The best outplacement services companies help your ex-employees to get on the right track with their careers. This is a huge benefit to any individual who has lost their job. Outplacement done right will also have meaningful impacts on employee moral, the risk of lawsuits, and your employer brand.
Beyond the traditional services model, tech enabled vendors like Intoo can provide top notch outplacement at lower costs. Technology means less time spent on outplacement, and better trackable outcomes for employees.
In this guide, we’re going to walk through the top outplacement vendors that we’ve uncovered through our research, along with best practices to keep in mind when conducting layoffs – either on a large scale or one off.
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We take our research seriously and want to make sure we are presenting our readers with the very best solutions in a given software category. Here's how we select vendors to be in our buyer guides:
Here's more detail if you want to read further on how we research vendors.
We looked at a broad swath of outplacement services and software firms to build our list of the best vendors. While you may have a regional player, or someone specific to your industry that is a good match for your firm, these are the outplacement programs that impressed us the most.
Why we love it
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Formerly CareerArc Outplacement, Intoo is an outplacement service provider that also delivers unlimited, on-demand career coaching 7-days a week.
Intoo
Review:
Intoo's (once CareerArc) outplacement offering is powered by proprietary technology that allows them to deliver a great service at a low price. This means ex-employees can get connected immediately with a vetted coach (90% of which have PhDs or Masters). It also means they can provide HR with in depth insights into employee activation rates, utilization of resources like resume review, and much more.
Intoo
Customers:
Intoo
Stats:
Intoo
Pricing:
The pricing of Intoo’s tools and services isn’t disclosed on their website. Contact their sales team for a price quote.
Best For:
Companies across all industries looking for an outplacement and candidate experience service provider.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
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CMP is a minority and woman-owned business that supports the full talent lifecycle with global delivery. They offer leadership development, as well as recruiting and outplacement services.
CMP
Review:
CMP offers in person and virtual coaching for newly separated employees. In addition, their tech allows people to search for jobs, and understand how their resume will be parsed by an ATS.
CMP
Customers:
Careerbuilder, Uship, Ernest & Young, Inner Workings, Discover.
CMP
Stats:
CMP has been in business for 17 years.
CMP
Pricing:
The pricing of CMP’s tools and services isn’t disclosed on their website. Contact their sales team for a price quote.
Best For
Companies across all industries looking for an outplacement as well as talent development service provider.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
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Boasting a 98.5% satisfaction rate, Careerminds employs technology, expert coaching, and tailor-made processes to ensure their outplacement participants get placed faster at a more affordable cost.
Careerminds
Review:
Careerminds provides virtual coaching to ex-employees through 150 coaches across North America. They are unique in that they will continue to help an employee until they land a new position.
Careerminds
Customers:
Careerminds
Stats:
Careerminds
Pricing:
The pricing of Careerminds’s tools and services isn’t disclosed on their website. Contact their sales team for a price quote.
Best For
Companies looking for a tech-enabled outplacement service provider that can manage layoffs and downsizing, while finding opportunities for displaced employees fast.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
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Challenger Grey leverages their 50 years of expertise in the job market and workplace trends to provide great outplacement and career transition services globally.
Challenger Gray
Review:
Challenger brings 50 years of experience to help transitioning professionals to find and get the right next job. From resumes and LinkedIn profiles to negotiating the offer, Challenger Grey can help your eligible employees.
Challenger Gray
Customers:
One of Challenger’s featured customers is Duracell, the batteries and smart power systems manufacturer.
Challenger Gray
Stats:
Challenger has over 1,000 service locations across 79 countries.
Challenger Gray
Pricing:
The pricing of Challenger’s tools and services isn’t disclosed on their website. Contact their sales team for a price quote.
Best For
Companies looking for a global outplacement service provider with years of experience in career transition and coaching across all job levels.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
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Not only does Lee Hecht Harrison offer outplacement services, they can also help you develop your existing workforce through upskilling, coaching, and assessments.
Lee Hecht Harrison
Review:
Part of the staffing giant Adecco, LHH offers transition services for employees who have been recently let go through 4,000coaches spread across 60 different countries.
Lee Hecht Harrison
Customers:
One of Lee Hecht Harrison’s featured customers is Crocs, the shoe manufacturing company.
Lee Hecht Harrison
Stats:
Lee Hecht Harrison
Pricing:
The pricing of Lee Hecht Harrison’s tools and services isn’t disclosed on their website. Contact their sales team for a price quote.
Best For
Companies looking to improve and better plan their workforce by investing in career transition support and coaching for their employees.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
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Owned by Randstad, a leader in the HR services industry, Risesmart provides comprehensive, tech-enabled services that include but aren’t limited to employee outplacement, replacement, coaching, upskilling and reskilling.
Rise Smart
Review:
Rise Smart can help your ex-employees with networking, resume updates, job search (via a proprietary job search engine), and of course has a wide array of 1:1 coaching options.
Rise Smart
Customers:
Rise Smart
Stats:
Rise Smart
Pricing:
The pricing of RiseSmart’s tools and services isn’t disclosed on their website. Contact their sales team for a price quote.
Best For
Companies looking for an outplacement service provider with an integrated talent database for job searching and networking purposes.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
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GetFive helps emerging leaders, middle managers, and executives identify and achieve professional goals through coaching, outplacement, and replacement tech-enabled services.
GetFive
Review:
GetFive is a tech-enabled outplacement and career development platform that allows HR teams to engage employees at critical points in the employee life cycle. Specifically, G5's software allows impacted employees to connect 1:1 with career coaches, and generally systematize their job search (resume writing, job applications/alerts, interview prep, networking, etc). This is a great solution for companies who want to do more than just check the box on outplacement.
GetFive
Customers:
92nd Y, The New School
GetFive
Stats:
GetFive
Pricing:
The pricing of GetFive’s tools and services isn’t disclosed on their website. Contact their sales team for a price quote.
Best For
Companies looking for an outplacement service provider that handles career transitions across all job levels.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
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Right Management has more than 40 years of expertise in the talent lifecycle. Their insight and technology-driven solutions can handle all of your outplacement and career transition needs.
Right Management
Review:
Owned by Manpower Group, Right Management helps organizations streamline the way they source, manage and develop their workforces to ensure that they have the right talent. It provides global, integrated data-driven solutions across the talent lifecycle from talent attraction and acquisition to upskilling and development, and retention at scale.
Right Management
Customers:
Right Management
Stats:
Right Management
Pricing:
The pricing of Right Management’s tools and services isn’t disclosed on their website. Contact their sales team for a price quote.
Best For
Companies looking for an outplacement service provider that does workforce planning, and takes care of career transitions as well as coaching across all job levels.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
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Keystone Partners offers a range of career transition and outplacement services that combine high touch with high tech to help candidates receive high-quality job offers faster.
Keystone
Review:
Keystone provides in depth 1:1 in person coaching for mostly white collar workers who are let go as part of layoffs or one off separations. They also have a group called Essex which specifically focuses on the unique needs of senior level executives.
Keystone
Customers:
Keystone
Stats:
Keystone
Pricing:
The pricing of Keystone’s tools and services isn’t disclosed on their website. Contact their sales team for a price quote.
Best For
Companies seeking a service provider to coach and develop their existing leaders as well as find career opportunities for their displaced employees.
Worth Checking Out:
There are a few best practices to keep in mind when doing a reduction in force (RIF):
Story telling: Help separated employees tell their story in a way that maintains dignity. Story telling is important for talking to family and friends in addition to professional interactions while networking and interviewing. Lastly, storytelling is important for one’s own sense of self.
Transparency: Have your outplacement provider help you communicate why and when this layoff will be happening. You don’t want people to stress out for two weeks between and announcement and the actual event. But, giving a pre-announcement with the logic behind a reduction in force lets people know you aren’t playing games and are trying your best to make this an easy process.
Cultivate hope: Outplacement solutions that allow employees to cultivate hope are giving people their best possible chance of success, and also engendering a sense of camaraderie.
Align incentives: Separated employees who sue their ex-employer, or go on social media rants are shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to their future career. Both company and employee should have the same goal of getting this person to the next phase of their career.
Final Advice
If your company is contemplating a layoff, or maybe just has recurring terminations, you should consider how an appropriate outplacement package can help drive value to your business, and the individuals you’re parting ways with.
Some of these programs are very expensive. However, with the advent of technology, it’s become more and more attainable for companies to offer these services to exited employees.
The bottom line is that any separation is going to be a bad day. The top outplacement firms make it less bad, and hopefully allow all parties to have a happy ending.
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