Career Coaches: Outplacement Is Not Coaching

If you're a career coach, some of your clients arrive with an outplacement package their old employer paid for, and they expect your coaching to be more of the same. It isn't, and the difference starts with who pays.

In outplacement, the old employer pays, and the employer is buying a clean separation. In your coaching, your client pays, and the client is buying an outcome. That decides everything else.

It makes them two different products. Outplacement ends when the package the employer bought runs out. Your coaching runs until your client gets where they were going.

You can't compete with the package on price. It was free to your client, and you shouldn't try to beat free. The package isn't your competitor. It already showed your client what a generic process feels like.

So in your first session, ask your client what the package covered, in detail, and start your coaching where it stopped. The full piece is Outplacement Is Not Coaching, and Your Clients Are Arriving With Both.