One of our IT Leadership bloggers, Dr. Andrew Makar, found himself in an unenviable, yet all-too-common, position recently: He was fired from his job.

Andrew acknowledges that one has to come to terms with the emotional impact of being fired. As he says,

To say I was surprised is an understatement despite all the economic indicators in the Detroit where unemployment had risen to 28%. I had survived three waves of downsizing across two Fortune 500 companies. I had a proven track record of successful project delivery and was often asked to help turn around troubled projects and programs. In acompany that leveraged outsourcing, I was convinced they can’t outsource leadership. Despite all of this I was still fired.

But Andrew put that part of it behind him and conducted a systematic search for a new job, which he landed in 40 days. He has kindly shared the best practices he used to land that new job, as well as a tool he used (A Career Contact Matrix) in what he calls his Unemployment Rescue Kit. Download the kit for free by clicking here.