Techie's guide to surviving a layoff

1. Create an account on Linkedin. Connect and network with the folks you know. Join *ALL* the WebSphere groups on Linkedin. There are a lot of WebSphere jobs posted on LinkedIn groups. Stay in touch with all your ex-colleagues. Sometimes they are the best source of a new job.

2. Start attending all the technical usergroups in your local area. I personally attend the java users group and the WebSphere users group. There are a no. of programming and other technical groups in and around RTP. Sometimes there will be recruiters at these user groups. If possible also attend conferences like NoFluffJustStuff. Conferences are a great way to network, learn new actionable tech. and also look for job opportunities.

3. Post your resume on craigslist.com, Indeed.com, monster.com, careerbuilder.com and all the other job sites out there. Tailor the resume according to the job posting. Update resume atleast once every day, so that your resume comes up at the top on recruiter serarches. Read http://jobsearchtech.about.com/od/careerplanning/l/aa080398_3.htm

4. Start looking out for freelancing gigs on freelancing sites like guru.com. http://freelanceswitch.com/ is a good site to get started with freelancing.

5. Keep yourself up-to-date by reading blogs, articles and technical resources in your software area. For instance, for java read http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-javaresources.html

6. Start writing iPhone applications. http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/01/23/advice-just-finish-it/

7. Retrain and retool yourself. Learn the latest techniques and tools for web development. Find Your Next Web Development Job: http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/10/10/20-places-to-find-your-next-job/

8. Start writing a blog and market yourself. Attract hits to the blog, and try to get blog posts listed on dzone, slashdot & techchrunch etc.

9. Contribute to open source. Nothing impresses companies like being a committer on a large open source project (like apache). Once you become an expert in an open source technology, you can do your own niche consulting in that product.

10. Stay Healthy!!

11. Start looking an alternative careers that are recession proof, like Teaching or Nursing. Read What Color is Your Parachute.

12. If you can afford it, retire.