Coincidentally, yesterday, I spoke with a frat brother of mine who graduated from HBS a few years ago. He works for a startup that just went public, so kudos to him. We were just catching up, and he mentioned that he was laid off early on in his career. Well, it obviously did not affect him because he found a good job afterwards and then he got into HBS.
However, I asked him, for the benefit of GMAT Club
, how it affected getting jobs in the future. He said that it essentially did not affect him. The reasons for that are he was laid off with 25 other employees in his entering class, so it was a situation that no matter how good he was or wasn't he was getting laid off. However, he had to explain that, which is the part that I do not like. If an employer asks, you are going to have to say that you were voluntarily laid off. That could, however unlikely, be misconstrued, and are you comfortable with that possibility? If you resign, then when, or if, an employer asks why you left, you can mention that you resigned and that's that.
But, as I said before, he dealt with the uncomfortable answer when he was on job interviews, and he obviously pulled through. I think it comes down to what you are comfortable with personally. I, after having made it through two layoffs this year, like to tout the fact that I survived; but, for others, they might prefer the severance--which is completely understandable, don't get me wrong! Your choice.