9 Simple Survival Tips for When You Get Laid Off

When anyone hears the word “laid off” it becomes very difficult to accept it in the first place. The first questions come in our mind is “why me?”. I will share the story of my friend who experienced laid off. He followed some survival tips in the laid off which helped him a lot till he got a new assignment.

In this situation, it can be difficult to stay focused, motivated, positive, and happy (obviously not).

But this is not the end of life, you have to move on.

You need to re-energize yourself and focus on your next chapter with positivity and self-motivation.

I know many people can relate to this experience. There are lakhs of people out there who are being laid off every year in the world but laid off is not permanent. This is just a temporary situation in life.

There are various impersonal reasons for laid off which are related to business or economic decisions. The reasons such as Cutting Costs, Staff Reduction, Relocation, Mergers, or Buyouts.

If you’re laid off, then you need to check out these 10 simple survival tips to get you out of the situation and back to work. Or if one of you friend or colleague is laid off then don’t forget to share this article to him and help him out.

1. Self-audit your finance and get in order – a survival tip in the laid off

This topic is very important hence I am sharing in the starting. At this time a lot of people start panicking on their financial situation.

Firstly, you have to stop panicking and cool yourself down which will help you to plan your finance.

Now sit down and start auditing your financial situation. Start listing your monthly fixed expenses like rent, EMI’s, utility bills and grocery expenses. Then check your savings and if any other income expected to come.

Now see your statement, how it looks like?  

“The goal marker is to have three to six months’ worth of fixed expenses saved in your emergency fund,” said Game.

If you have sufficient emergency funds to manage your fixed expenses, this is a good opportunity to check all expenses and go in detail.

Ask yourself question “Is there anything I can cut from the expenses?” It is the right time to analyze your expenses like internet plan or any other subscriptions and check if you are not overpaying in any area of expenses. When you are laid off or unemployed, every penny counts.

So check and audit your all finance and make a good emergency fund for atleast 3-6 months which will give you confidence in dealing laid off situations.

In this time you need to avoid any major purchases or go for expensive vacations, and stop borrowing unnecessarily.

Just adopt a simple lifestyle. This is the one of the best survival tips in the laid off.

2. Get Properly Dressed

It may look weird to tell you to get dressed while sitting at home but it is important.

I will tell you why.

You must have observed yourself that when you are in casual dress your attitude and way of life become complete casual. In casual dress, you are not much bothered about anything but at the same time if you dressed properly then you are very conscious.

Hence it is very important that you always properly dressed which will keep you confident and energetic to look for a new assignment.

You should also keep your wardrobe ready with all your formal dresses or in other words ready for the interview.

You never know when you might get a call or email from a company or a person to attend an interview.

Hence it is very important to always keep yourself ready and properly dressed.

3. Leave The House Every Day

You must leave your house everyday for a while like a morning walk, evening walk in the garden, call your friend and plan a meet over lunch or dinner.

Leaving house means interacting with people this not only increases your chance of getting a good job opportunity but gives you positivity and a boost of motivation.

It will also give you a social acknowledgment which you were not able to do while you were in the job. This is very important to get socialize and get people’s acknowledgment.

You must avoid sitting at home all day in front of a computer and looking for jobs on various job search portal. This will make you more nervous and demotivate you.

So leave your house and get socialize, meet friends and ex-colleagues.

4. Read Industry/Career-Related Material

Now you have time to feed your mind.

Feed your mind with your industry or function related updates, news and what are in-demand skills such as Artificial Intelligence or Data Science. You must keep yourself updated with your industry or functions knowledge.

Nowadays there are a lot of magazines or blogs or podcasts available on the internet which you can subscribe and are mostly available free of cost.

This valuable information about your industry or function will give you tips for the job search and also increase your functional knowledge.

All this information will help you to stay connected with your industry and with a job interview.

5. Revisit Your Resume and Update LinkedIn Profile

Your resume and LinkedIn profile represent you hence it is a very important factor when you are laid off and looking for the job opportunity. Your updated and perfect resume is likely to influence recruiters and increase your chances of getting hired more than anything else.

You need to immediately review your resume and update it. You can also redesign your resume if you have not updated this for a long time. Research says that recruiters spend an average of 3.14 minutes reading a resume and within the first minute they make up their mind about the prospect of the candidate.

There is saying “The first impression is the last impression” hence you have to design your resume as per the latest trends as the recruiter will see your resume first then you.

On an average 1 in 5 recruiters do not read a complete resume and chances are that they will reject a candidate before finish reading.  

You have to add your skills, achievements, latest educations and functional expertise to impress recruiters. You need to keep it simple and avoid any grammatical mistakes. Everyone hates grammatically mistakes.

Apart from the resume, you need to revisit your LinkedIn profile and update it.

Nowadays, LinkedIn profiles have become a substitute for resumes hence you have to make it perfect as your LinkedIn profile represents you.

Many recruiters ask for a link to LinkedIn profile and review before calling for an interview.

Lastly, you have to keep updating your resume and LinkedIn profile whether you are laid off or working.

6. Vary Your job hunting Approach

After laid off what many people do is to sit in front of the computer the whole day and hunt for a job on various job search platforms.

This approach is a boring and ineffective way to look for the job. You may get no response or rejection through this approach because what you can do is just apply and can’t talk to the person where you have applied.

The best and most effective way to start job hunting is to use your networking.

Below, I am providing you some tips for effective job hunting after laid off.

1. Register on all job search platforms.
2. Use proper key skills while creating your profile on job search platforms.
3. Check your last 3-4 month emails and look for job related emails received from job consultants and approach them.
4. Talk directly to job consultants and submit your resume.
5. Look into your mobile contact number list and talk to people who can help you in a job search. Talk to them.
6. Use LinkedIn or related professional networking sites and try to approach and connect with HR professionals, recruiters or senior peoples of your industry and try to contact them.

This will not only keep you motivated and positive but also increase your networking among your industry specialist.

This way you have to broaden your job hunting approach and I am sure you will get many job leads and land in a good job opportunity.

7. Rehearse Interview

The right way to prepare for the upcoming job interview is to rehearse it. You can take the help of the professionals where they will help you in interview skills. There is another option of rehearsing is taking the help of internet-based platforms.

These may be paid options but you can also look for tips on YouTube or by reading online interview tips articles.

Below are the few tips for the rehearsal of the interview :

1. Take the help of your family member or friend and Do-It-Yourself interview practice.

1. Understand the sequence of the interview process. If an interviewer asks “Tell about yourself” then you must know the sequence of answering the question.
2. Make a list of probable questions and start answering them. Create as many questions as possible and answer them a loud out. It will boost your confidence.
3. If possible, try to record your mock interview through a webcam, video camera, or smartphone and play the recording. Now you need to assess your body language, your posture and eye contact etc. If you do not have any recording gadgets then you can practice in front of the mirror.

Rehearsing will help you to reduce stress during your actual interview. You will be able to focus more on improvement rather than struggling with body language, answers and postures.

8. Follow A Schedule

When you are making all efforts to get a good job opportunity, now make a proper schedule of all tasks.

The tasks may include, follow-up for the interview, calling someone to check interview status, forwarding the resume to a recruiter or tracking job application status on job search platforms.

You need to note down (Paper & electronic mode) all tasks in a professional manner so that you do not miss any chance of job opportunity.

9. Join as a Volunteer

You may be surprised after reading these tips that how a laid off person can go out and spend time on volunteer activities. 

I can understand your concern but you must acknowledge that you have to keep a balance in laid off time between job searches and keeping yourself motivated and confidant. 

You are not spending your whole day searching for a job so I would suggest spending some time with an NGO as a volunteer. This is not only benefiting the NGO who is receiving your assistance but also it will be helpful for you. 

You will feel batter after giving your time and effort for the good cause through NGO. It will boost your energy and give a sense of satisfaction that you have contributed something in society. 

It will be also helpful to increase your networking and connection with people of the society as well.