How to handle the hurt of being ditched by your banking job

When you work in banking, your relationship with your job is one of the most intimate in your life. When you work long hours, it’s easy to become very emotionally attached to your role and your colleagues. There’s nothing wrong with that: it’s natural to be emotionally invested in your career. You’ve studied for years to get that job, you’ve funded further education and you’ve made sacrifices to develop your career.

And then you’re dumped. It hurts.

The grief can really get you down. It’s hard not to personalize the rejection and take it to heart. When you lose any job you will often feel lost, unworthy and scared and banking jobs can be worse. “What if?” statements will haunt you. – “What if I can’t find another job?” “What if I never earn as much again?”And, of course, “What will my family and friends think.”

It’s a transition that you need to go through and some people are better equipped than others. The ones who deal with it best are often the least emotionally attached. They viewed their job as a job and not as a career. They say it more as a stepping stone towards what they wanted to do and after they were told their role was at risk they interpreted this as a sign that they needed to move forward. It helps to think this way.

Most banks try to be kind. When they end your relationship they will typically offer you career coaching and counselling through an outplacement firm. This can help. However, it can also perpetuate your dysfunctional relationship with a former employer. Banks have cost targets to meet: they may choose your outplacement provider because they’re cheap, not because they’re effective. They’re no longer invested in you. Do you really want your ex-to choose your new partner?

If you don’t, you might want to move on with independent help, or on your own. Your loss is only temporary.  The sooner you can cut the ties with the entity that rejected you, the better.

Kam Bamrah is a career coach at Canary Talk. He is a former in-house recruiter for banks and Big Four firms who is now helping candidates increase their employabilty instead of rejecting them.  

Photo by DESIGNECOLOGIST on Unsplash

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