10. You can’t attract top talent. "Good IT workers will work for people they feel they will learn from, and they’ll make sacrifices to do so," says Rubenstrunk of Korn Ferry, even if the sacrifice involves moving to Duluth. If you can’t recruit good workers, your reputation in the industry may be scaring people away. What’s more, if your best workers start leaving, it’s often because they’re frustrated with the IT department, she adds. As the leader of the IT organization, you’re accountable for being able to attract and retain the best and the brightest. "If too many of your good people go, others [read: those C-players evaluating your performance] are going to notice," she says. This may not lead to your immediate dismissal, but it does stack up as a strike against you.

Job-saving tip: Ask existing and departing employees what you can do to be a better manager, and take their recommendations seriously.

11. You screw up big-time. Failed systems implementations have cost countless IT employees their jobs. If you consistently miss project milestones, whether you’re a CIO or a project manager, your boss is going to toss you out and hire someone who can get the job done. And if the project for which you’re ultimately accountable causes your company to miss its earnings expectations, you can count on getting canned.

Job-saving tip: Come up with a way to spin your failure so that it doesn’t appear to be such a big liability when you interview for your next job.

12. You engage in an unethical activity. If you take kickbacks from vendors, use corporate funds to bankroll vacations or otherwise defraud shareholders, you can bet you’re going to get the boot. And rightly so. Companies have instituted a no-tolerance attitude toward unethical behavior in the aftermath of the corporate scandals of 2002 and the HP pretexting fiasco. Restaurant chain operator Buca fired CIO John Motschenbacher in March 2005. He has since been charged with soliciting and obtaining illegal payments from vendors.

Job-saving tip: Read your company’s policies on ethical behavior. Consult your corporate counsel for advice. If your company doesn’t have an ethics policy or officer, think about what you’re doing and if you’d want to read about it the next day in the newspaper.

13. You’re on bad terms with a colleague responsible for generating revenue. If the VP of sales starts squawking to the CEO that your systems and processes are preventing him from booking sales, Korn Ferry’s Rubenstrunk says you should be concerned. The last thing you want to do is prevent your company from making money.

Job-saving tip: Fix the problem. ASAP.

14. Your boss places unreasonable demands on you. If your boss or management team continually asks you to do something without the right resources, such as implement SAP in 90 days or cut your budget by 50 percent in a year, "you have to question their faith in your role," says Sommer of Kraton Polymers. Conversely, they may place these demands on you without understanding what’s humanly possible in your role, he adds. "It’s your job to educate them," he says. Coffey of Spherion notes that a new boss who wants to get rid of an incumbent employee will often take the tactic of setting unreasonable expectations. "He’s setting you up to eliminate you," he says.

Job-saving tip: Being set up to fail is a tough situation to turn around. The best you can do, especially if this is happening under a new boss, according to Schiappa, is to "take the high ground" and try to understand your new boss’s demands from her perspective. They may not be all that unreasonable—just different from what your previous boss wanted, says the former HP CIO. And while you’re searching for a solution, start working your network to find a new job.

15. Your boss minimizes your accomplishments. "If you’re doing handsprings and your colleagues are saying they didn’t notice, that’s pretty bad," says Schiappa. "That shows a lack of respect and that your [internal] customers don’t see what you’re doing as worthwhile."

Job-saving tip: Schiappa recommends redoubling your efforts to demonstrate the value of your work. Find a way to prove your value that resonates with your boss, he says.

16. Your boss hires an executive coach for you. This can be a good thing or a bad thing. Getting an executive coach can indicate that your boss is still invested in you, says Sommer. But, he adds, it can also be a formality—a way for your current employer to cover itself after later firing you for poor performance. By hiring an executive coach, your boss can say, "We tried and you just didn’t work out."

Job-saving tip: Don’t be cynical about this if you care about your current position. Have an honest conversation with your boss about why he hired an executive coach for you and what he wants you to get out of it. Make every effort to learn from what your boss and your coach tell you.

17. Your boss asks you to work on "special projects." Special projects are a euphemism for busy work. When you’re assigned to special projects, it means the boss has lost so much confidence in your ability to lead that he’s trying to get you off the high-profile projects you had been working on until he can find a replacement for you. "The whole purpose [of special projects] is to put someone on an island without having to give them a lot of maintenance," says Sommer, who observed this at JP Morgan Chase. When he was working for the financial services company, he recalls, an employee was chosen to work on a special project that involved investigating an opportunity for a new hedge fund product line in Eastern Europe. The clues indicating that this project (and this person’s role in the company) wasn’t going anywhere were the fact that JP Morgan Chase didn’t have much of a presence in Eastern Europe at the time, and the individual wasn’t given a staff or a travel budget.

Job-saving tip: Sommers says at this point, it’s too late to save face. The best you can do is keep a smile on your face in the office while dusting off your resume.

18. You see a confidential search ad that describes your job to a tee. Spherion’s Coffey says he recently worked with an executive who got a call from a friend while on vacation. The friend told the executive that a rumor was circulating in the office that the executive was going to lose his job. When the executive got back from vacation, he saw a job ad that looked remarkably like his own, and he later found out the rumor that he was going to be replaced was true.

Job-saving tip: Memorize these warning signs so you don’t get taken by surprise again.