Granted most of them had excellent severance packages, but many friends and co-workers of mine have double-dipped for months after being displaced and grabbing another job. Some added a nice check to their savings with little or even no time out of work by being extremely proactive in securing their next gig.

I’ve faced looming and actual layoffs repeatedly over a couple decades and am probably less aggressive than many in nailing down a plan B just in case. The one time we knew the layoff would hit us (my entire division was getting axed), we used it as a chance to relocate geographically via another opportunity within my company. I got a very early lead, which I worked like crazy, and I had the job in hand before the axe officially fell. I was pursuing another good opportunity outside the company at the same time and was looking at everything I could find. My peace of mind remained relatively stable during what could have been an extremely stressful period.

So yeah, proactively locking down your next gig is huge. Jump all over that. It stands to pay financial and emotional dividends.