Day 18 & 19 - Learning a trick or two

SITTING IN A GREY CLASSROOM
I went to outplacement services yesterday with a bit of skepticism and therefore arrived a few minutes late (I like to make dramatic entrances). I looked around the table and all I could think about was the Christmas Cartoon (Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer)and the Land of Broken Toys. As I sized up the landscape of my unemployed peers it was kind of depressing. It was like a stepped into a time warp full of colorfully/busy designed sweaters and outdated eye glass frames that were as big as my head. It made me wonder what the trainer leading the session thought as he sees a bunch of us day after day. It certainly did not seem like the brain trust coming together.

Moving on ... the content of the seminar was really good. As I sat into orientation, the trainer took us through exercises pinpointing our skills, talents and desires. The key theme was that we as the job seeker really needed to be laser focused on the type of positions we wanted to close . This was a really good point and the exercise turned out to be very meaningful. Most of the time was spent on us putting together our resume and developing elevator speeches. The session was a good use of time.

BUZZ KILL
The vibe of the class was really flowing and generally people were breaking out of their shells with good conversation. Then, it happened ... the director of the outplacement firm came into introduce himself and wanted to take about 5 minutes of our time to explain the services, roles and responsibilities. He was very effective at sucking the fragile energy out of the room. It was the longest 5 minutes (which was really 15 minutes) where he lectured us on the outplacement services offered and what to expect. He talked about our consultants being responsive but not always available as they helped many clients. And then he went into the dreaded customer satisfaction survey. He explained that his boss would question any score given about their services that was under a "10." I felt like I was in a car dealership when your overly aggressive salesperson pleads with you to fill out a perfect score or they will not get commission.

He asked us if we had any questions and someone asked if he had any stats on the success of this process. He could not answer the question due to many circumstances yada yada... He ended this inspirational speech with saying that about 60% of his clients typically have to move because Michigan's job market sucks. In addition, many out of state employers would not even touch Michigan unemployed because we couldn't get out our house to move.

This outplacement firm really has a strange way of identifying leadership in their organization. I felt sorry for all the outplacement consultants that reported to this firecracker. I quickly checked to see that this guy was my assigned advisor through the process...phew he wasn't. Unfortunately, some my friends were not as lucky and have this gem.

REALIZATION - It is good to use outplacement services if they are offered to you. Great tips and helps to organize your search process. Realization 2 -I may have a good job lead at this outplacement firm. If they hire me it would be a good upgrade of talent from this dud. I would of course provide him free outplacement services with the same enthusiasm.