All Outplacement Tools

Determine the next target

Losing your job is initially a painful experience. You are removed from an environment you thought was secure and are faced with an uncertain situation. What will, what should be the next job? How long will the financial cushion last?

With a little distance to the separation situation lies in this, despite all the negative circumstances, but also a significant opportunity to give life a new direction.

Do you want to concentrate in the future on the things that are particularly important to you? Do you want to travel less and no longer live out of a suitcase? Do you want to work in an entrepreneurial environment with quick direct decisions and less internal politics? Perhaps you'd like to realize your long-held plans for self-employment now?

The vast majority of KARENT clients report to us that they are happier in their new job than they were with their old employer. However, a prerequisite for this is that you get to know yourself better and critically examine your own inclinations, strengths and weaknesses.

The separation analysis

In order to clear your head for something new, you need to question and understand the background and accompanying circumstances that led to your dismissal.

Depending on the circumstances surrounding a dismissal, the situation can severely hurt your own self-esteem. In trying to analyze the situation, you often go around in circles. The external unbiased view of the consultant can help you to process what has happened.

In our experience, it is particularly important to deal with the separation situation professionally at an early stage. At the latest when you are released and no longer drive to work or to the office every morning, your neighbours, friends and family will approach you with questions.

As difficult as it may be, we urge you to tell the truth about your situation to everyone in your personal and professional life when it comes time to talk about it. In order to make this easier for you, we will work out a so-called "separation story" with you at the very beginning of the counselling session. This "separation story" provides brief and concise information about your situation and, if possible, leaves no questions unanswered. It does not evoke pity, but spreads confidence. As a matter of principle, we orient ourselves towards the truth and present it in such a way that you are not blamed for your current situation.

Strengths and weaknesses analysis

Where do your special talents lie? Which tasks do you have to force yourself to do? Our experience shows that those who can rely on their talents and strengths in their daily work are more successful and therefore happier.

All people are individuals with different talents and abilities.

While one person particularly enjoys dealing with people, convincing and winning them over and is therefore successful in sales, another has particularly analytical skills and loves to solve technical problems and develop new products. Still others have completely different strengths.

Our experience shows that concentrating on our own strengths makes us more successful than trying to compensate for our weaknesses.

This means that you should aim for a job that requires you to use your strengths as often as possible every day. You will master these tasks better and faster than other people. Of course, every job also brings with it the need to do things that are less to your liking and on which you then have to concentrate especially. But these should make up a smaller part of your tasks.

We offer you to get to know your own strengths profile with the help of various test procedures (MBTI, Strengthsfinder). In addition, we mirror these strengths in a second step against your professional successes in order to understand how you put your strengths into practice and to derive conclusions for your further career development.

Let us first clarify together who you are and where you want to go. Life is too short for snapshots and the next shot has to be right.

Christian v. Goetz, Managing Director KARENT

Analyze professional stages

Looking back in your own CV in conjunction with your strengths/weaknesses profile provides valuable conclusions about the interplay of your talents and helps to determine the right target company and position.

Your personal inclinations, talents and strengths usually manifest themselves in your career choice, career development and individual concrete successes in your professional career stages.

We mirror your strengths to your professional successes.

Depending on the position, "successes" can be very different things. The spectrum ranges from a suggestion for improvement to save work in your department, to a successful event organized by you, to the reorganization of a company. Together we learn which of your strengths you actually use successfully. We thus complete the picture from your strengths/weaknesses profile. After all, your successes usually result from the general conditions and your talents and strengths.

The presentation of your professional successes lays a foundation for your self-marketing.

The presentation of your own abilities on the basis of concrete and, if possible, numerically representable successes gives you a decisive credibility advantage in the application process. Together we will develop a series of success stories to use in your resume and in preparation for specific interview situations.

Target position and company

Based on your profile, we determine the target company and position.

The knowledge gained from the separation analysis, your strengths and weaknesses profile and the analysis of your professional stations lead to the determination of a target position and possible target companies.

In addition to your own profile, our knowledge of market developments in individual sectors, your individual framework conditions such as mobility, financial expectations and, unfortunately, the feasibility of the desired position is also taken into account here.

In case you are in a tight job market, we recommend that you define a second and more easily attainable target position in addition to the ideal position. Despite a systematic approach and a large network of contacts, finding the right position always requires a bit of luck. A two-pronged approach therefore often shortens the time required to reach a new position.

Now you have a clear goal and the knowledge why you are the right one.

For the job search, this knowledge will help you achieve your goal with consistency and motivation. In the application process and in the interview you will appear more confident and self-assured, but also more self-critical and authentic than other applicants who are perhaps just looking for "any" job.

Salary Analysis

The realistic assessment of the expected salary helps in the discussions with the new employer, neither to price yourself out of the market nor to sell yourself below value.

Especially in job application situations, but also before internal salary rounds, you should know your market value as well as possible and know how to assert your market value towards your employer. We prepare an individual salary analysis based on our knowledge of the market and a comparative database of clients with a similar profile, thus enabling you to make realistic demands.

In job application situations you should neither make too high nor too low demands.

In both cases, there is a risk that an employer will choose a different candidate. If you ask for too high a salary, you are more likely to overestimate yourself, whereas if you ask for too low a salary, you are likely to signal a lack of self-confidence and thus a lack of qualifications. A realistic assessment of your market value is a decisive factor in the application process.

In the case of an internal promotion, your new income will depend on your income history and the salary of your predecessor.

Nevertheless, there is considerable potential with the assumption of entirely new responsibilities. Usually, your supervisor will fill a vacant position based on both your old salary and the position's previous endowment. With a salary analysis you know in the negotiation which room for manoeuvre you can use.

The right conduct of negotiations decides on your success.

In a personal discussion with a KARENT expert, you will learn how to prepare correctly for salary negotiations and which strategies will lead to the desired result. Thus, your first goal is always to find out the employer's willingness to pay before you express your own ideas.