Research & Writing

Integrated Careers for Executives 50 Plus

Integrated Careers for Executives 50 Plus:
When Traditional Outplacement No Longer Speaks

When an executive 50 plus leaves an organization these days and an outplacement program is offered; it becomes almost a route march, taking on assumptions that the model presented in the program will work as it has in the past. And these days that package can be shopped at a price off the shelf of competing products.

If that executive 50 plus is looking to decompress and take time to reframe his/her career and is ready for a new kind of questioning conversation on their own terms, the last thing they tend to respond to is the “outplacement route march”. In my years as a senior consultant in an outplacement (career transition) firm, I found myself taking new directions that the 50 Plus executive wanted to go. Even if it felt uncomfortable, they didn’t want to march to the music on the program purchased by their company.

Very bright talent! So much expertise to offer! Too energized to think about retiring early, quite unsure that more full time corporate experience is in the cards! This is likely someone who sees career longevity of anywhere up to 20 years of work, creatively integrated into their life plan or as the start of some brave new endeavour like starting a business.

“Help me find a better way.” says the executive, “Is now my time to take a leap of faith to a more integrated career? Help me sift through the options; help me understand the cycles. Help me understand how I will need to mange things in a different pattern.” These are just the beginning questions.

Moving to a more integrated career is a distance run, not a sprint. The issue is that most outplacement programs are not built for the distance run. A journey to an integrated career or “portfolio career” takes time. It also means living a new belief system, building new communities and support systems in your personal and business world and planning more frequent, purposeful career reviews.

And if the measurement on the success of a traditional outplacement program is based on a timely replacement of a job and income, then success needs to be re-defined for an integrated career plan.

The other observation I will make is that there is this attitude that an integrated or portfolio career is not the option for everyone so why get with it? While that may be true at first sight, it may be the only option down the road that works when career longevity is still the goal harboured in the soul.

Not everyone can express themselves immediately in the language of an integrated career. Even those who grasp it will still struggle with it. (Remember it’s a distance run, not a sprint.) Taking the exploration and assessment in group sessions should be a mandatory piece of the experience in any outplacement program for executives, whether they subscribe to the idea or not.

At Change Rangers, Executive Boomer© speaks to the distance runner in the quest for career longevity. It’s not an outplacement route march. It’s a creative journey for career longevity.