See the first blog entry of this series here.

Okay, so to continue the story!

First I want to say I have received many messages from many of you and I want to say thank you! I didn't realize this was going to get such a great response. So let me tell you about what happened the first 2 days.

So the day of the news, obviously letting the Mrs. know was a treat. Tears, frustration, and overall sadness effected both of us. It amazes me how much you can give an organization only to see it come to a close so quickly, especially this time of year where happiness should abound. Not that there was anything anybody could control, what with the economy and all, but it is still very disheartening to put in such work and effort to create such a sound system with the right people in place, only to just let that all go. In fact, when they pulled me into the office to let me go I was in the middle of writing up two offer letters since I had a new orientation class start on Monday, so I pretty much just left it as is! I even started getting calls from some of them wondering why they hadn't received the email from me yet with the offer enclosed the next day. What do you tell someone in that situation?

That night my wife had to work so she went to work while I stayed home with our 3 little girls. I wasn't too worried about the younger ones, but my 5-year old kept asking me tons of questions. Trying to explain to a 5-year old that you are not working right now is not the easiest of things to do. Especially since she brought me a card that morning to hang up in my office. She kept asking me why I brought it home when it was for work. Talk about gut wrenching! Trying to explain led to more questions that even I don't have answers to right now, so I just asked her if she wanted to watch a movie and eat popcorn. That turned out to be a great idea, and averted any further discussion on the matter.

My birthday and anniversary is this month too and this year we were planning on going to Yellowstone on a guided tour around the park the day after Christmas on snow mobiles (Since I had a nice commission check coming to me in two weeks...so much for that!). My in-laws actually had the idea and were taking care of most of it...I have great in-laws! To say the least, everything has been canceled for now pending a new opportunity.

I didn't sleep at all that night. Thinking about all the what ifs, maybe I was let go because they didn't like what I was doing, or maybe hiring 17 people per month on average did not meet their expectations, or lowering turnover incredibly was not right either. There is more emotion involved in this than I thought! Not to mention the fact that I've had to email family and let them know that I may not be able to participate as much I as I wanted to. The financial implications are not the greatest considering the mortgage payment, car payments, etc. But alas, I have to remember our industry is greatly effected by the economy right now (financial services) and the sales volumes have not justified keeping me (or the 30 other people and departments that no longer exist now).

So the next morning I got up and did what any corporate recruiter would do, right? I got on the phone and on the internet and started networking! Suffice it to say, I hear that most corporate recruiters or HR folk would not do this, but hey, I'm a little unique. That's what happens when you get trained by a headhunter who worked on Wall street for 8 years!

After getting out about 100 emails to my LinkedIn network, I then proceeded to write emails attached with my resume to the stacks of business cards of HR folks I had met at various events throughout my recruiting career (the past 4 years). I am one of the types of corporate recruiters that if I don't make the rounds at the fairs I go to and get at least 10-20 business cards along with the resumes collected, I feel as if I didn't have any success. That made another 70 emails or so, and then I started emailing others that I know in random industries in the area just to see how things were going and to share my plight.

Of course, there are others in that network in the same boat, but I have to say, within hours, I had 27 emails and 13 phone calls already. Most didn't have anything open, but I was grateful for the contacts at least. You never know and I am a firm believer in staying in touch regardless of what they have or not!

So that was day one and day two. Stay tuned for days 3 and 4 tomorrow as the weekend approaches!