A Google recruiter says he discovered he'd lost his job after a call with one of his candidates suddenly disconnected

• A Google recruiter said he learned he'd lost his job after a call with one of his candidates disconnected.
• Dan Lanigan-Ryan said he was gradually locked out of company systems "and then that was it."

A Google recruiter said he discovered he'd lost his job after a call with one of his candidates suddenly disconnected.

Dan Lanigan-Ryan told Insider he tried to access an internal company website during the call Friday but couldn't. Other members of his team reported similar problems and his manager put it down to tech issues, he said.

Lanigan-Ryan said his email was blocked a little later on, then the call with his candidate dropped.

"And then that was it," he said. "I was blocked out of everything. And then I saw on the news about 15, 20 minutes later that Google was announcing 12,000 layoffs."

Lanigan-Ryan had been working on contract for headhunter Morgan McKinley at Google's office in Dublin, Ireland, since November 2021. He said that although he was paid by Morgan McKinley, "for all intents and purposes, I was a Google team member."

Google publicly announced mass layoffs on Friday at about 2:30 a.m. PST, or 10:30 a.m. local time in Dublin — which was after staff there had started work for the day.

Lanigan-Ryan said he hadn't received any communication from Google about his termination, simply emails from Morgan McKinley — viewed by Insider — saying affected staff would be given notice pay until February 3, when their employment would end, and that they needed to return their equipment to Google.

A Google spokesperson referred Insider to a company blog post announcing the layoffs, published Friday, in which Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said US employees had been emailed about the cuts but "in other countries, this process will take longer due to local laws and practices."

Other laid-off staff have expressed surprise at a lack of communication from Google about the layoffs. The company told US staff via email that they were being let go.

Anna Ratner, who'd worked at Google for seven years and had most recently been on its trust and safety team, told Insider she got an "access denied" message when she tried to log into her work systems on Friday morning. She then saw a pop-up on her laptop with information about severance and "immediately lost access to everything," she said.

"It was just that email, 'we don't have a job for you,' and that's it," Ratner said. She noted that while it was "very impersonal" she wasn't sure how else Google could have told thousands of employees simultaneously they were being laid off.

'I thought I was safe'

Lanigan-Ryan said that though he had noticed some cutbacks, including spending on social events, he hadn't expected layoffs. He said Google introduced a hiring pause in the summer but it only lasted a couple of months.

Lanigan-Ryan said his contract had been set to end in September 2022 but Google had extended it for another year. "So I thought I was safe, really," he said.

He said he'd heard from other staff that Google might not renew people's contracts but would never end them early. In late 2022, Google switched him and some other Dublin employees from recruiting marketing staff to recruiting Google Cloud staff, an area which was seeing high growth, he said.

Lanigan-Ryan said he felt "blindsided" by his termination but despite his employment ending on a bitter note, "I really did enjoy my time there."

Ratner echoed his sentiments. "I don't have any negative feelings towards Google," she said, though she added that "it stings, for sure."

Were you recently laid off by Google or another tech company? Contact this reporter at gdean@insider.com.