A Google Employee, Part of a Mass Layoff in the Recruiting Team, Shares on LinkedIn How Job Loss Taught Her the Value of Identity Beyond Google.
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, made an unexpected announcement a few days ago, delivering pink slips to hundreds of employees within its global recruitment team. This abrupt move served as a reminder that the wave of tech industry layoffs was far from over. Earlier this year, tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and others garnered attention for conducting large-scale layoffs that affected thousands of employees worldwide. While the precise number of individuals impacted by Alphabet’s recent layoffs remains undisclosed, several former Google employees took to LinkedIn to share their personal journeys. Among them, one employee who unexpectedly lost her job expressed a valuable lesson: that her identity transcends her professional role.
In her LinkedIn post, the former Google employee began by recounting her six-year tenure with the company, during which she held five different positions. She reflected, ‘6 years at Google. 5 positions. 4 teams. 2 states. Infinite growth. But you know what else happened during those 6 years? Life. Learning. Love.’ She went on to describe the profound experiences she had over those years, from personal challenges like the loss of her husband to personal growth through new hobbies, global travels, and rediscovering her faith. She also discovered a passion for leadership and team management.
Addressing her reaction upon receiving the layoff notice, she shared, ‘As I saw the email last week that I was impacted by Google layoffs, I am reminded that growth still happens outside of the professional world. Growth right now won’t look like logging into my email, having 1:1s, or creating strategic plans. But, it will force me to grow in other ways – to fully embrace the idea that my identity is not in my job, and my worth isn’t determined by the company I work for. It’s humbling, it’s sad to leave people I spent 6 years with, but I also know that this time of forced self-refinement will be good in the long run.’
Concluding her post on a positive note, she expressed, ‘Google helped me grow so much professionally. Now, I will try to use this time of unemployment to grow just as much personally, to find the good in an unexpected/unwanted situation, and to embrace the short years we have here on this earth. And also spend time job searching.’
Regarding Google’s recent layoffs, it’s worth noting that before the recruiting team layoffs, Google had announced the reduction of 12,000 positions in January of this year. A few months later, Google also downsized its Waze mapping app department as part of the integration of the app into Google Maps products. The decision to implement these layoffs was communicated to employees by Chris Philips, the head of Google’s Geo unit, via email.
