With the global recession spreading its tentacles and gulping jobs like a monstrous glutton, there is no dearth of people being handed pink slips across the globe. Job losses are piling up and there are more jobs to be cut in the future. In this gloomy scenario, people are frantically looking for ways to cope with the situation. For some the lay offs were expected while for a few others, it is nothing less than a bolt from the blue. They always thought that their jobs were safe and there was no reason to worry. However, lay offs are a reality today and have to be dealt with in a way that leads out of this quandary and not mess up the mind further.

A job loss can be a devastating even in anyone’s life and if you have been one of the unlucky ones, it is quite understandable that you are feeling down in the dumps. But that will not help as you need to have an action plan in place to bail you out of this situation. If you have a helpful plan in place, you would be able to recover quickly. And that is the best thing that you can do instead of just feeling depressed.

Firstly, keep the panic at bay. While worrying is quite normal, make sure it does not hamper your will to recover out of this situation. A job is not everything in life and not the only thing that proves your worth. So, while you may have lost the job for now, you still have all those skills with you that made you successful in your job. Also, you can read up and find more about all those people who were once laid off from their job but went on to attain success in life. Keep in touch with your skills and make sure you don’t let any situation lessen your skills.

If you have been laid off, a steady pay Cheque at the end of the month is no more a possibility, so take a tab of your finances. Reassess your spending habits. Weed out all expenses on the luxurious indulgences. You would do well by listing your monthly expenditure into 2 sub-heads- indispensable and optional. Now that you are eating out of your savings, you need to eliminate all optional expenditure for a while. Control the urge to shop instinctively or eat out often or spending on domestic staff, if any.

However, if you are only expecting a lay off as your company has started firing people in other departments and you could be next in line, you need to plan your finances meticulously. Pile up enough cash for yourself to last you at least three months without having to break into any of your savings for the future. This way you will have enough buffer to survive on while you look for another job. Also, most companies offer a severance package at the time of a lay off, you would do well by judiciously making use of that money.

Next important thing to do is to update your resume on all job sites. Take a stock of all the newly acquired skills in your last job and include all the assignments that you undertook in the resume. Now should be the time when you frantically start looking for a job. Get in touch with all friends and acquaintances in your network who might help you get a job. Make them aware that you are looking for work and with your kind of skill sets, what jobs you might be interested in doing. Send your resume to the HR departments of companies that might still be hiring. In such times, it is a common norm that candidates are hired for lesser than their last salaries. You cannot possibly debate or question it. So, be ready to accept a job even if for a lesser salary. At least that will keep the monthly cash flow lubricated.

Another interesting thing that many people opt for after a lay off is enhancing their qualifications and skill sets. So, you could consider going back to studies. Take up course that you have long wanted to do if your finances allow that kind of a liberty. If your spouse is working and can keep the kitchen fires burning for a while, it might not be a bad idea to reconsider studying and augmenting your qualification. This way, when the job market picks up again, you would be ready to be accepted immediately. But make sure that you study something career-related only and don’t get into hobby classes that will not add to the value of your CV at all.

The most important trick to deal with a lay off is to not get depressed by the negative thinking spiral. Your situation is very vulnerable right now so ensure you do all that is required to keep the spirits up. If good times didn’t last, bad times wouldn’t last either. So, think less about the job loss and more about how to get out of this loss.

Geetika Jain writes on behalf of www.Naukri.com, a leading job portal for jobs in India. www.Naukri.com is a recruitment platform and provides services to the corporate world, placement agencies and job seekers resume development. etc in India like and overseas. It offers a bouquet of products like Resume Database Access, and Response Management tools and its services include Job Postings, and branding solutions on the site. With 2, 00,000 jobs live at any point; Naukri.com serviced over 32500 corporate clients in the past year.