Career Transition Support | Frequently Asked Questions
What is IMPACT Group?
IMPACT Group is a global, woman owned business, recognized as the leader in relocation and career transition solutions. IMPACT Group’s Relocation Transition Assistance, Outplacement, and Retirement Coaching services have assisted over 200 Fortune 1000 and Global 500 companies and more than a million individuals in 4,500 locations worldwide. For the past 21 years IMPACT Group has developed an unrivaled expertise in relocation and career transition through the utilization of next generation technologies delivered by expert certified career/family consultants. The passion to make a positive difference by the IMPACT team has earned IMPACT Group a ranking of #1 in customer satisfaction by Trippel Survey & Research.
Do you place people or find me a new job?
Our role is to provide you with the skills, coaching and resources to help you land the opportunity that’s right for you at a pace that suits your needs. Through IMPAXIS, our premier Web portal, we will connect you to resources that will help you identify search firms, executive recruiters and agencies in your target field. One important point to remember when working with recruiters is that they are tasked with “finding people for jobs” rather than “finding jobs for people”. We’ll share our advice and tips for working effectively with recruiters. We’ll also provide access to powerful tools and databases to help you target organizations and hard to find open positions.
How can you help me?
IMPACT Group provides services for individuals in their transition to new career opportunities. The program focuses on equipping you with what you need to conduct an effective, comprehensive and timely job search or transition to a career option of your choosing. Our services are delivered by highly experienced career consulting professionals, many of whom are certified by the Institute of Career Certification International (ICCI), a credentialing organization for the career management industry. In addition to working with a personally assigned consultant, key support is provided by our Web portal, IMPAXIS.
Can I collect unemployment?
Unemployment rules vary greatly from state to state. You will find additional information at the U.S. Dept of Labor Web site. You should contact the State Unemployment Insurance agency as soon as possible after becoming unemployed. In some States, you can now file a claim by telephone or over the Internet.
What are the benefits of using the services of a career management firm?
Career management consulting helps candidates address the challenge of job loss; define their abilities, needs, interests, preferences, and options; develop materials, tools and approaches for a search campaign; determine the logical next step in their career or identify a new career path. The benefits of using a career transition firm include:
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Reducing the length of time spent in job search
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Gaining clarity from assessing career and management work style
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Learning effective job searching techniques
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Developing professional marketing tools that get results
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Receiving professional coaching in interviewing techniques
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Networking with your contacts and referrals
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Tapping into a larger network across many industries and companies
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Developing and executing a plan to start a business, or plan for retirement
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Exploring nontraditional and alternative career options
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Receiving the support of a team of trained and experienced consultants
What’s in my program?
Please refer to your program description for specific details of what services you can expect to receive. All our programs are personalized to meet your specific needs, taking into account the time that we have available to work with you, as determined by your former employer. We provide experience and guidance in a variety of areas, including assessing career interests, values, skills, and accomplishments; exploring and prioritizing career options, including alternative options; preparing marketing tools such as resumes, bios, cover letters; developing a marketing strategy/plan; establishing an online presence/branding; networking; identifying opportunities; strengthening interviewing skills; and negotiating compensation. We work with you whether you are contemplating traditional or non-traditional career options, thinking of returning to school, starting a new career, buying a business, considering post retirement options such as volunteering or one of the many emerging options to work on a part-time or “some time” basis. We will also provide tools and resources that can be accessed anywhere/anytime. The hallmark of our services is great consulting, technology tools, workshops and support services.
What are the most valued services you offer?
We survey candidates formally to assess how we are doing, both during and at the end of the program. This is part of our quality system and many of our service changes and innovations are in direct response to the feedback we have received. Each year we also conduct informal surveys in IMPAXIS to learn more about what’s important to our candidates. We hope you will participate in our formal surveys and you may even come across an informal one, too, during your services with us. The top service elements and the degree to which they were considered useful are shown in the chart to the right. You’ll see that the top rated service elements are a personally assigned consultant and technology tools and resources.
What can I expect to find in the IMPAXIS portal??
IMPAXIS is recognized as the industry leading portal for those in career transition. It has evolved over many years, based on feedback from those using our services. The portal links you to:
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Several million job leads that you can track in IMPAXIS
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Powerful research databases to give you an edge when evaluating and interviewing with organizations
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Hundreds of downloadable handouts from the Library
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Assessments that are linked to just under 1,000 occupational profiles …… and much, much more.
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Watch the IMPAXIS
demo to learn more.
How am I most likely to learn about my next opportunity?
You may have heard of the often quoted “80% of jobs are found through networking.” With the advent of the Internet, the dynamics of how people are learning about and landing opportunities has changed. If it’s been a while since you undertook a job search, there’s much to learn about new strategies (not to mention the old ones that don’t work as well anymore). For instance, new approaches that did not exist ten years ago (e.g., social networking sites, online marketing/resume posting etc.) are getting results. Published openings (formerly print ads) are more prevalent because it’s cheaper and faster to publish them than ever before. Corporate Web sites make it easy for employers to disseminate information that was largely shared by “word of mouth” in the twentieth century. When using our service, you’ll be able to access all our data to learn how factors such as income, age and gender affect the strategies you might employ.
How am I most likely to land my next opportunity?
In recent years, we have been asking candidates to share with us the method by which they learned about their new opportunity. What we’re finding is the growing use of “blended strategies” in which candidates used one approach to learn about an opportunity, but a different one (or multiple approaches) to land that opportunity. The chart to the left shows the reported method by which candidates landed their new positions. The impact of the Internet and new hiring approaches is also revealed in the “direct application” category, where 45% of those who transitioned in the last year, advised that they applied online.
How long will it take me to land my next opportunity?
We survey candidates through IMPAXIS to determine the duration of their search based on the new opportunity start dates supplied. Currently the statistics show that, on average, candidates are landing in 21 weeks. This landing time is based on professional and executive level job seekers rather than the general population (i.e., above average household incomes and education levels). There are many variables that will determine how quickly you will find a new job. The most significant factors are age and income and upon commencement of your services, you will have access to our full data. Other factors include location, industry, field/skills and very importantly, the amount of time actually spent in activities directly related to the search.
Can I anticipate a drop in my income?
As you may expect, income levels are largely governed by supply and demand factors in the labor market. Consider how highly compensated you have been relative to other professionals in your field, the degree to which your skills are in demand, your target location(s), your target field (i.e., whether you plan to change fields) etc.
All will have a bearing. As part of your services, we will introduce you to our career planning model which is designed to help you to determine your salary requirements (along with career and location factors). We’ll also help you to research salaries for your target field and we’ll share strategies to negotiate the best compensation package.