7 Smart Moves to Make When Preparing for a Job Layoff

Credit: Style My Soul, www.stylemysoul.com | Navigating Job Layoffs 2026

In today’s world of dynamic job market shifts and rapid competition rising among AI technologies, workers are growing apprehensive about what the future holds for their respective roles. Seasoned professionals share their two cents for how working professionals can better pivot through any impending layoffs on the horizon.

Refine Your Pitch Before Layoffs
Start collecting feedback while you still have the paycheck. Write your pitch in one paragraph, send it to a handful of people who could hire you or refer you, and ask them what they’d cut. A hiring pool is a crowded category, and I found the safe version of my resume got skipped. The angle I could defend earned the callback. Doing that work early means the layoff starts with a warm list.  — Roy Peer, Founder, Clean Guy

Use Your Paycheck to Build Options
Start using your current pay check as seed capital not salary. Before I left my position as Associate Vice President in 2010 to fund what is now ADA Compliance Professionals by myself, I spent months reducing burn rate and saving money. I used the same method to determine how much actual run-way I had as an entrepreneur (fixed monthly costs + medical expenses + minimum required payments on all of my debts) instead of simply stating “a few months of savings”. At this point in time, I did not even know the specific path I would be taking, however, I understood that having options requires money.

Shift in Mindset: A lay-off does not represent the beginning of your career transition, rather it’s the deadline. Use the paycheck window to have coffees; quietly line up two or three potential first clients; develop a brag document about recent accomplishments prior to their becoming stale; and pre-ask for LinkedIn recommendations from managers who still remember your work. Those individuals who prepare while employed negotiate from a position of strength. Individuals who prepare after take the first offer that lands.  — David LoPresti, Founder, ADA Compliance Professionals

​Secure Written Layoff Terms From HR
​Here’s a lesson I learned the hard way: don’t delay speaking to Human Resources about your options. I’ve seen people delay and then find out they were not paid for interview time and lost out on better severance deals. Get everything in writing — the redundancy terms; whether they will pay for time off to find a new job; the training budget. Don’t just smile and say yes in meetings. Write it down. If you have those details on paper then you know what to expect.
​— Lisa Clark, Director, Bell Fire and Security

​Build Key Connections Before You Need Them
As the Lead IT Recruiter, having more than two decades of experience in recruiting in the tech industry, my best advice is to create at least three to five meaningful and influential connections before you need them. Once you realize that you are about to be laid off, contact those people to let them know about your timeline and get some interviews set up with them. I have personally observed that candidates who have created such meaningful connections have found their jobs faster than those candidates who just had long contact lists.  – Alex Kovalenko, Lead IT Recruiter, Kovasys IT Recruitment

Prove Your Judgment With Public Results
​My suggestion is to show your capability of making good judgments in public before there is a need. Not after something has occurred. You can easily get a nice resume written by AI. So, writing a good resume does not create an impression anymore. It’s also really important to talk about real problems and real solutions you came up with and you can always explain your thought process behind it. And remember to back up with real stats and figures whenever you can. These are the things that are difficult to fake and still separate you from others especially when every application looks the same. Another important thing, make sure you are the right fit for the opportunity and you’re mentioning that in your resume by adding all the keywords that the hiring manager is looking for. No need to fake it obviously but dont forget to add the right words if you really are a fit.
– Mr. Edward Tian, Founder/CEO, GPTZero

​Preserve Your Work Evidence Before Access Ends
Speaking as a founder who has closed and restarted ventures several times; this is my own experience, not survey data. My one tip: move your proof of work out of systems you do not own before you need it. The day access is cut, you lose the dashboards, the decks, the message threads and the metrics that show what you actually did. People assume they will remember, and then three months later they are describing their best project from memory in an interview.

What that looks like in practice, without taking anything confidential, for each significant piece of work, write one page in your own words on your own device. What the problem was, what you decided, what changed and roughly by how much, and what you would do differently. Strip client names and internal numbers if you must; the reasoning is what interviewers ask about anyway. If any of it was public, save the links.

​The second half of the tip is to put some of it somewhere public that you control, a personal site or even a plain profile page, while you still have the title and the momentum. Every time I have restarted, the thing that opened doors was not the resume, it was a page where someone could see the work and the thinking. Build that page while you are still employed and the transition is a handoff instead of a scramble. — Ming-Yuan Xie, Serial Entrepreneur & Founder of Meow Universe, Meow Universe

Clarify Benefits and Prepare Your Job Search
​Another piece of advice would be to answer your questions from the beginning by asking politely and respectfully about deadlines, severance packages, benefits, and the level of support the company will offer you. I noticed that in my professional practice, assumptions and poor communication can ruin even a relatively easy situation, so it is always good to document the main points of discussion and organize all important documents. After that, try to focus on the things you can really impress by working on your CV, figuring out the positions you want to take, and contacting people who can confirm your professional skills.
— Elliott Jung, Founding Partner at HHJ Trial Attorneys, HHJ Trial Attorneys