Show Notes
In today’s episode, we’re tackling the wild world of advice — the good, the bad, and the “did you really just tell me to manifest a new job?” variety. Being made redundant seems to unlock a hidden level where everyone becomes a life coach, whether you’ve asked for it or not. So this episode breaks down how to figure out which advice is genuinely helpful… and which belongs in the recycling. We’ll walk through a simple five-question filter you can use whenever someone lobs guidance your way: Is it relevant? Is it knowledgeable? Is it empathy or ego? Is it aligning with your values? Is it creating clarity or pressure? If you can run advice through that little checklist, you’re already miles ahead — or at least less likely to end up making a vision board of things you absolutely do not want. We’ve also got a contribution from Bradley, who’s sharing amazing wisdom nuggets that somehow manage to be insightful, comforting and ice hockey flavoured all at once. Standard Bradley behaviour. And as always, if you’d like to support the show, help it keep going, or unlock the After Party episodes where I talk a bit more freely (sometimes too freely), you can hop over to Patreon . Grab a brew, get comfy, and let’s untangle the difference between good advice, bad advice, and that mysterious advice someone once gave you that you’re still thinking about for all the wrong reasons.
More from Now What? - Life after redundancy
After the best part of a year and somewhere north of a hundred applications, I've been offered a role and this episode is the honest version of what that actually feels like, recorded a while before I've even started, with none of the hindsight smoothed in yet.
There's a particular kind of unlucky where one thing goes wrong and you can just about laugh about it. Then there's Dan Roberts's 2025, where the wrong things queued up to take turns; right up until the week he finally caught a break and then redundancy turned up two days later like it had been waiting for an invite.
Most people navigating redundancy have spent years being good at their jobs. The doing was never really the problem. The bit that catches people out is the presenting — interview panels, networking rooms, video calls with recruiters — where suddenly you have to articulate your value out loud, to strangers, in real time, without your brain quietly filing everything under unavailable.
Most people treat a recruiter like a fire extinguisher — ignore it completely until something's on fire, then hope it works first time. In this episode, I'm joined by Neil Johns, Director at Merje, a specialist recruitment business working with everyone from startups and FinTechs through to national banking groups and global organisations, to find out what the job search actually looks like from the other side of the desk.
The salary conversation is one of the most anxiety-producing moments in any job search — and when you're coming from redundancy, it's even more loaded. Your last salary exists but it may not reflect what the market currently pays. The pressure of needing a role changes what you're willing to say out loud. And the advice available is either negotiation-bro overconfident or so hedged it's useless.