CareerCurve™

I saw the movie Up in the Air last night.  I had no idea what it was about but heard it was really good.  I was surprised to see that the main character worked for a career transition company.  I’m wondering if anyone has any comments on the perspectives given about this type of business in this movie.  I was kind of shocked by the idea of termination via the internet and can’t believe that the business side could overrule the humantiarian side.  Do you think this was an accurate potrayal of what it is like for the person who delivers the news?  I found the perspective from the affected employees to be believable but also thought it was interesting that there was almost zero interaction with the companies who hired  the transition firm to deliver the news.  Is it that common that the internal human resource department is completely removed from the process?  I would think their absence at notification would make things worse for everyone and the point of hiring someone to help is just that – to help, not to take over and do.  My interpretation has always been that the firm provides some training for the human resource people and works with the laid off employees to be positive while sitting with the human resource people to help deliver the news.   Also, the main character made a point of saying that after notification, they don’t follow up with the former employees.  If that were true, I can’t imagine it is realistic to expect someone getting laid off to leave with a positive attitude in a matter of minutes, no matter who is delivering the news.  I certainly hope this was an exaggerated, Hollywood point of view!

My name is Jen Turi and I am writing CareerCurve’s blog.  I am the Manager of Social Media for this outplacement firm and am very passionate about what we do.  Please see the About CareerCurve and About the Author page to learn a little bit more about us and me personally.  My goal in writing this blog is to connect with all kinds of readers and initiate conversation that is thought-provoking, interesting, and insightful.  I want to both learn and share experiences in the world of career transition in the hope that this will provide a platform to help anyone going through a downsizing or reorganization, from any perspective.  The last couple of years have been very difficult in our economy on everyone – employees who have been laid off, employers who have had to do the laying off, retained employees who have had to adjust to less assistance and fewer co-workers, directors of organizations who have had to restructure to make do with much smaller budgets and resources –  the list goes on and on. 

I hope that by creating a forum to share individual experiences we can all learn and make transition easier and less painful, no matter who you are.  Being that CareerCurve provides these types of services, I also hope to gather information to continually improve quality for both our clients and our candidates.  The best way to know what really works is to ask and  I encourage  comments.   I also look forward to recommendations for more information on post topics, content suggestions and to reading your blogs.   If you want to comment offline, my email address is jturi@careercurve.com and you can learn more about the company at www.careercurve.com.  Thank you for reading and I look forward to getting to know you and learning from you!