Update your resume and start scanning for potential employers. Remember, I mentioned above about reading newspapers and business publications? Those same publications can be a huge asset to you while you’re job searching, because they also tell you what companies are expanding, landing big contracts, and expecting to see growth. Look at industries (possibly outside your current one) that aren’t facing job losses because you don’t want to jump from one sinking ship to another.

Get your financial affairs in order. Unemployment and severance will help for a short time, but prepare for being unemployed much longer, even if your company plans to call you back. It’s difficult to foresee who will obtain a job immediately or actual timeframe in which you’ll be called back, so prepare for worst-case scenario. Save more money than ever before, and sell assets that no longer benefit you or depreciate (lose value) consistently over time. Selling an unused boat, for example, can offer enough money to support your family for a few weeks up to a couple of months. Much as a business expands and contracts, you will find it necessary to do so also.

Cut back on frills and wants. If your company is cutting back, you should too. Controllable, and unnecessary, expenses include morning cappuccinos or dining out for lunch. With jaw-dropping gas prices, a person could easily save $20 to $80 a week by carpooling to work.

By tightening belt, your hard-earned dollars will stretch farther and will make your job search less stressful. One of biggest killers for surviving job loss, in my opinion, is desperation. When funds run dry or drastically low, jobseekers become desperate and make critical mistakes during their job search. Don’t put yourself on that path.

Approach your HR department with a “what if” scenario to determine if outplacement services would be offered should company announce an official layoff. It’s unlikely that your human resources department will offer-up details about an upcoming layoff, so pitch a “if there was a layoff” scenario and determine what company’s actions would be.

Will you be able to cover your expenses at half your salary? Since unemployment rates hover around 50% of your current wage, sit down and create a detailed spreadsheet that includes your forecasted amount of unemployment in relation to monthly expenses.

Identifying warning signs for workforce changes will provide necessary time to plan and prepare. Taking control of situation, before it takes control of you, will make a huge difference.

Teena Rose is a certified and published resume writer and author of "20-Minute Cover Letter Fixer" and "Cracking the Code to Pharmaceutical Sales."

This is going to become your Special Place where you have a record of your journey from badlands of unemployment to green fields of regular work. Visit it often to keep updating your plans, record your smallest successes and failures, and unload your emotional baggage.

When you can't bear thought of one more telephone call leading to one more rejection; when you can't find energy to get dressed up to visit an agency or cold-call an employer; when you can't stand sight of another misleading ad or internet job site; then reach for comfort of your journal. Read over what you have written and see changing moods of your long pilgrimage. See if you can identify a pattern. What were you doing when you felt despondent and alone? What were you doing when you felt upbeat and positive about future? Concentrate on your own specific actions, not merely your reaction to outside events. If you can find a thread relating what you do to how you feel, you have found a valuable key for managing your hunt for work. You now know what to do to feel pretty good and what not to do to avoid a recurrence of despair.

Maintain your diary throughout your job search and it will become an increasingly rich source of information about you and your inner self. It will challenge you to get active and it will comfort you when you just want to curl up into a ball and turn your back on life.

When your final exultant entry is made - I got a job! - find a quiet time to completely read through all entries to give yourself a full appreciation of how far you have come and how hard you have worked for your eventual success. Give yourself a mental pat on back for hanging in there and never accepting defeat.

Then close it up and lock it away in a safe place. If you ever find yourself jobless again (and it happens to many of us over and over), take it out. Reread it for insights you will gain, and mistakes you'll be able to avoid, in your next (probably shorter) job search campaign.