I was laid off in Aug 2009. I negotiated 3 months of continued employment to start and finish a project I knew they would want to do (cost savings measure to move to the cloud). Tech at the time: rails.

I had (part-time contract) work within 15 minutes of leaving the layoff meeting. It pays to network before you need it.

Before my extra 3 months ended, I reached out to the individual investors in the company and asked if they knew if any of their portfolio companies had any work. I ended up taking a contract in February (there were 2 months where I did odd gigs, but was essentially out of work and living off savings - again it pays to plan ahead) that paid way better than I was making before and positionally a better spot. (titles matter too, though less than the work at hand - depending on what you want to be doing)