position to stay home with her daughter. She used that time to consider where she wanted to go next in her career and credits her experience with helping her decide to become a social worker.
Mid-Career Layoff Leads to Creative Job Search
Danny Groner had been working at a tech startup when it became apparent that the company was on a trajectory toward layoffs. When 30 of 90 staff members were let go, there wasn’t much Groner could do to preserve his position.
While it wasn’t the first time he had been without a job, as a mid-career professional, it was a difficult turn of events. “It was really an ego blow more than anything else,” he says.
After giving himself a day to “nurse the blow,” Groner jumped into a job search that involved creating a template of what he wanted to do and then finding companies that might match his skills and goals. Instead of searching through job postings, Groner anticipated the needs of companies and where he might be able to fit in. He then approached those companies directly — leveraging his contacts as well as doing some cold outreach — to discuss employment possibilities.
His previous job gave him only one month of severance pay, but that was all Groner needed. He was let go in late February, and he found a new job with a start date in early April.
Groner says the current job market is different than the one he navigated, but he encourages those who’ve been laid off to think outside the box: “It takes ingenuity, creativity and foresight to see where you might belong.”
[Read: 15 Best Jobs to Consider for a Career Change in 2025]
Past Experience Influences Current Business
Candice Smith is an award-winning tour guide who owns the company Tours Around Michigan. However, earlier in her career, she worked for an international firm and says her experience with a supervisor there influences how she runs her business today.
“I had a co-worker who was generally not a nice person,” she shares.
One day, Smith was traveling to an offsite event with this person driving and another colleague in the passenger seat. At a stop sign, the driver used their arm to forcefully push the passenger back in the seat and yelled aggressively at them for blocking their view.
The incident disturbed Smith, who reported it. She was told the matter would be investigated but nothing came of it. The co-worker who was driving the car would go on become Smith’s supervisor. Sometime later, Smith prepared for maternity leave by creating a document with notes and information about ongoing projects.
“I did a really detailed update on a shared server,” Smith recalls. However, when she returned from leave, she realized the document had disappeared, so it looked like she had left her team in a lurch. “The supervisor threw me under the bus for a lot of stuff,” she adds.
Ultimately, Smith was let go from the job, despite having the highest review in her department the year before. She decided to remain home with her children while working freelance jobs and projects, something she says helped spark her entrepreneurial journey.
Eventually, she landed a job with a local tour company. When the owners of that firm left the country abruptly, Smith stepped in to assist the clients left behind and eventually formed her own tour business.
However, she carries with her the experience of that earlier job and has vowed to do better by her employees. “I want to build a company that’s positive,” she says.
Fired for Insubordination After Making Formal Complaint
Not every job termination is legal, according to Eric Kingsley, partner at Kingsley Szamet Employment Lawyers in Encino, California. “As an employment attorney, I’ve spent years helping workers across California who have faced sudden and often unjust terminations,” he said in an email.
One case involved a warehouse supervisor with nearly a decade of experience. The supervisor was concerned about malfunctioning equipment and a lack of training for temporary workers. Ultimately, he made a formal complaint on the matter.
“Within two weeks of making a formal complaint, he was written up for minor infractions that had never previously been an issue,” Kingsley says. Shortly thereafter, he was fired for insubordination. “During legal action, we uncovered internal communications showing the complaints were a factor in his termination.”
The case was settled favorably for the worker, who used part of his settlement funds to complete a certification program and go on to work in logistics management. “He’s since told me that standing up for himself was one of the best decisions he ever made,” Kingsley says.
‘Eliminated’ Job Reposted Online
Another case handled by Kingsley involved a woman who was let go from her job shortly after returning from maternity leave. While she was told her job was eliminated because of restructuring, a position with a different title but nearly identical duties was posted online two weeks later.
“She was devastated and felt betrayed after years of loyalty and strong performance,” according to Kingsley.
A pregnancy discrimination and retaliation claim was filed, and that was eventually settled with a financial award and confidentiality agreement. The woman, who had begun freelancing while the claim was being considered, eventually went on to open her own business.
“She has become an outspoken advocate for working mothers and often mentors others facing workplace bias,” Kingsley adds.
[Read: Things Your Boss Can’t Legally Do.]
Hundreds of Calls and Dozens of Interviews
Jeff Le is the managing principal of public sector consultancy firm 100 Mile Strategies, but he previously worked at a high-growth tech company that had yet to go public. It was a job that ended up being short-lived.
“About nine months in, I went on a Zoom (call), and my hiring manager was like, ‘Hey, they want to make a change,'” Le says. “I was really surprised. We were meeting our goals and metrics.”
It seemed the company was looking to “right-size” irrespective of worker ability, and Le was given a week to wrap up his work and leave the team.
“That was hard,” he remembers of those last few days. “After that week, the first thing I did was map out 150 people to talk to about life after.”
Within the first month, he’d had 75 conversations, and in each one, he asked the same three things:
— What are you hearing in terms of job openings?
— Can you share any personal experiences and what you wish you had done while looking for a job?
— Can you suggest two to three people to talk to?
“My industry (is) very much a ‘who you know’ industry,” Le says.
He estimates that about two-thirds of those he connected with were able to make additional referrals. Then, throughout the process, Le would loop back to previous contacts every three weeks to stay at the top of their mind.
It took him four months to land his next job, and he conducted hundreds of calls and had more than three dozen interviews in the process.
Le encourages people not to get discouraged if they reach the final rounds of interviews but don’t land the job. “When you get to the final rounds, it’s not about you anymore,” he says. Anyone who reaches the final round is qualified, but there may be behind-the-scenes factors that can influence the final selection.
Being Forced to Resign Leads to a Successful New Career
Dr. Tonie Reincke has been voted the best vein doctor in Fort Bend County, Texas, but she may never have earned that accolade if she hadn’t been forced to resign from an earlier position.
Having previously worked at a hospital as a physician assistant, Reincke returned as a newly minted physician. She was hired alongside a new medical director and team of doctors.
“On paper, it looked like an opportunity for growth and leadership,” she said in an email. “But reality painted a very different picture.”
The new medical director was “brash, swore like a sailor (and) frequently made inappropriate comments,” according to Reincke. He also apparently did not appreciate having to work with a new attending physician.
To address issues with the medical director, administrators mandated weekly sessions with a psychologist and tried team-building activities that felt more like “damage control” to Reincke. Things came to a head during a complex case when Reincke reviewed a CT scan, asked for input from the medical director and then recommended a procedure that ultimately had complications.
Administrators called a meeting with Reincke a week later and said that, between those complications and the ongoing psychologist sessions, they were offering her “the opportunity to resign.”
“It was a crushing moment. I had done my due diligence. I had asked for support. I had acted in the best interest of the patient,” Reincke said. “And ironically, after I left the hospital, I learned from former staff that the procedure I performed had actually improved the patient’s condition.”
The experience left Reincke feeling anxious and angry, but it also spurred a desire to switch gears in her career. Rather than being a generalist, she decided that she wanted to master one procedure. It was through extensive research that she discovered what seemed like the perfect medical niche: leg vein disease.
“It combined technical skill, long-term patient relationships and outcomes I could see and feel proud of,” she said. Reincke worked in the field for about six years before she decided to branch out on her own, and she now has her own practice, Reincke Vein Center.
“Being forced to resign felt like a devastating setback, but looking back, it was one of the most important redirections of my life,” Reincke says. “It taught me to trust myself. To pivot. To rise above what was meant to diminish me.”
Ambushed by Termination on Video Call
As a former Marine, Alfredo Mercedes thought he had found his dream job when he was hired by a startup working in defense technology. The company was well-funded, but it quickly became apparent that trouble was afoot.
“I noticed a lot of hype and positivity, but there was a looming sense that there were a lot of chefs in the kitchen,” Mercedes says.
Then, the company fell off target to meet its goals and began pulling back on workplace perks and changing travel requirements. Mercedes was asked to determine how his role could be automated but assured that there would be “another seat on the bus” for him.
Meanwhile, Mercedes had been considering a move to Colombia and asked about working from outside the country since the company was completely remote. A videoconference with a human resources representative was scheduled to discuss the possibility, but when Mercedes logged in, he found five members of HR, plus an engineer, on the call.
The HR rep asked Mercedes if he was in a safe and quiet place, then proceeded to tell him that he was terminated immediately. The engineer on the call wiped his laptop remotely.
“They never gave me a reason,” Mercedes says, adding that his boss never sent him an email or text either. The next month, the company apparently laid off 65 workers, including the HR worker who fired him.
Mercedes took his small severance and went to Colombia as planned. He describes the following four months as “unemployed hell,” but he was able to connect with a former employer and is now head of talent and platform for recruiting firm VU Talent Partners.
[See: 20 Careers With the Most Job Security Right Now.]
When the Person Who Fires You Cries
Mia Cosco was working for a store that sold fashion lingerie when she was fired. About a week prior, she had set up a meeting with the business owner to discuss concerns about a manager’s behavior.
“(The manager) was talking badly about the owner, generally just pulling the energy down of the business and complaining about a lot of things that the owner did,” Cosco shared in an email. While she thought the conversation might improve the situation with her manager, the result seemed to be Cosco losing her job.
“When I was fired, it was completely unexpected,” according to Cosco. She arrived at work as normal but was fired on the spot when the manager arrived. “She actually had the audacity to cry while she was firing me,” Cosco says.
She was given a severance and decided this was a sign that it was time to go home and focus on a manuscript she had been writing. Ultimately, she was only unemployed for about two weeks and found a job at a clothing store across the street from her former employer’s shop.
Let Go After Refusing to Change Student Grades
Benjamin Fields had a discouraging experience working as a high school math teacher for two years.
“Both years, there was a lot of pressure to pass students who didn’t do the work,” he says.
Administrators wanted to replace test grades with worksheets and discouraged students from trying to pass the ACT, according to Fields, who says he documented everything from his time at the school. “They didn’t want us to do test prep with them,” he adds, alleging that administrators instead told students that they could simply guess “C” on all answers and probably get one-fourth of the questions correct.
Fields pushed back on these practices, and at the end of the school year, he was called in to a meeting and told his contract would not be renewed for the following year. Fields believes they would say the reason he was let go was because he was working under an emergency teacher certification. However, he notes that he had earned the most effective scores in his grade level.
“I couldn’t believe that was what high school was,” Fields says. Rather than look for a new job, he decided instead to focus on his Ph.D. studies, which are ongoing.
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10 True Stories About Getting Fired — and How Real Workers Bounced Back originally appeared on usnews.com
