I was laid off 3 years ago after 40 years at the same company. I was just 61 and wanted to work a few more. I was given 3 months of severance. I'm a software engineer and had been for 35 years of the 40. My previous company was bought by a company with the CIO in India, and he wanted all IT to be in India. I had previously had 5 people in India that had reported to me.

I had a cruise booked (small singles group) that started a couple of days after I was laid off. I took my paperwork with me and read it on one of the sea days.

I realized that my last resume was probably on a floppy disk somewhere. So I created a new one and sent it out to 165 companies, just specializing on the kind of skills I had used in the last 10 years, although most of the others were still on the resume. I only put 25 years of experience on the resume, because of potential age discrimination. I color my hair (as do all of the single women I date) so I do pass for younger.

Once I had the resumes sent out, I started taking interviews. It took me time to realize how far I wanted to commute. I was full time WFH in my previous job, and now I'm told by a head hunter, that that's offered a lot more than it was 3 years ago. I did about 30 interviews and mostly just wanted to match pay and get as good of vacation and other benefits that I could.

I spent about half of the 3 months on vacation. I did a previously-planned 2 weeks in Europe including a week in Switzerland with a buddy. My first interview with my current company was taken from a picnic table at the bottom of a Swiss ski resort. I also did 10 days in Orlando and while I was sending our resumes, I found rooms at the Rio in Vegas were cheap and did some resumes while hanging at the pool.

Long story short, once I got my head around the change, I found it rewarding and I like my current company better, although I'm planning on retiring in the next couple of years (at the most).