Why Does Hannah Willson Say a Sales Layoff Hits So Hard?

Hannah Willson, later VP of sales at Rainforest QA, says losing a sales job is crushing even when the reason is fit or family rather than a bad quarter. The work is public. At the companies where she sold, rankings sat on a big screen and in Salesforce dashboards, so everyone knew the order. She liked that as a competitive person, and as a woman it felt like a level field: make the top of the list and you have made it. The cost shows up at the bottom. Every salesperson lands there sometimes, she says, and getting your confidence back is genuinely hard.