This Marketer shared His layoff on LinkedIn (and it changed his career)
A story about honesty, leadership, and the courage to be seen.
Presented by Navattic:
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My latest podcast guest posted something on LinkedIn that most people wouldn’t have the courage to do.
He’d avoided writing about it for weeks - but finally decided it was time to be vulnerable.
Earlier this year, just four days after returning from his company’s international retreat, Ryan McCready was laid off.
He was totally caught off guard.
And if you’ve ever been laid off, you know how he was probably feeling: a little embarrassed, a little frustrated, a little uncertain about what happens next.
So at first, he understandably wanted to keep the news quiet.
Ryan had great experience and a strong track record. He hit the ground running. And he didn’t have much trouble getting interviews.
But the job-hunting process was brutal.
(anyone who searched for a job in 2025 is probably nodding their heads right now.)
4-5 rounds of calls.
Big take-home projects
Polished presentations to a panel
And then… silence. Getting ghosted at the finish line.
As a coach, I saw the same thing happen to some of my clients too. Senior, overqualified people struggling in a market that didn’t make sense.
After months of this, Ryan was drained.
He’d been grinding through interviews and trying to stay positive. But inside, he was struggling. Wondering what was happening.
And quietly asking himself if it was just him.
He did something that went against every professional instinct he had.
He decided to be honest about it - in public.
Ryan wrote a Linkedin post about how he was struggling.
About how it impacts your confidence when you do everything right and still come up empty-handed. About how weird and broken the hiring process felt this year.
And he didn’t just write it for himself.
He wrote it for everyone else who was struggling too - the people quietly refreshing job boards and inboxes, waiting for replies that never came.
He hadn’t shared something this personal before. It felt risky.
He’d spent weeks trying to keep his layoff under the radar, and now, with one post, everyone would know.
But he decided it was worth it.
Because the alternative (staying silent and pretending everything was fine) didn’t sit right with him. If he was struggling, others were too. And he didn’t want any of them to suffer in silence.
What happened next shocked him…
The post went mega-viral.
People started sharing it with each other, and with hiring managers, to show how broken the process had become.
Within days, Ryan had over 1,000 DMs!
Messages of encouragement. Job leads. Genuine support from people who had never met him.
Within weeks, he had 20+ interviews on the calendar.
What this story really shows us
Ryan’s story is a reminder that vulnerability isn’t a weakness. When used intentionally, is a huge asset.
It builds trust, connection, and momentum - especially when everything feels uncertain.
If you want to hear his full story - how he reframed the experience, what he learned about using vulnerability as a strength, and how that mindset helped him land his next role, you can catch the full episode here 👇
Watch the full conversation on YouTube:
Or, listen on Spotify
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