In today's troubled economy, you may be one of the tens of millions of people who find themselves unexpectedly without a job.  Finding yourself laid off, or your position eliminated, or your company closed can be stressful, and anxiety ridden.  For most people, this is a difficult time, because they haven't prepared for this kind of eventuality.  It's rare that people will start in one career, and finish their lives in that career when everything is over.  Most people go through 3-5 different vocational callings in their life, even though they rarely, if ever, plan on changing.  If you find yourself with a career change being forced upon you, by circumstance or by the economy, know that you can switch careers often, but you can also do it in a bad way, if you haven't planned ahead.  If you haven't planned ahead, and you find yourself without an income, you will be forced to take a job, instead of planning your career, and you won't be able to seek opportunities objectively.  Therefore, it makese sense to start thinking about this kind of change now, when you don't need it.

The worst case scenario is when you are hit unprepared.  Your boss calls you into his office on Friday, and tells you the bad news.  You've been downsized, or your division is cut, or a whole host off possiblities have arisen.  Whatever the case, you are now out of a job, with no idea where to look for new employement, or even knowing what kinds of jobs are out there, or what you'd be qualified to do.  This doesn't even take into consideration your desires and needs, or any kind of self-fulfillment that you'd be interested in acheiving.  So, here are three concrete steps you must follow in order to avoid this kind of disaster scenario.

First, always know what your skills, interests and abilities are, and know how these are used and valued in the current marketplace.  Are you really good at repairing VCRs?  Then that might be a problem.  But are you actually skilled at repairing small electronic devices?  Then that might be a whole lot better, even though it's no different.  Therefore, you must take a "Skills Inventory" of yourself every year.  Maybe you already do this at your current job, but that's not enough.  Your current employer wants to know what skills you have that they need, and those may be skills that aren't relevant to anyone else.  Pick a date every year, be it New Year's or the Fourth of July, and make a full inventory of your skills, accomplishments, and goals.  You can keep this on a piece of paper, index cards, blog posting, or whatever is most comfortable for you.  But you must keep it somewhere where you can get it if you need it, which means probably not on the corporate computing network.  

Second, know where to look outside of your current employer.  This doesn't necessarily mean networking (though I'll cover that in a different article) but it does mean keeping in touch with industry groups and trends.  It means knowing what the pay range is for your position, and for your skills, which may be different things.  It can mean knowing your competitors, or some other unusual application for your skillset.  While you're employed, this can mean just participating in industry events, going to those free breakfast things at the local Marriot where someone tries to sell you something.  Reading the industry journals and webpages, and seeing who is doing well and who isn't.  All of this research will help you be a better employee, but it will also help you if you find yourself needing to know the landscape.

Finally, have a good sense of timing.  Other than being laid off, there are other signals that it may be time for a change.  If you no longer have any interest in what you are doing on a daily basis, or you find yourself not improving your skills or your prospects.  If you find yourself just punching the clock, and not looking for how to grow yourself or your employer, then you probably are ripe for a switch.  Don't look at this as scary, look at this as an adventure, a time to rediscover yourself and what you are good at — and what you truly love.  It can be really, really easy to stay too long, and it's almost impossible to leave too early.  Having a good internal sense of where you are on this clock will be a good guide.

If you learn to overcome the fear of change, you can mold and shape a future that excites, motivates and energizes you.  As I said in the opening, most people have more than three careers in their lifetime.  If you are one of the lucky ones who found something at age 18 that you love and will do for 50 or 60 years, then you can stop reading this.  But for the rest of us, it's important to not suffer when this kind of change occurs.  You don't want to feel stressed about losing a job that you didn't like that much anyway.  Have a plan, and you will be ahead of most of the people that you would be competing with.  And having a plan is the key to not losing your control in a time like this.  Look at it as an opportunity to reinvent yourself, one you have been preparing for for years.