| EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY |
 OUTPLACEMENT
IS A PROCESS in which businesses
engage experts—typically
outplacement organizations or individual
consultants—to offer support,
personal assessments and training to
employees losing jobs to clarify their
career preferences and identify their
strengths. Depending on circumstances,
the service may counsel either groups or
individuals. EXPERTS WHO
GET EMPLOYEES FOCUSED on the
future, rather than dwelling on the past,
can go a long way toward minimizing
potential lawsuits.
OUTPLACEMENT CONSISTS
OF FIVE BASIC PHASES: orientation,
assessment and evaluation, resume writing
and the job interview, targeting the job
market and building your network, and
landing the job.
TO IDENTIFY THEIR
STRENGTHS and weaknesses and
possibly discover new career affinities,
job seekers take aptitude and
psychological tests. CPAs can use the
assessment phase to explore ways to widen
their horizons. Some decide to do
something completely different.
OUTPLACEMENT CAN
TEACH JOB SEEKERS how to focus
on their career highlights to create a
strong resume and a favorable impression
at an interview. Critiques of videotaped
mock interviews can provide helpful
feedback.
IT'S BEGINNING TO
TAKE LONGER to land a job than
was the case a year ago. For individuals
with salaries over the $100,000 level, it
may take up to six months to get a new
job, experts say. Shop carefully for an
outplacement consultant.
|
| JOHN LEWISON is director of
human resources for a New York-based
policy and research organization and is
assistant professor of management,
Graduate HRD Division, at the University
of Bridgeport in Connecticut, where he
teaches courses in management. Until
recently he was executive director of the
New York State Society for Human Resource
Management. |
 t
doesn’t matter whether you call it a
reduction in force, a layoff, a downsizing, a
rightsizing or a reengineering. On the stress
scale the loss of a job ranks third as one of
life’s great traumas, just behind death and
divorce. Today most employees lose jobs as a
result of a merger, acquisition or economic
slowdown rather than their performance, and
almost no field or industry has escaped the
dramatic increase in downsizing—including
banks, financial institutions and CPA firms.
American Express, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase
and PricewaterhouseCoopers all have announced the
layoff of thousands of workers recently, and a
major outplacement company says nearly half the
individuals seeking its help have held positions
in finance or accounting.
Alas, knowing
they’re part of a trend and have plenty of
company doesn’t ease employees’ sense
of personal assault when an employer decides to
say “so long.” If change becomes a fact
of life because of a merger or business downturn,
outplacement and career-management counseling can
play a vital role in helping displaced CPAs and
financial managers make a soft landing. It also
can help move a stalled career forward.
IT
PAYS OFF
Outplacement
is a term coined more than 30 years ago by Tom
Hubbard, founder of Thinc, a New York-based
career-consultancy pioneer. It’s a process
in which businesses engage experts—typically
outplacement organizations or individual
consultants—to offer support, personal
assessments and job-skills and interviewing
training to employees they’re letting go.
“Today job searches—especially those of
professionals such as lawyers and CPAs—are
more complex,” and as a result
“outplacement now includes total career
management and coaching,” says John Quirk, a
director at Spherion, which does workforce
consulting.
| National
outplacement companies include
Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Drake
Beam Morin, Lee Hecht Harrison, Right
Management Consultants and Spherion (see
“Additional Resources,” page
46). At the other end of the spectrum are
hundreds of small “boutiques”
and individuals, some of whom are
certified by the International
Association of Career Management
Professionals (IACMP) or the
International Board of Career Management
Certification (IBCMC). |
| Approximately
80% of U.S. employers now provide
some kind of outplacement
services to employees who need
them. Source: Drake Beam
Morin, www.dbm.com.
|
|
All of them charge a fee
for their services. Larger companies typically
are paid directly by the business that is laying
off staff while smaller entities and individual
consultants are paid by either the business or
the individual needing career-management
services.
Outplacement companies may
administer assessment tests and personality
profiles to help departing workers clarify their
career preferences and identify their strengths.
Depending on circumstances, the service may
counsel either groups or individuals. Among their
techniques are role-playing and critiques of
videotaped mock employment interviews. In some
cases, they invite experts to speak about
job-search strategies and alternatives such as
self-employment, and they teach the newly
unemployed how to research opportunities and
write a targeted resume. “We see ourselves
as coaches,” says Jim Jonell of Careerlab in
Englewood, Colorado. “You never send someone
out on the playing field without a coach.”
As the service becomes more
common, “smaller companies are providing
outplacement these days,” says Patty Prosser
of OI Partners, a New Jersey-based
career-consulting firm. Last year, several
companies with fewer than 50 employees retained
Prosser’s firm to provide laid-off workers
with resume tips, interview coaching, job
referrals, occupational testing and other
services. In contrast, “five years ago, it
was predominantly the Fortune 500”
that did this, Prosser says. Then, outplacement
providers could charge anywhere from $5,000 to
$25,000 for help for a departing executive, but
competition has brought the price down, making
the service more accessible. Many companies of
all sizes now foot the bill for outplacement for
their departing workers—and consider it
money well spent.
Paul Stelter, a vice-president
and general manager of Texas-based
career-advisory firm Thompson Consulting, says
employers benefit, too. “When people leave
an organization, most stay in the same industry
or community. The way they are treated upon their
departure has a bearing on future
relationships,” he says. The last thing a
company or firm needs or wants is a disgruntled
former employee bad-mouthing it to potential
clients and customers.
Averting litigation is another
good reason to use outplacement, says Al
Sniadecki, a former human resources professional
who purchased such services for his Texas-based
staffing business before losing his own job. He
says the dollars a firm spends to help employees
find new jobs are minimal when compared with the
threat of an age-discrimination lawsuit by an
angry manager. (Many downsized employees are in
the 40–70 age range.) Although no
outplacement service can guarantee that a
displaced worker will not sue a firm, experts who
get employees focused on the future, rather than
dwelling on the past, can go a long way toward
minimizing potential lawsuits. “A healthy
transition for everybody means fewer lawsuits and
less negative talk on the street,” Jonell
says.
Don’t
Get Mad,
Get Organized When
the economy convulses, no one is immune.
“Losing your job is like a death in
the family,” says Sandra Young, a
partner in Women’s Focus, a
career-counseling firm in Orange County,
California. The silver lining is that a
job setback can provide an opportunity
for greater self-awareness. Here are some
pointers on picking up the pieces:
Fight the feeling. “The
first reactions when people are let go
are anger, denial, bargaining and, more
often than not, relief—since they
finally know where they stand,” says
Aaron Nierenberg, a New Brunswick, New
Jersey, career consultant. After that,
“resentments start surfacing.”
Take 24 hours to think the process
through before doing anything, advises
Young.
There may be a strong temptation to
wallow in your perceived victimhood, says
Joan Oliver, a Drake Beam Morin
vice-president, but “don’t
prolong the pity party for more than
three days.” Cool off during that
initial period, she says, and “go
through the want ads or search the
Internet for jobs, but don’t make
any phone calls to potential employers at
that time.”
Talk to an attorney. If
the company is not going out of business
and you are being let go, don’t say
or sign anything but do talk to an
attorney. He or she may be able to
negotiate an improved severance package,
particularly if you’ve been with the
company for a while.
Protect your family. Take
steps to continue health coverage for the
family, and child care if needed. A
family therapist recommends that parents
explain the loss of a job to children and
take them into confidence as completely
as possible without scaring them.
Sign up for unemployment. In
addition, figure out how much vacation
pay and other reimbursable
“entitlements” the firm owes
you.
Obtain references.
If you don’t feel your current boss
will recommend you well, ask someone else
to write a reference on the company
letterhead. Bear in mind that some
companies may have a policy against this,
however.
List all your resources. List
your friends, relatives and business
associates who might know of employment
opportunities, Oliver says. List past
jobs in chronological order (this is the
basis of your resume). List on-the-job
accomplishments, awards and organizations
you are part of or might want to join.
“Look at all your assets,”
suggests Jim Jonell of Careerlab.
“Accountants look at other
people’s assets all the time but
have a hard time looking at their
own.”
|
Activate
your network. Because even
the most well-crafted resume may never
get read, the most important job-hunting
skill is networking. (Consider: Fifty-six
percent of polled executives say they
spend five minutes or less reviewing each
resume they receive for an advertised
position.) “One mistake
accountants make is that they get so
involved in their jobs, they lose their
network,” Jonell says. Gather a
contact list of about 40 e-mail addresses
of clients, friends, former colleagues
and people at firms you want to target,
he recommends. The first piece of e-mail
to send these contacts should include
your resume. Then follow up with short,
weekly e-mails reminding them you’re
out there. The goal is to connect with
people at firms you have targeted as
potential employers and get an interview.
Exploit outplacement
services. Up until a few
years ago, “not many employers
offered outplacement assistance to anyone
other than senior-level executives, but
now companies realize outplacement is a
responsible way of dealing with
layoffs,” says Paul McDonald of
Robert Half. It’s to your advantage
to use them.
Use the downtime wisely. Employers
who offer such help typically make it a
three- to six-month benefit, though how
long it will take to find a job depends
on variables such as your salary range,
level within the organization and how
willing you are to relocate or to change
industries. “While you may not find
a job in that time, you will have learned
the skills to do so,” Oliver says.
Take interim work. Many
job seekers benefit emotionally by doing
temporary work. It helps financially, of
course, but perhaps the most convincing
argument for taking interim work is that
it provides networking possibilities. In Job
Hunting for Dummies, Max Messmer
says, “Thirty-eight percent of
temporary workers today have been offered
full-time jobs at companies where they
were on assignments.”
Look at other options. Losing
your job might be incentive in disguise
if you hated your job anyway, so try a
different tack. “There’s more
need for specialized services today in
wealth management, financial planning and
debt restructuring,” says McDonald
of options available to a CPA.
Studies show that it could take
several years to get back to a former
salary level after losing some high-level
jobs. Rather than retracing steps, job
seekers should perhaps switch industries,
he says.
—Carol Lippert
Gray
Ms. Gray is a former managing editor
of Financial Executive magazine.
Her e-mail address is clippy331@aol.com.
|
OUTPLACEMENT
HAS SEVERAL PHASES
Outplacement companies and
consultants help laid-off workers structure their
transition using five basic steps. They are
 Orientation.
In the first stage, individuals receive coaching
on career management and practical aspects of
their immediate predicament. Depending on whether
they are offered a budget package or a
top-of-the-line one, they might get as little as
a half-day seminar given by someone with human
resources experience or as much as an unlimited
series of individual counseling appointments with
a certified practitioner. The objective is to
help them come to terms with the emotional side
of their job loss and examine the economic impact
the event will have on their lifestyle and their
family.
Gianni Cordazzo, a licensed
financial planner, often assists CPAs and others
with handling a concrete aspect of their
transition: In such cases, he works with those
first learning of their layoff to help them
“put their financial house in order,”
he says. CPAs are good at analyzing a business
statement, but a “dispassionate third
party” can advise newly laid-off
practitioners about preparing a financial plan
and reviewing their health and life insurance
needs before conversion periods expire.
Assessment and
evaluation. In the assessment
phase, job seekers take aptitude and
psychological tests to identify their strengths
and weaknesses and possibly discover new career
affinities. CPAs, who may feel pigeonholed, can
use the assessment phase to explore ways to widen
their horizons.
One of the most popular
psychological tests used in business, industry
and by many career-transition professionals is
the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). It offers
individuals a basis for evaluating work or work
settings that may best suit them. MBTI measures
characteristics such as degree of
extroversion/introversion, sensing/intuition,
thinking/feeling and judging/perceiving. The
results can help sort out which types of
positions a financial professional in need of a
job ought to consider.
Right Management managing
principal Andrea Eisenberg encourages CPAs not to
be myopic and to consider using skills that might
qualify them for other roles such as manager of a
purchasing department, for example. By
profession, says Eisenberg, CPAs “live in a
structured and sequential” world and often
“feel awkward about their career
change.” For them, the assessment phase is
critically important, she says.
Resume writing
and the job interview. The third
phase of the outplacement process offers
instruction in crafting a resume and preparing
for networking and job interviews. Many CPAs
don’t like to “sell” themselves,
says Jim Borland, PhD, an adviser in private
practice and former director of the Manhattan
Five O’Clock Club (see “The Club
Scene,”at the end
of this article). This stage helps individuals
develop their interviewing and social
“contact” skills, he says.
A really good resume must show
how job duties led to results and workplace
improvements. That’s the key for potential
employers, who don’t just want to know what
an employee was responsible for but also what
benefits they’ll get from the person they
hire. Closing the company’s books might be
an important job function for a CPA, but
implementing new systems and procedures that
enable the books to close four weeks faster is
what really counts to a prospective employer,
says Quirk.
| How
to Choose an Outplacement Service |
 Pay an on-site visit to the
facility—does it offer individual
workspaces and/ or offices or only small,
open-access cubicles? Privacy is
desirable. If the outplacement company
offers executive offices, is there enough
administrative support? Who answers the
phones and takes messages? Is voice mail
available? What about e-mail and fax
capability?
Is there a library
for research, and if so, is it adequately
set up with resource materials such as
CD-ROM databases and Internet access?
Look at the program
materials such as training classes and
psychological assessments. Does the
training appear adequate to teach
ex-employees the self-marketing skills
they need?
If the outplacement
company offers only a seminar program
(typically two to three days covering the
basics), how large will each class be?
Ask how the seminar is run.
|
Ask about the counselor or
consultant workloads. Most experts
believe that one internal counselor/
consultant can work with no more than 15
to 25 individuals at a time. If the
workload is much greater than this ratio,
it might be wise to look elsewhere. Ask about the success rate of
the office. You want to know both the
percentage of individuals who land a new
job and the average time it takes. Keep
in mind the level of those looking for
new positions: Higher salaried jobs take
longer.
Research the
overall quality and reputation of the
outplacement company. Ask for references.
Check with career-consulting
organizations that certify outplacement
professionals.
Source:
Adapted from “Maximizing Your
Outplacement ROI: How to Select the Best
Service” by Kenneth M. Dawson and
Sheryl N. Dawson (Dawson & Dawson
Consultants Inc.).
|
Targeting
the job market and building your network. The
fourth phase in the process is perhaps the most
challenging—developing an understanding of
the job market (both advertised and hidden),
dealing with search firms and want ads
effectively and building a personal career
network—critical to finding the right job.
Networking is how 50 percent or
more of all jobs are found. The idea is simple:
The more people that a job seeker asks for leads,
the greater the likelihood of finding one. As
Quirk puts it, “Every person you talk to
about your job search in turn becomes another
pair of ‘eyes and ears’ on the lookout
for career opportunities on your behalf.”
Career counselors tell job
seekers to make a list of friends, neighbors and
professional colleagues. Then they suggest
calling these contacts to set up appointments to
meet with them. Don’t be shy or embarrassed
to talk about your job change during these
meetings, and “don’t forget to ask for
other people you can contact,” says Quirk.
“You’d be surprised how helpful most
people want to be,” he says.
Landing the
job. The final phase in the
outplacement process is locking down a
satisfactory job and negotiating with the new
employer for salary, perquisites and anything
else of importance—in short, “closing
the deal.” Far too often, job seekers accept
the starting salary that’s offered. In some
instances, they’re afraid that if they
don’t accept on the spot, the firm will
withdraw the offer and move on to the next
applicant.
Career coaches say this rarely
is the case. Firms invest a great deal of time,
and often money, in selecting the right person to
fill an opening. The last thing they want to do
is let a few dollars or a reasonable request
(such as an extra week of vacation) stand in the
way of bringing their first choice on board.
Further, many corporations and larger accounting
firms have to work with salary ranges, so when
they offer applicants a salary at the lower end
of an established range it leaves room for
negotiation. A job seeker who says something like
“I really want to work for your firm, but I
hope you have some flexibility in your salary
offer” likely could obtain a higher starting
salary than the opening bid.
| CAREER
PATHS The
market has been a good one for CPAs for
quite a few years, giving them an
advantage when it comes to changing jobs.
Some see a CPA designation as a built-in
asset. “My license gives me instant
credibility,” says one. “People
know what they are getting.”
In addition,
“accountants are easy to work with.
They’re focused, well educated and
open to learning,” Jonell says.
Eisenberg agrees and says, “CPAs
tend to land jobs faster than
others” because “they often
know what they want to do and are
computer and Internet savvy.”
For example, when
Stephen Ryan and about 30 other Big Five
employees were given 90 days’ notice
in early 2000, their firm offered
outplacement to the downsized employees,
but only during the last 30 days of the
transition period. By then, Ryan and his
colleagues had been scouring the Internet
and Sunday newspapers and networking to
find job leads. A newspaper ad led him to
his present position as an application
manager and tax integration specialist
before the outplacement services kicked
in. Ryan says the service helped him with
the interview process, however:
“They teach you to concentrate on
what stories you want to tell and to
focus on the highlights of your
career.” He found mock interviews
and videotape critiques especially
helpful.
Although 80% to 85% of
job seekers still find jobs in their own
profession—a few change course and
do something completely different.
Eisenberg cites a CPA who lost his job as
a result of corporate reorganization and
in counseling stated that although he had
made a good living as a CPA and enjoyed
the profession, he’d always had a
secret desire to be a tap dancer. Using
the outplacement process, her CPA client
“reinvented himself and his resume
and ended up working in a theater doing
conferences and programs,” she says.
Other job seekers start
businesses, but the figure is small. Only
8% to 10% of displaced managers actually
do so. Although CPAs may be more adept at
entrepreneurship than others, it
isn’t for everyone, says Paul
McDonald, a Robert Half executive
director. The marketing activities
required for “business development
could be difficult for many
accountants,” he says.
Outplacement
professionals say it’s beginning to
take a few weeks to a month longer to
land a job than was the case a year ago.
“The average is still about three to
five months,” says Borland.
“Individuals with salaries over the
$100,000 level may take up to six months
to get a job,” says another expert.
Whatever the
difficulties, Ryan advises:
“Don’t be bitter; that’s
only going to show through in the
interview. You’ve got to believe in
yourself.”
|
| Additional
Resources Coaching
is available from a number of
entities and individuals (see
“Put Me
In, Coach,” JofA,
Nov.01, page 55). State and local
agencies such as unemployment
offices can provide job-change
information including courses and
individual career counseling.
Other resources include
associations (below), their
newsletters and archives and
interviews with management:
Career-consulting
organizations
International Association of
Career Management Professionals
(IACMP), www.iacmp.org.
Association
of Career Management Consulting
Firms International (AOCFI), www.aocfi.org.
International Board of Career
Management Certification (IBCMC),
www.ibcmc.com.
Outplacement
companies
Challenger,
Gray & Christmas Inc., www.challengergray.com.
Drake Beam
Morin Inc., www.dbm.com.
ExecuNet, www.execunet.com.
Lee Hecht
Harrison Inc., www.lhh.com.
OI Partners
Inc., www.oiworldwide.com.
Right
Management Consultants, www.right.com.
Spherion
Corp., www.spherion.com.
Self-help
and low-cost alternatives
If the
expense of outplacement is too
much for you, look into the
self-help support groups that
have sprung up around the
country. Many of them operate by
word of mouth and are staffed on
a volunteer basis by
professionals with regular jobs
in the career management field.
Often they are run by religious
entities.
“These
self-help groups offer practical
and emotional support at a
difficult point in an
individual’s life,”
says Ida Davis, a career
management consultant in private
practice (careersinaction@lycos.com). Many
self-help groups follow a
curriculum that is not too
different from that of the major
outplacement companies, she says.
She volunteers her time to one
such group in Westchester County,
New York. We “provide
direction and support. We do not
find people jobs,” she says.
|
|
PICK
QUALIFIED HELP
A financial professional
considering purchasing outplacement services for
a business or him- or herself should make sure an
outplacement company is trustworthy (see “How to Choose an Outplacement Service,” above). Get references and ask
for referrals from friends who have been through
a recent job search. Check reputations with the
Better Business Bureau. Many professional career
counselors belong to the International
Association of Career Management Professionals,
the Association of Career Management Consulting
Firms International or the International Board of
Career Management Certification. Given the stakes
and the intimacy of the outplacement process, be
sure to interview potential outplacement
candidates to evaluate their suitability.
There’s no substitute for face-to-face
communication.
It’s not all up to the
career consultant either. Anyone who has been
through outplacement learns quickly that the
job-changing process is a full-time job in
itself—one to which the seeker has to give a
focused effort. One CPA who works in
international banking but didn’t want to be
identified says: “It’s one of the most
exciting opportunities for personal growth
you’ll ever have in your life. It makes you
think about what you want to do over the long
term.”
|
| HOME | ARCHIVE | CONTACT | ADVERTISE | SUBSCRIBE | AICPA