CareerCurve™

Outplacement is tricky business. Solid organizations recognize the need but may not be sure how valuable it really is. Candidates (our term for those who are laid off) may be hesitant to engage and may not understand the impact having a personal coach will have on their job search.

I have a story I just had to share to help those that may not be using their coach and those in HR who may not understand the genuine value that offering these services can bring. I’m also hoping this advice can help those who may not be fortunate enough to have access to outplacement services. This is an example of how a coach’s expertise really helps the job search.

I received a call from one of our coaches who wanted to tell me about an experience she had with a somewhat resistant candidate. Initially, he wasn’t convinced that she could do anything to help him. (This is very common and why it is important to work with a company that has good coaches.)

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As they got to know one another he realized that she provided sound advice and could be useful. One area where he remained unconvinced was in using LinkedIn. This particular candidate has a pretty technical background and his profile was solid, based on his experience. Our coach kept trying to encourage him to modify his profile in a few ways so that he could be “found” more easily. As he remained unemployed and was not getting any calls, interviews, or opportunities he became more and more frustrated and discouraged. He decided he had nothing to lose, so he implemented her suggestions. Here is the advice she gave him about what to do and how he modified his profile:

• Re-wrote his summary and added several specialties (keywords)
• Wrote his experience and achievements in conversational tone (rather than simply copying and pasting from his resume)
• Requested recommendations
• Added a current reading list
• Pumped up his education and research area (explained his research in a way that is more understandable and less technical)
• Began adding contacts (he started with 11 – is up to 100 now) and sharing his knowledge and expertise with his contacts
• Added his professional groups and joined various LinkedIn groups

The results were amazing! After weeks of basically no activity, he received 3 calls within 2 hours of making these changes! He could not believe it and called her with a whole new mindset.

This coach, by using her skills, changed everything about his job search.

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• Rather than being depressed and frustrated he is excited, positive, and motivated. Anyone who has ever lost a job knows how hard it is to achieve this while unemployed and how important it is to portray that attitude to potential managers. Attitude is probably the biggest driver in how successful the search is.
• He is now interacting with professionals in his field on a regular basis, which will help him keep his skills sharp while he continues his search. It also provides an opportunity to learn and discuss trends in his industry, as well as helping him feel less like he is searching in a vacuum.
• He is now embracing his coach’s advice and looking for more.
• He is well on his way to his new role.

I LOVE stories like this and hope that this is inspirational for others.

Do any of you have a success story to share?

I once spent a year (well, I really only made it 8 months) in a cubicle with a Judy-from-Time-Life headset on.  As I’ve mentioned before, I HATED this job.  I worked for a credit card company and my job was to provide exceptional customer service.  Now, I LOVE exceptional customer service.  I really like getting it, but what excites me even more, is giving it.  I’m a problem-solver by nature and I absolutely love a challenge – the harder the better – bring it on!  So why did I hate this job so much? 

It’s called Cognitive Dissonance.  This is a term used to describe that horrible, uncomfortable feeling you get when you are asked to accommodate ideas that conflict with your beliefs.  When I began this job, I was trained and lectured about how customer service was the foundation of our business model.  We were on a mission to provide the best service imaginable thereby gaining loyalty from customers and improved market share by branding ourselves as an organization that cared.  Perfect.  I know what good service is. 

But once we were placed in our cubes, those of us responsible for providing these fantastic customer experiences were paid garbage as a base salary and earned extra incentives (read, a lot of our salary) for how many calls we could take in an 8 hour day. 

Uh…okay.  What??? 

I’m supposed to be committed to solving our customer’s problems but I get paid more if I’m only on the phone for 70 seconds???  Needless to say, the transfer button became my best friend.  It only took me 10 seconds to move them along to another department thus improving my paycheck considerably, unless they took too long to state their question and oh, we had zero patience for that.  Do you think we felt good about the service we were providing?  Did we enjoy being placed in the us (paycheck) or them (customers) conundrum? 

And the effect of this in terms of productivity?  Do you think the customer’s experience was satisfying?  Do you think the customers loved my “How can I help you?” attitude? (Read sarcasm)  Did we successfully brand ourselves as a company that cared? 

Internally, I was one of the best Customer Service Reps in history (or at least one of the highest paid) but externally, I doubt my service was really much of a service to the customer.  

Beware!

Cognitive dissonance is prevalent in many organizations and the negative effects are huge.  Studies show that when confronted with these situations, the reasoning parts of the brain in charge of sound decision making actually turn off.  Emotions take over and the ability to think clearly and act with reason is impeded.   To cope, employees complain, procrastinate, and find ways to get paid back for the burdens they see as being unjustly placed on them.  In addition, dissonant messages snap any connection between the sender and the receiver.  The employees getting these messages become suspicious, lack passion, and don’t trust.   Cognitive dissonance will ultimately create cynical employees and a company full of cynics equals destruction in a company.  How can you possibly have an engaged workforce under these conditions?

Think about how you tell your employees you trust them but make them get three signatures from higher ups to make a purchase.  Think about working to convince them the company cares but when there’s a layoff, the company doesn’t provide any outplacement services.  Think about the message you send when you commend an employee for taking calls on a sick day but require 2 weeks notice and manager approval for a vacation day.

Is it time to focus on company values and use these to dictate the messages? 

What are some of your dissonant messages?  How can you align your organization’s values with the messages you send to your employees?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since my post about the 99ers and the video I watched.  There are so many facets to the discussion about extending unemployment and what can be done to help these people.  One area I am interested in getting feedback on is corporate social responsibility.  Does this come into play when an organization is preparing for a down-sizing?

Corporate social responsibility is defined as a form of self-regulation integrated into a business model.  The concept is that business embraces responsibility for the impact their decisions have on the environment, the community, the employees, the stakeholders and everyone else in the public sphere. 

Shouldn’t that mean there is a responsibility to the people they’ve let go?  And where does that responsibility end?  Should providing outplacement services and the coaching I discussed in that post be a social responsibility of the company?  There can’t be a much better example of how a business decision impacts communities, employees and people, than a down-sizing.

I wonder if the concept of social responsibility is ever discussed when it comes to layoffs.  Is it mentioned and disregarded as “not our problem” or “there is little we can do” or is it not even discussed at all?  And is it realistic to think you can be socially responsible and profitable at the same time?

There is a very interesting article on the case against social responsibility that says that more often than not, a company cannot do well by doing good and choices have to be made.  So what choices do you make?

What do you think?  Is any thought put into what will happen to the people who are let go?  Should there be?  How responsible is the company for what happens to their displaced employees?

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!