The dreaded word, redundant. Everyone attends the normal weekly team meeting. You and a few others are culled from the group; 'stay after', you are told. One by one, you are given your walking papers. Shock, anger, disbelief, betrayal. You are stunned. The thing is, you should not be.

If you had realised that all those intuitive signs circulating in the air and the body language of your superiors meant something, this terrible news would not have been a surprise. But, it is. Now you must move forward.

What to do if you are made redundant?

1 Hide your anger and bitterness. Do not show it during the exit interview or afterward. What goes around comes around. If the business picks up, you may be the first hired back. You need your employer's goodwill in future job choices. You never know who he/she knows in a small community.

2 Ask for a good reference immediately while the 'terminator' still feels as bad as you do about the situation.

3 Review your employee benefits and arrange for bridge health care, life insurance and related coverage for as long as possible. This is your temporary safety net. In times of severe stress, individuals tend to need additional health resources.

4 Assess what you are worth in the marketplace and negotiate for the best termination package you can. If you are allowed to stay for another couple of weeks or months, stay. Use that time (and their equipment) to network with everyone you know and update your CV.

5 Do not badmouth your prior employer.

6 Avoid talking about the situation ad infinitum to everyone you meet. You depress them and yourself.

7 Be completely professional at all times; keep the situation easy for your employer to deal with in order to store future reciprocal favours.

8 Never, ever leave an employer without taking care of steps 1 to 7.

Emergency finance and protecting your family

• Count your cash, literally.

• Do you have enough for the next three-month's rent/mortgage? Pay it ahead now. You need to assure yourself of a roof over your head without having to think about scrounging for the money.

• Do you have enough for three months groceries, three months utilities, phone.

• What about that expensive car? Still owe on that large loan? Sell it. Find a second-hand car, and get out from under that debt. You need transportation, not a lifestyle enhancer.

• Do not have enough cash reserves? Talk to your family and make arrangements for temporary loans or shared temporary accommodations, if necessary.

Time for change and opportunity. Be positive. This is a new beginning for you.

• Wipe the slate clean and start over.

• Decide on direction and discipline yourself. If this seems drastic, you are right, you are in survival mode.

Make your job getting a new job.

• Dress conservatively. Demonstrate that you are a serious committed individual, an asset to any company.

• Clean out your closets (and your house), put all the flamboyant stuff, the slightly worn, or dated (no massive bellbottoms, low tight revealing etc) in the back, sell on E-Moo, or donate to The Barn.

• Buy a new suit. Pay attention to your physical appearance. This is not the time to slop around in sweats and jogging outfits, letting your hair, nails and face go unstyled.

• If cash is really tight, get your conservative clothing cleaned and pressed to perfection. Use only for job interviews.

• Decrease physical intake of everything: cigarettes, alcohol, food. These are all depressants when you are emotionally exhausted

• Increase physical exercise.

• Watch your body language. No one wants to hire a depressed apathetic defeated individual.

• Increase your literacy by reading and web browsing sites related to your job search: finance, economics, and current events.

• Take responsibility by getting rid of the attitude that you have been hard done by. Yes, you have hurt, but do you think a potential employer trying to hold a business together, in a challenging profit environment, wants to deal with an attitude? No way.

• Work on your image. When whole divisions are sent packing, it is not your fault, but being made redundant is a terrible blow to your self-esteem. Believe me; I know exactly how it feels to stand in the unemployment line. Both my husband and I, and almost all of our friends, and many, many of my US clients, have been there, not just once, but twice or more in some cases during the New Hampshire recession of 1989's and early 1990's.

• Get out there, network, and be visible. Do not stay home and sulk. You have just been hit hard, now use every single bit of your personality, your faith and your family support to fight back and win, yourself another job

Traps to self-destruction.

• Do not give up - the longer you are out of work, the more of a taint, you will carry.

• Walking out only punishes you, and your family - no health insurance, no life insurance

• Do not be too picky - make the new job a stepping-stone. It may not be the best job out there but take it. At the least, you can use it to keep your insurance coverage until you find the platinum job.

Now, you must put a contingency plan in place for the next time. This is not your father or your mother's workplace. Lateral mobility is expected and encouraged. Downsizing, outsourcing and revisioning are the rule.

Start now to reinvent yourself so that next time, YOU make the decision to leave a position for a better one.

You do not want to be at the end of the broom when it is corporate and political house cleaning time again.

Good luck!

Martha Harris Myron CPA -NH1929, CFP® -67184 (US licenses) TEP 230510- Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners. She is a Senior Wealth Manager at Argus Financial Limited, specialising in comprehensive financial solutions and investment advisory services for individual private clients and their families, business owners, endowments and trusts. DirectLine: 294 5709. Confidential email can be directed to mmyron@argusfinancial.bm

The article expresses the opinion of the author alone. Under no circumstances is the content of this article to be taken as specific individual investment advice, nor as a recommendation to buy/ sell any investment product. The Editor of the Royal Gazette has final right of approval over headlines, content, and length/brevity of article.