Redundancy exercises are never easy - – both for companies and the impacted employees.
Even for tech firms where there are a lot of hiring and letting go, it doesn’t make things easier.
Companies who offer retrenched employees an option to seek professional help, will be viewed in a much better light. We should never underestimate the viral power of a positive (and yes, a negative) employee experience. Besides, if this is within your means, we should do the right thing by them.
How this transition process is managed will have an impact not just on a company’s employer reputation that affects hiring after the exercise, but also on the morale and performance of the existing employees left to carry the bag.
How can outplacement services from Progression Search be a win-win-win proposition for you?
In our 10 years of operation covering APAC technology landscape, our consultants have provided career counselling advice to countless number of candidates, employed and retrenched. From analysing candidates’ achievements, coaching them to leverage on their strengths, we also shared with them what are the best ways to stand out to get their next job and how to maintain a positive mindset throughout the whole job seeking process, an important aspect for retrenched candidates.
Why Progression for outplacement services then? Don’t a gazillion other firms do this?
No. Most firms are either 1) Generic HR services including outplacement 2) Don’t understand the tech industry competitive landscape 3) Not familiar with interview styles of Silicon Valley hirers.
And most importantly - we help candidates dress up and pitch their profile to mutually agreed potential employers list.
In our outplacement advisory s, we tailor the session/s to the individual with this framework.
Session 1: Industry relevant career advice
Duration: 60 to 90 minutes
- Transition Management
Help them transit emotionally from a state of being freshly retrenched to make space to accept and move on with a plan.
- Derive and Define Ideal Goal
We help them clearly define their ideal next career move and give them practical advice on how to work towards achieving it.
Some of them may be more impacted by the redundancy and in a hurry to find the next job. Others may see this as a chance to take a well-deserved break and are in no hurry. And yet some may want to take this chance to do something new and refreshing. What is ideal to them, is very personal. Our job is to give them practical advice that will help them towards that goal.
Session 2: Job Search Plan and Strategy
Duration: 60 to 90 minutes
We will match the individual’s current gaps & transferable skills to their ideal role and what they need to acquire in the next 6 months.
If they have the skills to get the job they want – good. We will cover the searching for the ideal jobs online, how to go about it.
If they don’t, we will discuss what transferable skills they can show for now and what they need to go acquire in the next 6 months.
We will work with them to identify 10 target companies for us to pitch their candidature to the organisation in a professional and discreet manner.
Session 3: Execute the Plan Part 1 – Tighten CV and LinkedIn profile
Duration: 5 days
The angles and the objectives are different for a CV and LinkedIn. For example in LinkedIn, other than dressing up the profile, we will help to reverse engineer the keywords as well so they are top surfaced candidates and looking good whether it's a junior recruiter executing a simple search string or by experienced headhunters.
We make sure they are showing the right achievements in their CV as well and often it has to be customized and relevant to the role they want. Depending on the job, sometimes the CV may need to be tweaked e.g. If they are a channels practitioner applying for a channel sales role, it may require more meat for direct partner sales activities/impact versus a channel development where indirect sales related activities and overall partner growth is more prevalent.
Session 4: Candidate Pitching Services
Duration: 3-4 weeks
This is our most unique service because we are experienced in being able to identify the right stakeholders within each organisation and find ways to present their candidature in front of the key decision makers. This will be more effective than having them apply to a job posting online and having the CV sit in a resume repository with 1000 other applicants.
There are a good number of employers who are more impressed by candidates who are represented by headhunters, who can highlight their strengths and reasons why they are recommended to them. More importantly, we do that with discretion and finesse. This is something that it's not easy for a candidate to do it themselves, so we do it for them instead.
Session 5: Execute the Plan Part 2 - Interview Preparation
Duration: 60 minutes
Make sure they can demonstrate their key strengths with specific examples.
We will prepare them for the following:
- Who are the likely stakeholders, their objectives and how to prepare for them
- Tricky questions and answers
- Major Significant Achievement (MSA) and how to articulate it well
We will help them to prepare as much as we can, so that they never go in blind and will be able to impress their interviewers.
In an interview, they have to understand the interviewer psychic. A regular recruiter will want to qualify if you have the right skills and culture fit, broadly. A peer interviewer might focus on certain areas. A hiring manager may look at gaps in the team and value certain things more. We will look up interviewers and get their profiles. We will teach them our MSA way, taught by the famous Lou Alder so that they say things that are relevant and able to show direct competency for the job.
Session 6: Salary negotiation and advise
Duration: In parallel with final interviews
Let’s not forget that the most important point of being in an interview – to get the job itself and the compensation they would like. Anyone who has been in the offer negotiation stage would know how awkward it can get if minds (or wallets) don't meet.
This is a very delicate process, to be honest and no one wants to ask for a figure that makes them look greedy nor short-change themselves unknowingly.
We will guide them on how they can present their expectations in a reasonable and savvy fashion in order to secure the job at the price they want.
Follow up: Follow through after successful placement
We will provide you, the Client with both with the individual’s transitioning progress as well their adjustment progress in their new job as this will provide you an oversight to your investment in our outplacement services.
These sessions are available by modules on their own but we are happy to understand your needs.
Talk to us today - email us or call at +65 62061859 to tailor your wishlist with us.