April 7, 2003
Flexible Outplacement Programs Give Ayers Candidates an Edge
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| Terry Ebert |
| Managing Director |
| Tel: 212.889.7788 | terry.ebert@ayers.com
“One of the biggest issues we’re dealing with as tight market conditions persist is that more and more candidates are leaving outplacement without new positions in hand,” says Terry Ebert, Ayers’ Managing Director of Career Transition Services. “A job search is both a process and a project. We need to ensure that when our project-management role ends, candidates can continue on their own. That means preparing them not only for going through the search process but also for managing the search project.
“Our Wrap-Up Seminars (see “Wrap-Up Seminars Put It All Together”) are key to this effort,” he continues. “So is our flexibility in structuring programs.” As examples, Ebert notes that Ayers offers candidates who are on short programs extended access to its Internet Resource Center (IRC), designed to aid candidates with online research, and Online Career Center (OCC), an interactive Web-based career transition tool. “We also allow them to stretch their allotted contact with our consultants over a longer period of time,” he adds.
To provide post-program support, the firm has introduced two kinds of informal networking groups into its outplacement programs: structured dyads/triads of candidates with similar backgrounds or interests but different functionalities (to eliminate competition or conflict), and small self-directed support teams of candidates who receive training in specific job-search skills as a group. “The latter provide an efficient approach to training, and participants benefit from the synergy,” Ebert observes. “Of course, they also receive one-on-one counseling.”
Brought together by individual outplacement consultants, candidates within each group are encouraged to stay in contact and support each other after the structured program has ended. The new groups join the firm’s formal networking groups: the Peak Performance Team for senior executives and function-specific networking groups for international, financial, IT, HR, and general senior executives.
Additionally, Ayers has developed a team approach to counseling in which each candidate with a program of three months or longer is supported by a primary counselor along with one or two “teamed” counselors. This ensures ongoing support if the primary counselor is working with another candidate, at a client site, or otherwise unavailable when an important issue comes up. It also enables the candidate to get a broader perspective on most search matters as each counselor has individual areas of expertise, as well as different networks from which the candidate can benefit.
“We can afford to be more flexible in our approach than many of the larger firms,” Ebert observes. “Most are profit-centers of big parent companies, which means making two margins. Career Partners International, of which Ayers is a co-owner, is comparable in size to the bigger outplacement operations, but it comprises regional firms. There’s only a single margin, which allows us to think in a different way.
“We all feel the same pressure from the marketplace, but organizations that have to make a double margin can’t respond on the pricing side,” he continues. “So they are engaging in more cost cutting than we are at a time when they’re taking on higher candidate loads. That forces them to take a more traditional, standardized approach, while we’re in a position to provide individualized programs and a higher level of service.”
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