Layoffs and terminations are rarely surprises — in retrospect, the signals were almost always there. The problem is most people don't know what to look for, or they rationalize away what they're seeing.
For layoffs, the warning signs tend to be organizational and financial. Budget freezes. Cancelled projects. A sudden slowdown in hiring or, worse, a hiring freeze company-wide. Senior leaders being unusually cagey in all-hands meetings. Your department getting notably fewer resources than it did six months ago. Mergers and reorgs that consolidate functions and create duplicate roles. Any one of these can have benign explanations. Several of them together is a pattern worth taking seriously.
For performance-related terminations, the signals are more personal. Your manager has become distant or stops scheduling your regular one-on-ones. You're being excluded from meetings you used to be in. Projects that would have come to you are now going to someone else. Feedback has gotten unusually formal and documented. You've been put on a Performance Improvement Plan, or you're hearing informal comments that feel like the groundwork for one.
The most important thing to do when you see these signs is to start looking before you have to. Job searching from an employed position is dramatically easier than searching while unemployed. You have leverage in negotiations, you don't have gaps to explain, and you're not job searching from a place of urgency or desperation. Most people wait until they're out to start — and the gap on the resume starts counting from the day they stop working.
Give yourself the gift of a head start. It doesn't mean the worst is definitely coming. It means that if it does, you're ready.
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