Pushing Forward After Being Laid Off from an Executive-Level Job

It’s extremely tough to lose a job at any stage in your career, but when you’ve reached the executive level, it almost seems that job security should be promised to you. You’ve worked your way top for a reason, right? Unfortunately, this is not the case. You can just as easily be laid off as an executive as you can at any other level.

So if you’ve been laid off from your position, how can you move forward? There are a number of ways that you can quickly get back on track toward your next executive-level position. Here are a few …

Update and Re-Update Your Resume

Being in between jobs is a great time to update your resume – then update it some more. Hopefully you’ve been updating as you’ve taken on new tasks in your former position. But if you haven’t, you’ll need to round up all of your significant accomplishments so that you can list them on your resume. This will also be a good time to give your resume a general spring-cleaning. You can rework its look, tweak some items, and simply make sure it’s up to par with the today’s standards.

Never Stop Networking

Since networking is key at the executive level, you want to make sure that you maintain close-knit relationships with those individuals you’ve befriended through your work and beyond. Whether they’re fellow board members, former co-workers, or clients of your former company, keep in touch with everyone – you never know who might help you move into that next position.

Get On the Internet

If you’ve been avoiding that social networking "thing," now’s the time to stop dodging the bullet and instead make it work for you. Pretty much every company is utilizing the Internet as a way to discover information about job applicants, so by getting yourself on some social networking sites, as well as any other way you can make yourself recognizable in a positive way through search engines, it’s good to utilize it. You might even want to start your own professional blog for your specific field to show your level of knowledge and keep yourself relevant.

Get Out in the World

As mentioned earlier, networking is key to getting your foot in the door at your level, so it’s important that you make it your job to get invited to interesting events so that you can meet new people who may be able to help you in your job search. Event networking is also good because it helps to maintain your confidence in your abilities as you talk about your experiences. So give it a try – you won’t regret it.

Join a Gym

Yes, it may sound a bit strange, but joining a gym can do a number of things for you. First, it can help you to establish a routine so that you can continue moving around at a certain time every day. Secondly, it can help you stay fit since you’re not moving around your office anymore. And possibly most importantly, you can use this as a tool to create new networking contacts as you continue your executive job search.

Maintaining your confidence after a layoff can be tough. But if you take the right steps, you’ll be back on track in no time.

Executive Resumes
Compare top services for writing executive resumes.