LinkedIn Learning has over 20,000 courses on everything from Excel to project management to AI tools. They take the course, get a certificate, and it shows up on their LinkedIn profile automatically. It's a great way to help your clients learn during periods of downtime or career transition. 

2025 has felt like a year of mass layoffs.

As we head into the new year, some of you are sitting with clients who are absolutely beat up about starting a new year with no job. My inbox has been flooded with messages from coaches asking, "How do I help my clients see past this?"

And I get it.

When your client just got laid off, telling them "this is an opportunity" feels tone-deaf, right?

But what we must communicate to them is that there really is an opportunity coming. We're sitting on the edge of something huge, and the coaches who help their clients see it now are going to be the ones who create the most impact.

We've seen these cycles of corporate restructuring before.

Companies do a clean sweep, reorganize, and then hire people back. But they don't hire everyone back. They hire the people who stayed malleable, who kept their skills sharp and leveled up during the disruption.

I don't know why companies do it this way. It's easier for them to just do a clean swipe and then come back in with a fresh structure. 

And when they do that, they shave off the baggage: people who haven't been performing, who aren't keeping up to date, or who were problematic employees. Those are the ones who don't get rehired.

But here's what most people aren't seeing right now: we're on the precipice of an incredibly contracting workforce. 

An estimated six million people are leaving the workforce over the next five to seven years who won't be replaced by younger generations. Additionally, AI is expected to be a net creator of jobs, rather than a job killer.

So yes, layoffs are happening right now. 

But the bigger picture is that companies will have an increasingly larger need for workers in a period of a decreasing employee pool.

The opportunities are coming. The question is: will your clients be ready for them?

One of my clients once shared a rule of grief that has always stuck with me. 

She said when something happens that she's upset about, when she goes for an opportunity and it doesn't work out, or she's in a situation of forced change, she allows herself 24 hours to be sad and angry. 

And after 24 hours, she just tells herself, "Okay, now what are we going to do to move forward?"

That's a really great piece of advice for everybody.

For some of your clients, it might be 48 hours or 72 hours. Whatever that time is, it can't be six months. It can't be indefinite wallowing in what I call the "uncertainty hole." Because while they're grieving, other people are doing the work to level up and find that next role.

As career coaches, we need to be empathetic to the stages of grief that come with job loss. 

It IS like losing something significant. But part of our job is being that sounding board that helps them process it quickly and move into action mode.

Because once they process the layoff, they can start looking at it differently. They can start asking, "Okay, this is an opportunity. I can't yet see what the opportunity is because it's very disruptive and uncertain, but how am I going to set myself up for success?"

First, help your clients be honest with themselves. 

What were some of the reasons they were laid off? 

Was it purely restructuring, or were they one of the pieces of baggage that needed to be shaved off?

I know that sounds harsh, but self-awareness is everything.

Then do the audit: 

Where are your skills right now? 

Where are the gaps? 

There's so much free or nominal-cost learning right now that can help fill those gaps. This is NOT about going back to school for a four-year degree. It's about figuring out where your strengths and gaps are and then filling the gaps little by little.

And every time your client fills a gap, they build their own confidence back up. 

They're creating that positive self-efficacy as they're looking at where their strengths and gaps are and then filling some of those gaps.

They’re manifesting their destiny. 

Even your clients who HAVE jobs need to hear this because we all have to be malleable and open to change right now. Always. 

We just don't know what's going to happen. 

The job market itself is restructuring and those who succeed will be the ones who continue learning and view forced change as an opportunity for growth.

There are a lot of people out there who need a career coach.

The longer they wait, the more they're just going to dig themselves into this uncertainty hole and waste time when other people are doing what I just mentioned.

Your role as a coach isn't just to help them find the next job. 

It's to be that sounding board when they're going through their emotional fluctuations of this change process. It's so easy to say "embrace the uncertainty and look at it as an opportunity," but it's really hard to do it in practice.

That's exactly why they need you.

Help them see that this forced change is actually forced growth. The job market is about to flip in their favor if they do the work now.

Reflect and move on. 

That's what we have to help our clients do.

Heather

The Coach for Career Coaches

To learn more about me and what I do, visit my website 

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