Both times I was faced with the option of spending a long time searching for a comparable job vs. taking a huge pay cut and starting over. I opted for the starting over approach, and both times was able to get caught back up pretty quickly.
Experience and work ethics are valuable assets, and I think a lot of people spend too much time trying to match their previous jobs when they can do just as well in the long run by just getting their foot back in the door someplace and using their experience/maturity to rise back up again.
Yep. I watched a friend of mine go through the other approach.
He was a highly-paid professional who started out saying that he was pretty sure that he could get hired pretty quickly, but he kept encountering positions that he wouldn’t consider because they paid less than his old job. Then he got a little more desperate and sold his condo. Then he tried to start his own business, but that didn’t work. Then he moved back in with his father. He’s scrambling for bits of work now years and years after the layoff, while still sending out resumes for long-shot positions.