The best redundancy experience
Can the outplacement services that companies provide after a redundancy make a difference in finding the next role? Penny Pryor talks to two institutional executives about their personal experiences.
When companies like Toyota and Holden announce they are closing up factories and mass redundancies will result, the announcements about outplacement programs and support for former employees are not far behind.
Large companies like Toyota and Holden can afford to establish their own job centres that can provide outgoing employees assistance with resumes, practice interviews and one-on-one consultations.
Financial services has not experienced mass job cuts for some time but the changing nature of the industry has resulted in a number of redundancies in certain parts of the sector.
When redundancies happen, what companies do in terms of providing support and outplacement services can have a big impact on finding the next professional role.
"We worked out that the institutional space wasn't really going to be Pengana's happy hunting ground and that's where my strengths and core skills lay," he says.
His departure from Pengana was amicable and he says he was treated very well. He was offered traditional outplacement services, such as courses in resume writing, but he didn't take them up, as he didn't think they would be particularly useful.
"I figured a lot of the kind of stuff on offer I could probably do anyway," he says.
"If you've got to go to a formal head hunter situation you could be accused of being asleep at the wheel because there are a lot of other avenues out there to get things done." Denis Carroll
What he found most useful, and was more grateful for, was his former employer going out of their way at "keeping their eyes and ears open for me". They also contacted people in the industry who they thought might have suitable positions.
"There was no shortage of willingness in offering support," Carroll says.
Pengana is not a large company but it is a very supportive one and Carroll, now CEO of CheckRisk Australia, only has good things to say about his former employer.
Another seasoned institutional sales executive, who did not wish to be named, also worked for a smaller company and says he was treated very fairly when he was made redundant last year.
"[Former employer] didn't offer outplacement services but when I asked for it, it was offered," he says.
He was given a budget for outplacement services at an external provider and took advantage of the financial planning/tax planning and counselling services they offered.
Specialist outplacement firms can also go over the numbers and make sure you've received the correct amount in entitlements. Due to the tricky nature of how severance payments are taxed, it can be useful to get a second pair of eyes to review your final payment information. Even the best-intentioned companies can make mistakes.
There are also online tools available and outplacement companies even offer courses on how to understand social media and how to make sure your online presence on sites like LinkedIn can be optimised for job seeking.
In terms of structural change in the industry over the past decade, superannuation funds have gotten bigger but their number has decreased, while the reverse could be said for fund managers.
"The number of people on an institutional team is less and less," the institutional executive says.
"The way the industry changes obviously has an impact on how you market yourself."
Both Carroll and the institutional sales executive say that the nature of the job market has also changed dramatically over the past decade and networking is now much more important.
"If you've got to go to a formal head hunter situation you could be accused of being asleep at the wheel because there are a lot of other avenues out there to get things done," Carroll says.
The most ideal outplacement services are therefore those that can expose you to better networking opportunities or show you how to make better use of your relationships.
