Out with outplacement services
Comments (1) I am so mad I could bite a brick. I just had a conversation from someone laid off from a major Seattle bank. He mentioned the outplacement services provided him with advice and support. He wasn’t impressed with the support but he said they created a terrific resume for him. He felt he had his job search covered.
His resume is awful. It is formatted nicely and looks good but it uses empty words like, ‘responsible for’ and ‘worked with.’ The resume did not have an objective or summary. There were no accomplishments supported by metrics and it spent time describing him as a go getter and high energy leader with absolutely nothing to substantiate his claims.
There was nothing in his resume or cover letter to distinguish him from the hundreds of other Seattle technology executives looking for jobs. He has wasted five weeks working with the outplacement services and after all that time, he didn’t even have an elevator pitch. Because he felt let down by the coaching he got, he now feels job search coaches are useless.
People, please, don’t write off coaches after being disappointed using the services of an outplacement group. While some can provide decent services, don’t assume you are getting what you need. Vet the service just as you would vet a recruiter or other coach. For the most part, people who work for the services are not job search coaches, they are outplacement administrators offering ‘one size fits none’ solutions to your job search.
Themocracy