Whether you have been frog-marched jacketless from the building without having time to gather up your possessions, or have spent the past few months catching up on unread novels during gardening leave, sooner or later you have to move on. The old job has gone and the rest of your life starts here. As redundancies mount up and leaving parties fill the diary, for many people an unavoidable question looms large: what are you going to do next?

Do not rush to answer that question. Provided you can afford it, this could be a good moment to consider new directions and alternative careers.

“I wouldn't usually recommend taking the first job you get offered,” says Beverley White, head of career transition at Penna, an HR consultancy. “Some people are exiting their former jobs with big redundancy packages, and there is no immediate financial panic. For many it's the first chance they've had since university to do something different.”