How to control the narrative about being terminated from your job

‘In my experience, many people struggle with how to tell the story of their dismissal. How do they explain what happened?’ says Morten Esmann, a work life consultant at IDA who has had many conversations with members who have been made redundant.

Morten Esmann's most important piece of advice is that only you know the whole story, and you can make things easier for yourself by offering different versions of the story depending on who you are talking to.

Yourself: Your honest self-narrative

First and foremost, you need to focus on your self-narrative. And that can be an uncomfortable thing to do, because getting fired is uncomfortable. Our work is not just a financial necessity, but also a big part of our identity, which is why getting dismissed is so difficult to deal with.

Morten Esmann emphasises that you should not suppress your feelings because you think they are negative or wrong. For example, it is a very normal reaction to feel bitter. You must allow yourself to feel bitter about not leaving your job voluntarily.

You need to acknowledge this to yourself, perhaps say it out loud and talk about it with your trusted family and friends. You may also blame yourself and think about the things you should have done differently. You should also say this out loud, for instance by sharing it with your trusted friends and family.

And then it can help to call a spade a spade – i.e. a termination instead of a resignation.

Legally speaking, it is called a termination ('opsigelse' in Danish), but Morten Esmann sees a growing tendency to say things more directly and use words such as ‘fired’ and ‘unemployed’ about oneself. So when management uses words like ‘termination’ or ‘cessation of cooperation,’ the person who has been dismissed and their colleagues are more likely talk to each other about a dismissal/being fired.

This language better reflects the difficult feelings and unpleasant experience of being terminated... no, being fired.

Friends and family: The retrospective narrative

‘It will never be easy to talk about being fired, but whether you feel embarrassed or ashamed depends, popularly speaking, on whether it is you or the job that has been terminated,’ says Morten Esmann, adding: ‘It undeniably makes it somewhat easier to both handle a dismissal and tell others about it if it is not due to you personally, but rather the company's finances or strategy.’

Morten Esmann also points out that you must remember that you are the only one who knows the whole story. Those who are listening are not aware of what you experience as shameful. They do not think of it as something shameful at all. Being dismissed – unfortunately, one might say – is completely normal.

A good piece of advice is to keep the retrospective narrative to your private network. It is with them that you can say, for example, ‘the boss was an idiot’ or ‘they screwed me over’ and tell the unfiltered story about the dismissal. Keeping your most brutal honesty and need to vent to your private relationships is necessary for you to maintain a forward-looking focus in your professional ones.

Former colleagues: A constructive bridge between the past and the future

Your former colleagues are a special group, as some of them may both be among your confidants and also part of your professional relationships.

You can be honest in your criticism of the company to a few trusted colleagues. There is nothing wrong with talking amongst yourselves about what happened, as you may have shared experiences. However, Morten Esmann's advice is that it should be kept to a minimum, as it does not benefit anyone:

‘It does not benefit you or others to speak negatively or maliciously about former colleagues and managers. It is not about just putting on a positive face and moving on. But for your own sake, the conversation should shift from looking back to looking forward in a constructive process where you focus on your next job.'

Read about what you can write on social media when you have been dismissed

Professional relationships: Focus on the future

You do not owe everyone the whole story and the background for the dismissal. You are allowed to have different versions of the story, and it can be beneficial to practise them.

When it comes to work and professional relationships, Morten Esmann's advice is to keep your own personal story out of it and formulate the story using ‘we’. For example, you can say, ‘we did not agree on...’ or ‘we were not the right match for working together’.

It is important that you put your emotions aside and instead focus on how your professional network can support and inspire you in your next step in the job market.

There is also a difference between one-on-one conversations and communicating on social media such as LinkedIn. The wider the circle, the more neutral your narrative should be.

LinkedIn is widely used in Denmark to search for jobs, and many users are surprisingly transparent about being terminated to their LinkedIn network - and rightly so. You should abandon any notions that it is embarrassing to write that you are a job seeker on LinkedIn. Use your profile to provide an overview of your education, experience and goals – and make it clear that you are looking for new challenges. It's all about thinking ahead.

Read about how to use LinkedIn to search for jobs

Do you think it is taboo to be unemployed in a time of labour shortage?

Perhaps you have experienced something similar to this: You have recently been fired, and you have boldly told your table companion at a family gathering that you are currently unemployed. Your table companion then asks: ‘How can someone like you be unemployed? I keep hearing that there is a shortage of engineers and STEM-trained employees'.

According to Morten Esmann, this is not an unlikely scenario, because unemployment is historically low for IDA members. However, he also points out that regardless of low unemployment, it will always take time to find not just a job, but the right job.

It's not just about how good your skills are or how good you are at applying for jobs, but both timing and chance are crucial factors. You have to seek out and perhaps also wait for the right job, and that can easily take several months.

Your answer to the family member could therefore be: ‘Yes, I am currently unemployed. I have promised myself to find the right job, and therefore I am not in a hurry to get a job at any cost.’