Lots of sites are starting to dish out ideas about how to handle losing your job. This one in the Washington Post is a good example, suggesting that the best thing to do is to wait until you’ve lost a job and then “Start the climb back by rebuilding your self-image.”

Nice advice, but I think wrong.  Your job is your passport to living the life you want. The resource that enables you to get a job is you, together with all your skills, competencies and experience.   

But the work starts long before you lose a job – and it starts with: 

• taking an inventory of your skills and capabilities
• keeping your resume up to date with recent achievements 
• joining appropriate industry bodies & networks
• identifying knowledge gaps & planning to fill them
• participating in networks & forums both online and offline
• getting to know other people in your industry

If you wait until the moment you lose your job to do all of these things you are at a disadvantage. Even if lucky enough to get a good redundancy payout the negative feelings associated with losing your job still hit with force.  Also you might not have the financial or emotional resources to undertake these activities after a job loss.

Far better to be prudent and be ready – ready to take advantage of new opportunities as well as dealing with a job loss.  As they say “Always plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.”

[* Richard C. Cushing ]