Career Transition; more relevant than ever.

The workplace is offering the most dynamic career change options we have ever witnessed, at an unparalleled pace. The breadth of those options, against an ever more global marketplace, provides a rich mix of opportunity. It is assumed that those active in the work place, particularly the emerging career professionals, are adept at skilfully navigating this exciting landscape. But this land of opportunity is so diverse that the need for skilled and experienced Career Transition support has never been greater.

Outplacement and related services have been such an important support element to organisational change, restructuring, M&A and closures over the years, providing critical support to employees and their families as they face often bewildering and emotionally charged decisions. Surely, we don’t need this level of support any more? Without question the needs have changed but have not diminished. Outplacement itself has re branded to Career Transition and today a contemporary career transition service offers an ever growing and changing range of support services.

We are currently faced with three distinct generations of career holders;

Stage One: the emerging “Career Professionals” are looking to build on a solid academic platform by entering an employment landscape with opportunities that range from micro businesses to corporates, local to global. Lines of career travel are less defined than before and whilst this emerging group are without doubt highly socially mobile the career options open to them need to be proactively planned for and adjusted on a regular basis.

Stage Two: mid-term “Career Changers”. Increasingly, evidence suggests that a modern career path will involve two or three changes. At this stage career transition effectively supports those changes whether sectorial, role, geographic or a move from corporate to an enterprise role. This is so much more than preparing a CV or updating LinkedIn, this is skilled and knowledgeable support which offers challenge, direction and in-depth market know how.

Stage three: the “Final Lap”. Retirement is a very outdated notion with a significant proportion of those in the 55 plus age group now remaining active on an economic level, but the range of opportunity to this group is both diverse and fragmented. Supporting an adjustment from the status quo to a new life adventure is possibly one of the most fulfilling roles a career transition consultancy can have.

With this diversity of challenge in the career landscape comes the very real need for a modern career transition consultancy to deliver innovation in both content and how that content is delivered. Information is generated in a more accessible way than ever before, so rather than mine the information, a modern career consultancy will work with clients to decipher and interpret the key messages.

At CDS we passionately believe that face to face contact with clients is invaluable. Not only face to face but the provision of the right amount of time to work on solutions rather than solve problems. But as an industry we recognise that each of our client groups responds to different media and it is critical we flex to create the correct environment. Coupled with that, the means by which a career transition organisation supports colleagues is also ever changing. In a digital age, where everything is immediate and online, career transition businesses need to lead this trend rather than follow. Technology in career transition is an enabler.

Skype and Facetime provide an additional opportunity to give added value to clients by having short focussed interval coaching to deal with immediate challenges, rather than making a client wait for a response.

The growing use of remote technologies as part of the interview process is a really great challenge for all of us. Prepping for blue screen interviews, remote video prep and online chat interviews will become a standard offer for us all. The electronic CV has been mooted, trialled and stuttered but how candidates will represent themselves digitally, via existing platforms and those yet to come, will be one of the key areas to address. A careful balance to ensure organisations recruit the best candidate not the
best performer needs to be achieved.

Looking into a Brexit period, with its unique career opportunities both at home and abroad, will in the short term create a level of restructuring and right sizing during which a high touch, high innovation and high caring career transition partner will deliver immense value to all parties involved.