Outplacement has two primary objectives:
- To help you find another job
- To make you go away
In theory, your employer pays an outplacement firm to help you find
a job. In reality, many
employers use outplacement firms to do whatever it takes to make you go away and avoid litigation.
Outplacement is now a commodity benefit, much like
healthcare, farmed out to the lowest name-brand bidder.
The standard fee for outplacement is 15% of an
executive's salary.
Outplacement firms don't tell you is that only 25% of their
clients find a job in 90 days. Instead, they redefine success as learning how to network, interview
and write a resume ... and they offer upscale offices and
secretarial services ... but they never define success
as actually finding a job. Some firms claim higher success rates, but look at the fine print - the
time frame is "eventually," not "in 90 days."
Most displaced executives already know how to search
for a job and can do it from home. They don't need an
office, fax, Internet access and secretarial services.
They also don't need a career map,
interviewing techniques and training on how to find a
job.
