Getting to Value with Career Services

By Mark Venning

Industry Transformation

Now a significant global business, the Career Services industry has been quietly transforming over three decades as workplace career issues have swung the vine through workforce reduction, retention, work-life balance and leadership credibility. The scope of our industry is still largely unknown and if known, often misunderstood.

Ask any career services professional “What services do you offer an organization?” – the answers will be diverse. A first response could well be “career transition” (still called outplacement by some). That would be expected, as that is where the industry roots begin.

Cruise the web sites of career firms however and new messages demonstrate the maturity of the industry. Firms are offering a wider range of services using a wider range of competencies. In addition to Career Transition, (the cornerstone for long established firms), Leadership Development, Coaching, Recruitment, Organizational Development and more have become an integrated part of the business offering. This is a logical progression for the industry in response to opportunities to market services to organizations beyond career transition consulting.

As a result competencies required by the industry are expanding practice areas for the career professional and have attracted new talent. Independents are looking harder at developing and marketing themselves as a micro business able to meet changing needs of organizations more quickly, looking for opportunities that large firms may not be able to get at. Professionals who specialized in “career transition counseling” are stretching themselves from the “career management consulting” model of the 1990’s to the coaching and marketing model emerging today. Let’s call this a “competency shift”.

Competition and Consolidation

Competition and consolidation are two key drivers transforming the career services industry. The Career Transition Business (a.k.a. Outplacement), the largest segment of career services, has grown and some might argue saturated the marketplace over the last 30 years. No question the service model has changed – pushed by Internet technology and pressure from organizations to deliver at a lower cost.

Competition over the last few years has come from newer career firms offering “faster outplacement” at lower cost packaged in web-based solutions. While not totally new, recruiting and staffing firms have expanded their service to include “outplacement” – in the words of one staffing firm as their “emerging business”. The truth is this is a “mature business” very often viewed as a commodity.

In addition to this competition there has been continuous industry consolidation through mergers or acquisitions as the Career Transition business has grown on an international level. Through all this established career firms have reinvented themselves as sharply as the newcomers to continue to deliver value. Customized programs meet every customer preference and internal web sites rival any of the newer competitors. Personal one to one service, e-learning, tele-coaching, group seminars or a hybrid of all these is offered on a global, national or regional level with office locations just as busy outside core city centres.

Historical Perspective

One of the advantages for established career services firms has always been the depth of relationships built over many years and the quality of professional expertise. But a new generation of Human Resource and other business leaders is here and our roles and relationships with them have needed to broaden in order to educate and meet new business needs. Looking at the historical evolution of our industry provides a better understanding of why the industry has reached this level of maturity.

The first instances of corporate paid “outplacement” services date back to 1969 in the USA and for several years were typically given to senior level executives. Murray Axmith established the first Canadian Outplacement firm in 1975. More firms emerged through the late 1970’s and the 1980’s. The industry grew as corporate downsizing began to penetrate all levels of organizations. In 1982 the Association of Outplacement Consulting Firms International (AOCFI) was formed. Later a code of ethics and competency standards for the industry was developed. Twenty years later those international industry ethics and guidelines still hold value. As recently as 2000,.these have also been surveyed in preparation of standards for the Canadian public sector Career Development Practitioners.

In Canada the career services industry might not have survived after 1988 if it were not for the success of the targeted lobbying effort of outplacement firms to reverse a Revenue Canada tax policy. Known as the “taxable benefit crisis”, a new section of the rules stated that employer-paid services such as outplacement, financial planning advice or employee assistance programs were considered taxable income to the employee. Companies offering to provide departing employees with these services would withhold income tax owing on these benefits and thus reduce the financial value of severance payments. Hundreds of thousands of Canadian workers might not have received the support they needed over chaotic and distressing times.

In 1989 a second industry association was established with a focus on professional development for individual outplacement professionals engaged in various career service activities. Through the 1990’s downsizing continued to change the workplace and “manage your own career” became the new mantra for workers who left and those who stayed. To reflect this progress the Outplacement Professionals renamed as the International Association of Career Management Professionals (IACMP) in 1994. Challenging the norms and capturing the advancement of the “competency shift” mentioned earlier, the IACMP is once again renaming and re-branding the profession going forward in 2003.

Getting to Value

For well over two decades organizations have benefited from the expertise of Career Management or Career Transition firms. On site support at the time of an employee’s dismissal has always been available regardless of whether or not the transition contains a short web-based program. Advice and support for large and small downsizing projects have included several successful in-house career centres – designed, developed or operated by the firms.

Bell Canada’s Career Action Centre, 1995 to 1998 is a prime example of an internal first class program originally designed by a large career transition firm, supported by other external firms in peak periods of a large downsizing and eventually outsourced to one of the major firms. In addition, independent consultants were hired into the program to bring current outside perspective of the work search process. The quality of internal career planning programs has improved over the years thanks to the networking, collaboration and sharing of best practices by corporate and public sector career professionals at industry events.

On that note, in the years ahead, the entire Career community must find common ground to “market our profession to the world”. Organizations and individuals need to know that the career professionals they hire deliver services competently and with high ethical standards. Our profession is highly relationship based. Before anyone engages career services for the first time, we should assist them to select by value-based criteria not just by the cost.

Getting to value means getting passed talking about our profession in language our customers may not translate to improvement of business outcomes. While respecting our past we need to look longer term with organizations for opportunities to work beyond the commodity perception of career transition. Career professionals must prove that they understand the nature and future of a customer’s business and articulate the changing landscape of their own to deliver more than the spot demands of the moment.

Mark Venning is the International President Elect for the International Association of Career Management Professionals (IACMP). He can be reached at 416 249-1455 or mvenning@changerangers.com.