OUTPLACEMENT VS REVERSE HEADHUNTING · HEADHUNTERS INTERNATIONAL
Your Exit Package Includes Outplacement. Is It Enough to Find Your Next Senior Role?
Outplacement is paid for by the employer that made you redundant, as part of the exit package. Its brief is to help you find a role, and it is often good at the parts of a search that apply to everyone, such as a CV refresh, interview practice and somewhere to go on a Tuesday morning. Nobody in it is paid by you, and the brief it was given rarely asks whether the next role is the right one, at the right level. For a director or above, that is the gap worth looking at before you decide whether outplacement alone will do.
Executives tend to reach us in the weeks after the meeting. The settlement agreement is signed, or sitting on the kitchen table waiting for the solicitor's comments. A paragraph near the end says the company will provide a career transition programme for three or six months, and HR mentioned it warmly, as if it were a gift. Your partner thinks you should take it. Part of you does too, and part of you is wary of help arranged by the people who have shown you the door.
Both instincts are reasonable, and many outplacement providers do good work for many people. The question for a senior executive is narrower: who in the process is paid to be on your side, and does the brief reach the parts of a senior search that decide the outcome.
The two side by side
| Outplacement | Headhunters International | |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays | The employer that made you redundant, as part of the exit package | You, and nobody else |
| Whose brief | Agreed between the employer and the provider: help the departing employee find a role | Agreed with you: the right role, at the right level, in the direction you choose |
| Group or individual | Often a mix of group workshops, online resources and a named coach, varying by package level | Individual throughout, with Mark Ross doing the work himself |
| Who makes approaches | Usually you, with guidance on networking and applying to advertised roles | Approaches to the person who owns the problem, run through Reverse Headhunting before a role is advertised |
| Documents produced | Typically a refreshed CV, a LinkedIn profile and a networking pitch | The Career Memorandum, an executive CV and a one-page biography, built on a quantified record |
| Whether anyone has sat on the hiring side | Varies by provider and coach | Thirty years running senior searches for employers |
Package levels differ widely, and some senior outplacement programmes include more individual time than the table suggests. Ask your provider which of these you have been given.
The stakes: what a long search costs
An illustrative operations director with a total package of £144,000, made redundant in a restructure. He took the outplacement offered in his exit package, attended the workshops and applied to advertised roles for eight months. The person and every figure are fictional.
| Illustrative figures | £ |
|---|---|
| Previous total package | 144,000 |
| Months out of work before accepting a role | 8 |
| Package forgone over those eight months | (96,000) |
| Role accepted: head of operations, smaller business | 126,000 |
| Shortfall against previous package, per year | (18,000) |
| Shortfall over five years | (90,000) |
| Pension contributions forgone on the shortfall at 8% | (7,200) |
| Cost against the previous package over five years and eight months | (193,200) |
The programme helped him write a tidy CV and practise his interview answers, and he used both. Taking his record to a chief executive before a role existed was never in the brief. By month seven the settlement was thinning, the outplacement period had ended, and a head of operations role a level down began to look sensible. He accepted it in month eight.
Who has told you outplacement will be enough, and what do they gain?
Your former employer
pays for outplacement because it is a recognised part of a fair exit. It protects the company's reputation with the people who remain and helps the process close cleanly. Those are legitimate reasons, and none of them depends on where you land.
The outplacement provider
is paid by your former employer, often under a contract that covers many departing staff. Its brief is to help you find a role, and it is measured on that. A provider working to that brief has no reason to slow you down to ask whether the role is at the right level.
Search consultants
are paid by the client employer. They will take your call, and some will meet you, but they can only put you forward for the briefs they hold.
Your partner and friends
want the worry to stop. "Take the help that's free" is kind advice, and it is sound as far as it goes.
None of them is acting in bad faith. Each is answering a different question from yours, which is how to get back to the right level, in the direction you want, before the settlement runs down.
What the outplacement brief tends to leave out
Senior roles are mostly decided before they are advertised. They begin with a private event inside a business, such as a deal completing, a founder stepping back or a succession falling due, and the chair and chief executive talk for weeks before a brief is written. In Mark Granovetter's study of professional and managerial workers, 56 per cent found their role through personal contacts. Outplacement programmes recognise this and usually teach networking. What they are rarely set up to do is build a target list of companies with something changing and run direct approaches to the person who owns the problem on your behalf.
The other gap is the record itself. A refreshed CV usually reorganises what you already had, while a buyer at director level wants results with a base, a period and a source, written in the units their business uses. That takes hours of excavation with someone who knows what a board reads first, and a group programme seldom has that time to give.
How to get the most from outplacement if you take it
If outplacement is in your package, take it. It costs you nothing, and these steps will get more from it.
- Ask what your package includes. Find out how many individual hours you have, who your coach is and whether they have worked on the hiring side.
- Use it for the practical work. Interview practice and the company of others in the same position are valuable in the first months, when the days lose their shape.
- Bring your own direction. Decide the level and kind of role you want before the CV is rewritten, so the documents serve the direction rather than the other way round.
- Quantify before you polish. Ask your coach to help put a base, a period and a figure against each achievement before working on the wording.
- Keep the settlement terms in view. Notice periods, garden leave and restrictive covenants can shape where you can approach and when. Check them with your solicitor first.
- Treat silence as information. If applications to advertised roles go quiet, that usually reflects where in the hiring cycle they arrived, which you can change by approaching earlier.
Two searches, illustrated
These examples were written for this page to show the kind of finding the work produces. They are not records of real clients. Headhunters International never publishes client names or details.
Finance director, manufacturing
Starting point. Four months into a six-month outplacement programme after a restructure, with a refreshed CV, two first interviews and a growing worry about the settlement.
What the work found. The new CV listed responsibilities clearly and quantified almost nothing. His strongest result, a refinancing that saved the business from a covenant breach, appeared as one line about "banking relationships".
What changed. The refinancing led every document, with the figures and the timescale stated. He kept attending the outplacement sessions for interview practice. The target list went to twelve manufacturers recently acquired by private equity, with letters to the chief executive.
Outcome. Three replied. One asked him in to discuss a finance director role the investor had raised but not yet briefed to a search firm.
Chief people officer, professional services
Starting point. Made redundant after a merger, offered outplacement and unsure whether to take it or go straight to Headhunters International.
What the work found. She had a clear direction and a record already written in commercial terms. Her gap was a target list and the approaches.
What changed. Mark Ross suggested she take the outplacement for the interview practice and the structure, and that Headhunters International run the targeting alongside it. Approaches went to managing partners at firms that had completed a merger in the previous year.
Outcome. Two managing partners met her within six weeks, and conversations about an integration role continued with one of them.
How the work runs
Headhunters International works through seven stages, with most of the work in the first four.
- Value. Your achievements excavated and quantified with a base, a period and a source.
- Direction. A five-year position and the level you are aiming at, settled before the first conversation.
- Criteria. A scoring framework built from your own priorities.
- Positioning. The Career Memorandum, an executive CV and a one-page biography.
- Targeting and outreach. A target list of companies with something changing, and approaches to the person who owns the problem.
- Interview. Preparation for conversations that often begin before a role is defined.
- Offer. Support through the terms.
The Foundation Programme covers the first four stages, and The Private Office runs all seven, taking the search to market through Reverse Headhunting.
Who does the work
Mark Ross Roberts, founder of Headhunters International, does the work himself. He has spent thirty years in senior executive search, putting together shortlists and writing the candidate reports a board reads. His M&A work shows him a change of owner or strategy months before any role appears. His qualifications include the FMVA and CBCA from the Corporate Finance Institute and Wharton Executive Education programmes in executive presence and in neuroscience in leadership, and he is the author of four books including STAR Success. Headhunters International is paid by the executive and by nobody else.
How to start
Email Mark Ross at ross@headhunters-international.com with a line on the role you have left, what your exit package includes and where you want to go next. He replies himself. The first conversation establishes whether you need anything beyond the outplacement, which stage the work would start at and what it would cost. Nothing is payable until you decide to go ahead.
Questions executives ask about outplacement
Is outplacement worth it for a senior executive?
It is worth taking if it is in your package, because it costs you nothing and the practical support helps in the first months. Whether it is enough depends on your level. At director level and above, the brief rarely covers a quantified record or direct approaches to decision-makers before a role is advertised.
Who pays for outplacement?
The employer that made you redundant, usually as part of the exit package. The provider's brief is agreed with that employer.
Can I use outplacement and Headhunters International at the same time?
Yes. Many executives use outplacement for interview practice and structure while Headhunters International works on the record, the direction and the approaches. The two cover different parts of the search, and nothing in either prevents the other.
Can I ask for cash instead of outplacement?
Some employers will consider it. It is a question to raise with your solicitor while the settlement agreement is being negotiated, and the answer depends on your employer's policy.
What is the alternative to executive outplacement?
An adviser paid by you, who works on your record and direction individually and approaches decision-makers on your behalf. Headhunters International does that through The Private Office and Reverse Headhunting.
How is reverse headhunting different from outplacement?
Outplacement is paid by your former employer and usually helps you network and apply. Reverse headhunting is paid by you and runs direct approaches to the person who owns the problem at companies where something is changing, before a role is advertised.
Sources: Granovetter, M., Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers, Harvard University Press, 1974.
Read next
Related guides from Headhunters International
- Reverse Headhunting and The Private Office: approaches to the person who owns the problem, before a role is advertised.
- Executive redundancy: the first ninety days: what to do, and what to leave alone, after the exit.
- Career coach, headhunter or representation: who is paid by whom, and why final-round feedback is one word.
One email, principal to principal
Write to Mark Ross at ross@headhunters-international.com. He replies himself.
Email Mark Ross