Outplacement Outtakes v.2 – Jack’s moment of clarity; The value of formal career assessment

Several years ago, I worked with a more senior gentlemen who had been let go by his employer after over 25 years of service.  Jack was a Mechanical Engineer by education and had worked for a large, multi-national manufacturing company located just outside of Toronto.  His last title was Vice President of Manufacturing before he joined our outplacement program.

Jack was quite taken aback by his unexpected dismissal given his long tenure and status with the company.  He was upset about it – that was for sure, but through the process of accepting his new reality of unemployment, Jack found a new perspective about his career to date and what he needed going forward.

As Jack worked with us through the results of a formal career assessment, he found himself digging deep into his feelings about the experiences developed along the course of his career history.  He reflected on how they affected him on a personal level and what he wanted for his career and life going forward.

Through the Strong Interest Inventory® assessment report and consultation, Jack confirmed that engineering was a suitable career path for him and lined up well with his interest areas, however he also uncovered the cold hard truth that although his ego enjoyed the status of holding a VP title, the stress that that level of leadership caused him needed to be questioned.

The usual, initial knee-jerk reaction for most people when they leave a job, is to replace it as closely as possible.  Jack was no different, until he spent the time reflecting on how happy he actually was at work and explored some of the true reasons for his dismissal.

Jack came to terms with the fact that the responsibility of managing and mentoring a large team was affecting his mental health, the amount of quality time that he spent with his family and as it turned out, his performance in his current role.

As is often the case in large organizations, successful, high achieving employees are often moved up the ranks over the years as a way for the company to reward their efforts. However, moving up the ranks isn’t necessarily the best thing for every person.

In Jack’s case, he came to realize that at this stage of his life, he didn’t want the accountability of dealing with human resources issues, operational and financial management tasks that came with his high-level position.  He simply wanted to design and build things, i.e. use his engineering skills and education.  He realized how much he loved the early stages of his career when he was doing just that!

And so, Jack’s mind-set shifted about where he was headed in the next stage of his career and his level of worry diminished, because his next job search objective became clear.  He no longer needed to stress about the expectations that came with more senior roles, because he knew that was not going to be his objective going forward.

As we continued to work with Jack through his career transition program, we zeroed in on suitable engineering roles in other manufacturing firms, or senior engineering roles in smaller manufacturing organizations.

The development of a goal that was perceived to be a ‘lower level’ position was a shock for some of Jack’s colleagues and family members, but Jack found peace with it.  And ultimately, if our work can fit peacefully within our lives as a whole and it matches who we are as people (not the other way around!), we will have achieved the ultimate career objective!