A 31-year-old mortgage broker who's been laid off twice decided to open a bakery and she's never been happier: 'I don't have the stress of wondering if I'm going to be laid off tomorrow'
- Taylor Audet was in mortgage lending for eight years and was laid off twice.
- Layoffs in the mortgage industry have become increasingly common over the last two years.
For former mortgage lender Taylor Audet, the fate of her career being dependent on something she had no control over was enough for her to change tracks.
A resident of McGregor, Iowa — a 723-person town on the Mississippi River bordering Wisconsin — Audet, 31, had been in the lending business for eight years before giving it up.
After going through two layoffs during her career, she chose to open up a bakery instead of regularly being a casualty of the housing market.
"I'm tired of being at other companies' mercy," she told Insider. "I want to be my own boss and control my own destiny."
Mortgage lending's turbulent job market
The mortgage business has had a choppy two years in relation to staffing. Mass hirings and firings — highlighted by mortgage lender Better's layoffs — became typical as the housing market bucked.
Audet joined the mortgage industry in 2014, and relished the one-on-one connections she was able to make while helping out her community.
"I loved it," she said. "I'm in a small town, a small community, so you get to help people with their financial needs and that's pretty special."
Unfortunately for Audet, she was laid off alongside many other lenders during the pandemic.
While away from lending, Audet tapped into a hobby of hers that she always enjoyed: baking. During the pandemic, she baked for friends and family and started to hone her skills — her specialty: strawberry cheesecake cupcakes.
"People were asking me to make them things for events and really supporting small, locally owned businesses during COVID," she said. "I was like, 'You know what, let's go ahead and make this an actual side business.'"
In March 2021, she officially opened her side business, Treats by Taylor — which remained a side business as she took a job as a corporate trainer in 2020.
According to Eli Joseph, author of "The Perfect Rejection Résumé," and faculty member at Columbia University, New York University and UCLA, building up a secondary skill while working is a good way to brace for layoffs.
"You have to be ready in order to get ready," Joseph told Insider. "You have to be prepared, and the best way to be prepared is to diversify your skill sets."
Leaving lending for good
"We heard at the beginning of the year that layoffs might start happening," Audet said. "So I had started to map out this plan of what I wanted it to look like if I opened my own business."
In September, after being laid off, Audet wrote a LinkedIn post that received more than 16,000 reactions: I decided I was tired of being laid off from the finance/mortgage industry & chose to chase my dream.
"I don't have the stress of wondering if I'm going to be laid off tomorrow," she said. "I'll have new worries now, but that's all within my control as the business owner and not in somebody else's control. I'm excited, I feel good, and I'm happy."