It's not as bad as being fired, but being laid off can still pack a heavy ego blow, leaving many among the pink-slipped masses wondering, why me? Getting past the perceived stigma of a layoff and truly understanding the answer to that question are the first steps in moving on in a tight job market, say recruiters, so you can put your best foot forward on a playing field where confidence is key.

Shannel Ball has been job hunting ever since being laid off in April. The Tacoma paralegal was the only one let go from a staff of eight. She understood that her law firm was in a financial pinch, but she still couldn't help feeling a little bit singled out.

That feeling only got worse going into job interviews when the inevitable question would always come up. "Every time I attend an interview, and they ask why I was laid off, I often wonder if they are actually thinking, 'why were you laid off?'" she says. "I realize that as the year has progressed, more and more people assume it's just the economic situation. But still I feel like they're asking why it was me and no one else."

Gina Peckman, founding partner at Dynamo Recruiting, says that at her Federal Way-based staffing agency, she's hearing these kinds of concerns from a lot of her clients - even upper-level executives and managers who now have a lot of time on their hands to sit around and ponder whether they would still be employed if they had just made one more sale.

"It's natural to wonder if it was your work performance," Peckman says. "But the first thing is to really have a clear understanding of why you were laid off so that you can relay that to the people you interview with. If there's some doubt or hesitance, that can come through in an interview."

That means talking to your former employer, Peckman says. Not only to get the whole scoop, but to ask for a reference as well. If you need to go past the HR manager who delivered the bad news and talk to a company executive, that's what you should do.

"You, as an employee, have the right to ask, 'is there anything I can do differently in my next role?'" Peckman says. Find out what they're going to say in their reference and make sure you know what you're going to present to a prospective employer before going in. Rather than panicking and hurrying into interviews, sit down and write it out ahead of time so that you're on top of the situation.

Another salve for a wounded ego is remembering that just because an employer couldn't afford your salary anymore doesn't mean that you weren't considered valuable. "It's a fallacy that you lay off the weakest people," says Jeni Herberger, a corporate trainer and career coach in Seattle. She herself has gone through the painful process of cutting jobs in-house at her own recruiting agency, Big Fish, and says some of the people she had to let go were among her best. "They were my two favorites, but by cutting two people I was able to save the whole company," she says. "It was purely a business decision."

Her advice to jobseekers like Ball is to keep in mind that even if an interviewer asks about the layoff, they know as well as you do that you were far from being fired. "I think if people understand that there really isn't a stigma to being laid off, they'll have an easier time walking in the door."