5 Ways Outplacement Can Benefit You
As the market takes a turn for the worse or a company fails to reach its goals, sometimes cost-cutting measures and redundancies start to hit the organization. It could happen to anyone. Facing the prospect of unemployment or a lengthy job search is never ideal. To add to this challenge, finding a new job isn’t always the easiest thing to do.
If your employer offers a modern outplacement service as part of a severance package, it can be very helpful for getting you into a new job or career field. These services offer countless benefits for affected employees and can mean the difference between starting a new career quickly or languishing in the job search indefinitely. Here are five ways taking advantage of an outplacement firm’s services can benefit you in your pursuit of a new career.
Learn Valuable New Skills
A significant part of succeeding in any industry is to learn new skills and hone your existing skills. Stagnating on growing your skills and knowledge is the exact opposite course to take when seeking a new job. Soft skills like communication, dependability, adaptability, teamwork, and time management aren’t something everyone innately possesses. They can, however, be learned. And that’s precisely what an outplacement service will help you do. They’ll also aid in preparation for remote work and help you develop skills like emotional intelligence. In the process, you’ll also learn industry-specific skills that will give you an edge when it’s time to step into your new role at a different company.
Faster Job Placement
A key value of professional outplacement services is helping displaced employees find a job faster. If you’ve been out of the job market for some time, you may not realize how much everything has changed over the years. With newer technology coming out at a rapid clip, updated attitudes, and evolving workspaces, it can be daunting to jump back into the job hunt. With access to exclusive job boards, interview coaching, and professional career coaches, candidates receive all the tools they need to get into a new role fast. The only thing outplacement can’t do is ace your interview. But at least you’ll be prepared to do your best and hopefully land a new job quickly.
Resume Assistance
If you’re like most of us, it’s probably been a while since the last time you updated your resume or CV (curriculum vitae). As a part of the outplacement package, professionals will help you rewrite and design your resume to optimize it for any potential job. Career counselors will help you tailor your resume to your desired job, but they won’t write it for you. Through sharing extensive and current knowledge of the job market (and various fields), they can help you highlight appropriate skills that directly address available opportunities. According to Forbes, a quality resume should take a “less is more” approach and highlight leadership roles. There are also certain words, phrases, length, and formatting considerations that can help get your resume past those automated resume parsing services some employers are using these days.
Comprehensive Job Coaching
Learning new skills and preparing a killer resume aren’t the only avenues to finding a new job through outplacement. You need career coaching to help you prepare for your next role. Coaching offers flexibility and strategy for your job search. A good coach can teach you how to leverage your abilities and integrate them with modern technology (LinkedIn, building a portfolio, navigating remote work, etc) to get you ready for a new job. They can also do it from anywhere via teleconferencing, so you can develop your skills, rehearse for interviews, and learn how to write appropriate cover letters/introduction emails from the comfort of your home. Coaches help you perform self-assessment and figure out what you want to do. Moreover, they’ll end up crafting a comprehensive, personalized, and hassle-free experience to help you get back on your feet in no time.
Future-proof Your Career
An unexpected benefit of the new skills you’ll learn through a modern outplacement service is the ability to “future-proof” your career. While this may sound like a meaningless buzzword, it’s actually an important factor in maintaining your success long term. Sometimes, a candidate may find employment in a different industry altogether. With remote work making it viable to do so, there’s been an uptick in people changing industries and working from home over the past year or so. Future-proofing involves teaching new skills (the reskilling we talked about earlier) and preparing them for global opportunities. By teaching employees to be adaptable to new forms of work in different areas, acclimating themselves to the modern workplace, a good outplacement service can essentially set up their clients to bring value and skills to just about any industry down the line.