There are many reasons why a company lays off its employee, takeovers, foreign competition, running into losses, new management, operating costs, mergers etc. Companies try to keep this news close to them; it’s not until the day of redundancy that the employee would know.
Lay off news comes to a person as a bolt from blue, this will leave you in couple of days of shock and dismay, state of why me? What if? Thoughts tend to persist. It is important that you accept your feelings, take initial two to three days just to focus on yourself, if required seek professional counselling.
Start a budget now. Trying to understand where you are financially is a good start, estimate how many days you can survive with what you have. Try to live your life in a minimalist fashion, identify the need based expenses, this will give you an estimation of weeks that you have before things can really turn bad. Contact your local government or private support group to see what help you can obtain from them.
Try to live healthy .The number of stressful events one has to suffer increases their chance of undergoing stress and depression in life. Identify ways you can beat the stress, it could be yoga, meditation, sports. There is a natural tendency that the depressive mood takes over, be jovial make fun, crack jokes.
Getting laid off has nothing to do with you, don’t take it personally. Your skills are as good as they were before you got laid off. It will help, to travel down the memory lane; sometimes we tend to forget the skills we have learnt in our career path. Identify your primary areas of expertise and what other secondary skills you have.
Look for a job in booming industry. For example if you are a designer of automotive parts and your industry is manufacturing, if the overall market of manufacturing is either getting outsourced or in recession, try to use your secondary skill to find a job in stronger industry sector. You might find it much quicker and secure doing it this way than finding a job in an industry that’s going down.
Finally, project confidence and be creative in your job seeking techniques, don’t just rely on traditional channels, have your own edge. Be willing to work for free till you find a job, this will keep your skills up-to-date, giving you the opportunity to network and learn new stuff.
If there is one thing that can help you at this time is your positive spirit and your belief that you will get a job.
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