WHEN Cheryl Juliano landed a job at computer giant Intel Philippines in 2007, she thought she had it made. The psychology graduate from De La Salle University had been a high school guidance counselor at De La Salle-Zobel for eight years and had enjoyed it thoroughly. ?It was a very different experience,? she recalls. ?High school students make you feel young and the school setting was very relaxed.?

She was looking to expand her horizons and being appointed Human Resources Business Partner at Intel was an amazing opportunity. The job had Juliano dealing with the HR needs of the different departments at Intel. Aside from the rush that came with working at such a prestigious company, she loved the pay and the benefits.

So it came as a shock for her to learn that the global recession had mortally hurt Intel. Among this multinational?s restructuring plans was the shutdown of the plant in Cavite, where Juliano and almost 2,000 other employees worked.

Juliano heard there was a possibility of a shut-down but had remained hopeful she would keep her job, probably moved to a smaller facility. Until that day in 2009 when she noticed top management people arriving at the Cavite plant. ?You knew something was happening,? she says. ?I knew then that we were shutting down.? Several days later, Intel announced that everyone was going to be let go.

Although Juliano had braced herself for the news, it still came as a massive disappointment when the shut-down was made official. ?I was hoping it would be my last company,? she says. She started sending out applications in April, ?like a soft opening,? she explains. When her Intel stint officially ended in June, she started looking for another job full-time.

The company gave Juliano a generous severance package and transition services for six months, a fortuitous benefit because looking for another job proved difficult. Juliano said she he was looking for another job on the same level as her Intel position, or a similar job in Human Resources.

After losing her job at Intel, Juliano came close to getting a new job at another computer conglomerate. They were planning to create a new position for her, she says, and she had gone as far as going through a medical checkup. ?Then the day after, they called to say they were no longer creating that position.?

The rejection was followed by months of futile job search. ?It was very frustrating,? Juliano says. ?Companies were not hiring and I was getting very few interview schedules. The offers were really low in terms of both pay and benefits.? It didn?t help that most HR postings have become part of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPOs) package. ?But I?m not BPO-oriented, while other companies cannot match what I used to get at Intel.?

In the meantime, Juliano, who is 38 and single, was seething inside. ?I was very angry; I went through the whole grieving process,? she recalls. ?I was angry, sad, regretful. I was (at Intel) for two years, I was learning a lot and then it was suddenly gone.?

She was living with her parents and stayed home a lot. ?My parents were very supportive. I was so irritable. Naawa ako sa kanila, but I couldn?t control what I was feeling.? She even dropped badminton, which she used to play religiously. She refused to go out with friends. She hated having to tell people she was jobless. ?Everytime my friends would ask me about Intel, it was very traumatic for me,? Juliano says.? I didn?t want to talk about it; I didn?t want to start crying.?

In the meantime, she needed some income so she got a part-time job teaching and writing in Alabang, just to keep herself busy. She went through five months of fruitless job-hunting. The search opened her eyes to new possibilities. One day, she noticed a possible job opening in a company she was unfamiliar with, the kind of company she wouldn?t have looked at twice before. This time, she took the plunge.

Less than a month later, Juliano found a new job. She is now HR manager at Franke Food Service System, a Calamba-based company that manufactures kitchen equipment for the fast food industry. ?The position is higher and there?s opportunity for me to grow,? she says.

Since then, Juliano says, things have turned around. ?I gained back my self-confidence. I?m happier now.? She also learned many things about herself, she adds. ?You get to know your own feelings, how you handle things.?

Right now, she?s actively reestablishing connections with friends and spends as much time as she can with her family. After all, she says, the entire experience taught her ?to know who would really be there for you through thick and thin.? Cheryl Juliano is even planning to play badminton again real soon. She misses it and wants to get right back into the game. ?