A copywriter living in San Francisco was ‘stealth’ laid off from a Silicon Valley tech company.They burned out applying to over a hundred jobs in a competitive job market due to AI and layoffs.After moving back in with their parents, the writer grieves for their loss of independence at 33.
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The author wrote anonymously out of concern for their future career. Business Insider has verified their identity and employment with documentation.
I can’t decide if leaving the Bay Area feels more like getting cast out of the Garden of Eden or getting the last chopper out of ‘Nam.
I came to San Francisco six years ago for my first copywriting job. Although copywriting had never been my dream job, it was an open door that led me to new opportunities.
Over the next few years, that door creaked softly closed behind me. I didn’t even notice until it was too late.
Now, back under my parent’s roof and surrounded by all my earthly possessions, I’m still reeling from a “stealth” layoff and the barren job market.
Advice from my father: You don’t have to do what you love — you’ll love what you’re good at
I never wanted to be a copywriter. I was gently nudged toward it.
Seven years ago, I was in a similar situation to the one I’m in now.
I’d dropped out of my pre-vet program, squatting in my brother’s apartment rent-free, binge-watching Scandal, and frantically applying for jobs.
A friend had just started a small apparel business and remembered I was a decent writer. He asked me to write some product descriptions. I made three figures copywriting that year. As in, I made under $1,000 copywriting in an entire fiscal year. But I was good at it. And I was having fun.
After a year and doing odd jobs for my friend’s business, I had enough of a portfolio to get a proper copywriting job at a startup in San Francisco in 2018. Securing the gig involved good interviewing skills and luck.
Advice from my father: Become indispensable
I took to copywriting like a duck to water, quickly becoming respected as a writer, brand steward, and idea generator. People counted on me, and I loved it.
Then, in 2021, the first spate of layoffs hit. Followed by a second. “They’d be screwed if they got rid of you,” one of my colleagues remarked when I expressed my rising anxiety about the worsening economic climate in San Francisco.
In March 2022, I learned that I was not indispensable — no one is.
Fortunately, the job market was more forgiving then than it is now. Within six weeks of being laid off, I received three great offers. I accepted an offer at a tech company in Silicon Valley and hit the ground running in May 2022. I enjoyed my new role, and I was good at it.
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Advice from my father: There’s always room at the top
After a year at the tech company, I was promoted only to be hit with a “stealth layoff,” in my opinion, a more nefarious kind of layoff.
As the project I worked on started winding down, I was unsure of my future and discreetly accepted another job offer at a small startup.
When my current head of brand heard I was leaving, they came running through the proverbial airport to stop me — promotion and raise in hand.
My first mistake was accepting that counteroffer. My manager made promises I didn’t get in writing, which they reneged on a few months later.
For example, in August 2023, senior leadership issued a return-to-office mandate. When I was promoted, it was implied that I would continue to work remotely. The nearest office was two hours away. Unfortunately, no exceptions were granted, and whispers of “forced attrition” arose.
Severance packages were quietly offered to specific teams — creative was one of them. It was a good package. Taking the severance made more sense than trying to comply with the return-to-office, burning out, and leaving with nothing.
Everyone was sad to see me go, but no one tried to keep me from leaving.
I stayed on for a few more weeks, then departed in November 2023 with promises of great colleague references.
Advice from my father: One in hand is worth two in the bush
My job search didn’t start as fruitless. Before I even walked out the door at the tech company, I got an offer at another startup for a copywriting and content management role.
When I received the written offer, it was clear that they had misrepresented the salary range in the job posting. It didn’t feel right to accept a 30% pay cut to do double the work. I tried to negotiate the salary, and they rescinded the offer, albeit kindly.
That was my second mistake. I had no idea that would be the best — and only — offer I would ever see.
Advice from my father: It’s all a numbers game
Even as layoffs rolled across the industry, I was initially selective with applications.
I fired off voice-y cover letters and personalized notes to hiring managers. Securing interviews was easy. Recruiters called every week for about eight months. But it became apparent that even if I progressed to the interview process, I was a popular ninth or 10th choice.
In an employer’s market, it’s not about whether a candidate could do the job; employers want someone who’s already done the job many times exactly as they’d like it done.
I was burning out. Getting further along in interviews is a double-edged sword. Being on the shortlist is a win, but you invest time and energy, and rejections sting more.
I sunk 10 hours into a copy test for a part-time contract role that went to someone else. Then, I spent an entire weekend researching and writing a copy test, only to get a phone call to say they weren’t moving forward with me. The copy test hadn’t been opened.
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Each application was time wasted I didn’t have. My severance dwindled, and emails from no-reply addresses spanned multiple pages in my “Rejection Emails To Laugh About Later” Gmail folder.
I started to panic as six months of unemployment came and passed.
Finding freelance work was not as easy as I’d thought. Recently laid-off freelancers flooded the market. I was dipping into my meager savings to pay rent, and any ad hoc freelance work barely covered groceries. My lease was up in July, and it felt irresponsible to renew my contract without a salary.
I Easy-Applied to any job I was remotely qualified for. Jobs that had been up for two hours had 500 applicants. The rejection, which was uncomfortable at first, was now unbearable. It was death by a thousand — and probably a literal thousand — cuts.
The final straw was when I made it to the offer round of an interview process, right under the buzzer to renew my lease. Then, I got a heartfelt call explaining that although everyone loved me, someone else got there first.
Applications may have been a numbers game at one point, but that’s a rule from an old rulebook. There are no rules anymore. The goalposts are being tossed around, and we are tossed around with them.
Advice from my father: People genuinely want to help
The Bay Area marketing professionals community is an incredibly supportive group and friends and colleagues referred me to many positions.
Getting turned down with an enthusiastic referral is an extra gut punch. Everyone who believes in you is another person you let down. When I left my job in November, my friend and career coach said I’d be employed by January. It’s almost July.
What could I say to him now? What could he possibly say to me?
People genuinely want to help, but you can’t network your way into a job for which there is simply not enough demand.
Advice from my father: It’s OK to let yourself feel bad for a while
The hourglass ran out, and I moved home this summer.
I’m grateful I have somewhere I can live without paying rent and that I get along with my parents. As my new reality settles in, alongside feelings of failure, there’s also grief.
Grief for the loss of independence, of purpose. Grief for the life I’ve built in San Francisco. Grief that my career was a house of cards. Grief for having to start over at 33, which isn’t old but isn’t young, either.
There’s a sense of relief, too. I can take the financial pressure off while I lick my wounds. I’m enjoying investing in myself versus another corporate job.
It would be easy to scapegoat AI. I underestimated how inimical it would be to our jobs. But we’re facing an “enemy” we don’t know or understand. Copywriters probably won’t exist in five years. I’m learning new skills and, hopefully, future-proofing myself against further automatization.
Before coming to San Francisco, I had already failed out of one career, and it almost killed me. In 2017, I found myself in a hospital chatting about Star Wars with a security guard as he confiscated all my sharp objects.
Back then, I realized I wasn’t crazy; I was just adrift. I recognize that feeling now. Although I’m resolved against the same ending, I have to process it first.
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