I Got Laid Off in France (And Found Another Job)
There’s never a good time to get laid off, but as an American in France whose legal residency hinges on having a job, let’s just say it was news I was less-than-enthused to receive. As it turns out, working for a start-up is not synonymous with job security, and I found myself face to face with the French job market a little less than a year after I had conquered it the first time. Would I have the stamina to do it all over again? Would I be able to find another job quickly? Would I like my next job as much as I liked this one? Ultimately, after a two-month job search, I was gainfully employed in a new position in France, and (perhaps paradoxically) excited to share my experience online. Getting laid off can happen to anyone, and as part of our constant effort to give you a transparent look into our life abroad, I’m pleased to give you a peek into how I rebounded from a lay off, landed a new role that I love, and navigated a stressful situation as a foreigner in France.
Back in 2022, I earned a master’s degree in Production, Logistics, and Procurement Management: Sustainable Logistics and Supply Chain Management from the Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne. Upon graduation, I became eligible for France’s recherche d’emploi ou création d’entreprise residence permit (RECE) and pretty much immediately started my post-grad job search. After just 38 days, I was working a job that fulfilled all of the conditions I needed to get an autorisation de travail (work permit) and change residency statuses from RECE to salarié (salaried worker status). I was understandably ecstatic, and saw myself working in that role for at least a couple of years. Then, whispers of financial hardship spread throughout the start-up I was working for, and before I knew it, I learned my position would be eliminated due to lack of funds in a matter of months. After digesting the bad news, I came up with a game plan for negotiating the conditions of my departure from the company and launching my second job search.
According to my contract, my company was only legally required to give me one month’s notice before eliminating my role. However, I realized that if I was able to extend this notice period a bit, and consequently the length of my contract, I would give myself some wiggle room in a number of areas. I could start my job search while still being employed, lower the chances of having a gap in my work history, avoid the somewhat onerous process of claiming unemployment in France, and ensure that my residency status change would be finished before starting a new job. With this in mind, I succeeded in negotiating a three-month notice period, which did indeed allow me to find my current job before finishing out my contract at my previous one.
During my second job search, I implemented the same techniques that landed me my first full-time role in France. I started by updating my French CV, my LinkedIn profile, brushing up on my French interview skills, and scoping out job postings online. I targeted Logistics roles that would make use of my various experiences, including what I learned in my first full-time job, and ended up applying to 47 jobs in total using online platforms including LinkedIn, Welcome to the Jungle, and company-specific online applications. Of these applications, I had eight positive responses, twenty rejections, and nineteen companies didn’t respond at all. In total, I completed ten interviews, three of which were with the company that hired me. After around two months of searching, and before my time was up at my first job, I signed my next work contract that allowed me to apply for a new autorisation de travail and start my latest Logistics role in the packaging sector.
While I would never say I am happy to have been laid off, there are plenty of silver linings that I found in this experience. For one, I now earn a higher salary, and my current role offers significantly more opportunities to grow my professional skillset. Though some people might consider this a disadvantage, I went from working a fully-remote job to a hybrid job, and I much prefer the structure working partly outside of my home provides and the relationship it allows me to have with my coworkers. I’m also glad to have had this experience so that I can serve as an example of a foreigner who found not one, but two jobs in France in a time crunch as a recent grad. As we have said before, difficult does not mean impossible, and with the right abilities and a lot of determination, finding a job in France is achievable – even after a crushing lay off.
Getting laid off is a setback daunting enough to give any foreigner in France a pit in their stomach, and I am thankful that my French fluency, master’s-level education, industry-specific competencies, work experiences, grit, and support from my spouse allowed me to come out the other side. I am especially pleased that my new job is an even better fit for me than my first and that I have learned just how much I am capable of through this experience. If you have questions about looking for jobs and working as Americans in France, leave us a comment!
One Comment
ProfP
Congratulations on the new job! And how good that you were able to find something new before the end of your first position. That must have been super stressful.
– a regular reader