Redundancy. Layoffs. The brutal uncertainty of job hunting. Now What? is the honest, practical podcast for anyone navigating life after redundancy in the UK — covering confidence, job search strategy, interview prep, rejection, flexible working, career change and the emotional reality of trying to hold everything together while your inbox does nothing. Hosted by someone living it in real time, not dispensing advice from a mountain. New episodes weekly.
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.
The specific flinch of not trusting good news, what it costs to lose a routine you didn't choose but got attached to, and what genuinely felt different about this last stretch of interviews compared to the ones before it — including the one piece of real feedback that changed how I answered questions from that point on.
This also closes out season one. Season two returns in a couple of weeks on a fortnightly cadence, with a shift in focus towards the voices of people still navigating this in real time, and specialists who can bring perspectives I don't have on my own and topics that I know have supported me as I navigated my own journey.
Thank you for forty episodes of company — genuinely.
To connect with others on this journey, visit https://theinvisiblequeue.co.uk/ (https://theinvisiblequeue.co.uk/)
To connect with the show visit https://thenowwhat.co.uk/ (https://thenowwhat.co.uk/)
7 Jul 2026
Coping With Redundancy When Everything Else Falls Apart Too — with Dan Roberts
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.
This episode is about what happens when the job search isn't the only thing falling apart. Dan talks through the actual mechanics of getting through a year like that, including how he decided which job applications were worth caring about and which weren't, why the people around him mattered more than any spreadsheet ever could and what he'd say to someone reading this on day one of their own equivalent mess.
Part practical, part perspective, part pep-talk without the cringe.
Dan's also shared this story in more detail over on the Invisible Queue - www.theinvisiblequeue.co.uk (http://www.theinvisiblequeue.co.uk) - if you want to sit with it a bit longer or talk it through with people in the same boat.
And if you want to get in touch with the show directly, that's www.thenowwhat.co.uk (http://www.thenowwhat.co.uk)
30 Jun 2026
How to Present Yourself After Redundancy - Speaking Without Freaking with Dave James
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.
That gap between knowing your stuff and being able to say it, under pressure, while someone looks at you. That's what this episode is about.
Dave James is a twice TEDx speaker and speaker coach who spent years in healthcare before moving into coaching. What he took from nursing, A&E and podiatry was a single transferable skill: building rapport fast with people who are frightened and don't know what's coming next. His framework is called Speaking Without Freaking, and his approach has little in common with the presentation training you sat through once and immediately forgot.
We talk about why confidence is the wrong thing to go looking for, why memorising interview answers reliably backfires, and why your redundancy story (the bit you're most tempted to skip past) is often the most powerful thing you've got.
There's also a Bon Jovi misheard lyric, which I stand by to this day!
Connect with Dave:
www.davethecoach.co.uk (http://www.davethecoach.co.uk)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamdavejames/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamdavejames/)
Book a conversation: https://cuppawithdave.youcanbook.me/ (https://cuppawithdave.youcanbook.me/)
Find the show: https://www.thenowwhat.co.uk (https://www.thenowwhat.co.uk)
The Invisible Queue community: https://www.theinvisiblequeue.co.uk (https://www.theinvisiblequeue.co.uk)
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