What if getting laid off gave you the opportunity to completely rethink how you want to work?

Beste knew her layoff was coming.

After watching reorganizations and layoffs unfold around her for more than a year, she received five months' notice that her own role was being eliminated. She would spend those final months helping train the vendors replacing her team.

But Beste was already asking herself a bigger question:

Do I actually want another corporate job?

In this episode of Pink Slip Pavilion, host Ashley Waddington sits down with Beste Ozer Tezcan to talk about navigating an expected layoff, career uncertainty, entrepreneurship, and what happens when job loss gives you permission to question the career path you've always known.

Beste had been unhappy in corporate for years but didn't know what else was possible. Entrepreneurship felt like something she'd maybe pursue in 20 or 30 years.

Then she got laid off.

Instead of immediately jumping into another job, Beste used the time to explore her options. She interviewed. She worked with a coach. She experimented with contract work. And she started questioning whether moving to another company would simply recreate the same problems she'd been trying to escape.

Then came the ultimate test.

On Beste's final day, she received an offer to join the team she'd been trying to get into for six years.

Everyone told her to take it.

She said no.

Beste left corporate and started her own business.

In this episode, we cover:

• Knowing a layoff is coming months in advance

• Training the people replacing your team

• Why Beste waited for the layoff instead of quitting

• Receiving a contract offer the same day she got her layoff notice

• Navigating job interviews while questioning corporate life

• Why changing companies doesn't always solve the underlying problem

• Creating more control over how and where you work

• Exploring entrepreneurship when you don't see yourself as an entrepreneur

• Turning down a corporate opportunity she'd pursued for six years

• Building skills and relationships before you need them

• Why networking matters even when you're not job searching

• Preparing yourself for uncertainty in an AI-driven job market

• Looking beyond your job title to understand your transferable skills

• Creating multiple career options instead of relying on one path

• Why courage and adaptability may be two of today's most important career skills

Beste compares her relationship with corporate life to staying in a toxic relationship because it's familiar:

"I don't have the power to end it. Can you please end it for me?"

Her layoff finally gave her the deadline and space to ask what she actually wanted.

Her advice for anyone facing job loss?

Don't immediately jump into action.

Give yourself space to process. Explore possibilities. Ask what else could be possible before automatically pursuing the same title, industry, or career path again.

The goal isn't necessarily to become an entrepreneur.

It's to make your next move an intentional choice instead of an automatic one.

CONNECT WITH BESTE:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/besteozer/

Pink Slip Pavilion is a podcast about layoff recovery, job loss, career transitions, career reinvention, entrepreneurship, and turning career disruption into growth.

New episodes release every Wednesday.