When the economy turns sour, it only makes sense to take steps to preserve or enhance your career prospects. Is it time to clean up your act? Have you noticed things that need to be improved? What should you do to avoid the unemployment line, if you actually want to keep your job?

We present our list of top ten ways to help keep yourself gainfully employed during the late unpleasantness.

The good news is that you can do it honorably. While there are no guarantees, it's better to make the effort than sit back and wait for the axe to fall.

It's really as simple as increasing value and ensuring that your company understands how you improve the bottom line.

Ten ways to help keep your job

1. Keep your resume up to date: this doesn't mean you're disloyal - it just means you're prepared. Being prepared reduces stress. reducing stress makes you happier. Being happier makes you more productive. Happiness and productivity get noticed.
2. Recognize who the real authority is: your boss may be ahead of you in the 'lay-off' line; getting noticed by them exclusively may be a waste of time. (We're not advocating 'sucking up' - very few people won't recognize shallow attempts at sucking up). Along those lines ...
3. Find and maintain a champion: someone who is willing to stand up and say that you are worth keeping. Ideally you have multiple champions, and one or more of them are key or high-visibility people in the organization.
4. Step outside the box: do things that are both necessary and outside of your job description. Obviously you have to make sure you're getting your job done first. However, if there's something that needs doing and you can do it without overtly taking a task away from someone else, do it. As an example, I'm not an Ops/IT person. We had company discussions about the need to be very guarded in what we said in IM. As a result I installed an internal, secure message server that does no logging. Most, if not all, of the company now uses that for internal, confidential discussions.
5. Keep status reports: even if they're not required and even if you never turn one in to anyone, having status reports is essential to you for two very good reasons: (1) if/when your boss says, 'what the hell is it that you do?', you have a documented answer. I know someone that got, let's call it a B- performance review. He (let's just say it's a 'he') was stunned because he *knew* he had been busting hump and had gone above and beyond. He revealed a years worth of status reports and said, "why is that worth a B-?". The manager wasn't intentionally being an asshole - the manager just hadn't remembered. My friend got the A he deserved; (2) when it's time to update your resume, you have an excellent paper trail of all the good stuff you did (including those 'out of the box' initiatives, right?)
6. Take/keep careful notes: besides the simple appearance of attentiveness, taking notes helps things sink in. This kind of record keeping should extend to meetings, phone calls, etc. If there's any confusion or possibility of misunderstanding, follow up meetings with an email that says: "this is what I heard you say".
7. Don't sabotage the efforts of others: I shouldn't even have to say this. However, desperate times encourage desperate measures and some people may be tempted to resort to unsavory tactics. Don't do it. I've had people tell me things in one-on-one meetings and then say the exact opposite in a public forum. A defense against this is to immediately email someone with your understanding of what was said (see above).
8. Be aware of attempts to sabotage you: as I say, some people may resort to such foul behavior. It can be difficult to point this out without looking like a whiner. This is an area where having kept good notes and having an email thread can be very helpful.
9. Avoid toxic people: don't waste your time with people who are concerned only with negativity or complaining. If something's wrong, try to fix it. Otherwise, find something constructive to do, and make sure that people are aware you are doing it.
10. Present yourself as a problem-solver, and not a problem-creator. This one seems obvious, and is a synthesis of some of the above tips: You should at all times strive to be seen as a useful person to have around, a net benefit to the organization, someone who constantly makes things work better. Note that it's important not only to be a problem solver, it's important that your problem-solving abilities are recognized and acknowledged. For example, instead of 'I can't do my job because I need three more servers' try, 'I could get by with 1 server and run virtual servers on it.'

That about wraps it up

Well, that's about it. Do you have any favorites we've not mentioned here? Leave a comment and let us know what you think!