• Learn more about yourself...the certification process forces you to take stock of your skills and accomplishments. You'll definitely need to be able to comfortably communicate how your experience can add value to a prospective employer.
• Evaluate your experience...I found that mapping my experiences to the structured requirements of PMI's methodology underscores the relevance that your work has to utilizing and advancing the governance model and values that skilled project managers utilize every day (and in everyday ways).
• Volunteering keeps you active and involved...most major metropolitan areas and/or regions have an established PMI chapter. Joining and volunteering for event support or getting involved with chapter leadership helps to keep you active while learning and giving back to your community. It also provides ways to augment your continuing education efforts....and is a great way to gain exposure and build those all important networking contacts.
• Enhance your knowldedge and skills...yes, it seems redundant to expound on this theme. But, not only is it a requirement to remain certified, its an absolute of today's workplace. PMI offers so many ways to accomplish this all important aspect of survival through the many programs offered to those who want to keep an edge. PMI's "Communities of Practice" (COPS) was formerly called SIGs (special interst groups) allows practitioners to join with like-minded professionals in discussing and advancing the tools and best practices that have made Project Management "Indispensible for Business Results^®".
• Level the playing field...when the job market finally turns (and it will), the advantage will go to those that have made the effort to stay active and involved. And for those of us that have avoided the downsizing axe, the smart ones will realize that dowturns are and have always been not only cyclic but inevitable and will want to keep "sharpening their tools".

So, for me at least part of my strategy for survival has been to look for ways to "Level " the Playing Field. In today's world, there is no simple or single answer to this challenge. But for me, Project Management's fundamentals has helped to validate my belief's. My year's of experience in the high tech industry has taught me that almost all failed initiatives and/or business strategies are routed in the fire fighting that comes from a failure to "Plan the Work...and Work the Plan". Let's all try to apply this concept to the management of our careers as well.