The Atlantic's graphic projecting the economic outlook through 2015.

Relief for the millions of Americans out of work could be on the way on today, after more than a month of maneuvering in Congress. Federal extensions for unemployment insurance expired on June 2, and have been shot down in three votes since then by Republican lawmakers who say more extensions for the jobless will add to the federal deficit. During that time, an estimated 1.3 million Americans have run out of benefits, out of some 14.6 million unemployed.

The new authorization for extensions is expected to pass today, as it will be taken after the swearing in of Democrat Carte Goodwin, who’ll replace the late West Virginian Sen. Robert Byrd and give the party the 60 votes they need to win.

For many people, it won’t be a moment too soon. Congress has turned jobless benefits into a partisan issue before, even earlier this year, but this time seems to have inspired far more anxiety than before. As Laura Bassett reported one personal story at Huffington Post earlier this month:

Debra Rousey of Gainesville, Georgia, says that she received an unemployment check of $194 last week, half the usual amount she receives, along with a letter announcing that this check would be her last. She is now in a complete panic over what to do next. “I’m desperate and devastated,” she told HuffPost. “I didn’t get any warning. I was barely making ends meet on $330 a week, trying to diaper my grandchild and put food on the table for the four people I support. What do I do now? How am I going to make rent next month? I keep thinking, ‘If I end up in a cardboard box, can I find one big enough for everybody, or do I have to send my son to live with someone else?’”

It appears that relief is set to arrive. Perhaps the bigger news now is that White House is looking toward the end of the year — and seeing more extensions in our future.

The legislation is expected to pass, but a slow economic recovery suggests jobless benefits will need to be extended again in November. The unemployment rate is 9.5% and the number of people out of work is about 14.6 million. “I think it’s fair and safe to assume that we’re not going to wake up at the end of November and find ourselves at a rate of employment that one would consider not to be still in an emergency,” [White House Press Secretary Robert] Gibbs said at a White House briefing with reporters.

But can these extensions of unemployment benefits go on forever? Certainly many unemployed workers will be counting on them for some time to come. But Derek Thompson of the Atlantic argues that with high employment projected through at least the next two years (see chart above), there will come a point when the unpopular decision to cut end benefit extensions does indeed need to be made.

There are no obvious cut-off points. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to say, for example, that once the job-openings/unemployed ratio sinks below 4.5 (now it’s at 5) we immediately cancel the extended benefits program. At some point, however, unemployment benefits will discourage workers from seeking real job openings. For now, the San Francisco Fed estimates that UI artificially inflates the unemployment rate by about 0.4%. But in a healthy economy, Paul Krugman has acknowledged that especially generous or long benefits are a disincentive to work, as we’ve seen in Europe.

So when extensions finally are cut off, what then? The Christian Science Monitor just came up with an article that lays out six alternate ideas for improving Americans’ economic situation. These include such action items as taming the deficit, clarifying tax policy and creating a long-term growth strategy, but really only half of the suggestions would do much to help unemployed workers out in the same way that benefits do. One of these ideas is to provide more aid to states, another is having the Fed buy more securities and promote lending, but the truly intriguing one is this:

Incentivize hiring: Obama continues to sell the so-called HIRE tax credits for firms that employ people who lost jobs during the recession. Mr. Charlton in Pittsburgh, whose online business is called the Resumator, says more should be done along this line and to help start-up firms get seed money. (He hopes to hire a couple of people, but his young firm is in what he calls “survival mode.”) Some economists have called for a payroll-tax holiday on new hires, or for tax breaks on business investment in equipment and research.

Without economic recovery, however, it seems unlikely that jobless Americans will be much in the mood for experimention — or expired benefits.

RiseSmart announced today that Transition Concierge To-Go™, a mobile application that delivers personalized job leads and other job-search tools to laid-off workers, is now available as an iPhone Web app.

Transition Concierge To-Go is free to eligible employees of companies who use RiseSmart’s Transition Concierge™ as their outplacement solution. Transition Concierge arms workers with the most powerful set of job-search tools and transition service support available today, while making it simpler than ever for employers to measure the ROI of their outplacement programs.

RiseSmart currently has several thousand employees in the system who can begin using Transition Concierge To-Go immediately. To add the app to their iPhones, users can go to m.risesmart.com, tap the plus sign and then tap “Add to Home Screen.” An icon will be added to their iPhone’s home screen for easy, one-tap access. Users only need to log in to the app on their first use.

The app sends relevant job opportunities directly to workers’ iPhones, enabling them to see the latest job leads that match their skills and preferences; tag jobs they like for follow-up; send themselves a reminder to take action on a job lead; review notifications for job-related Webinars and networking events; contact a RiseSmart Transition Specialist via phone or e-mail with feedback; review preferences, settings, favorites and more.

A primary distinction of RiseSmart’s Transition Concierge, compared to traditional outplacement agency offerings, is that the solution provides highly personalized job leads to each employee on a weekly basis. RiseSmart uses proprietary aggregation and semantic search technology to match each employee’s job preferences against hundreds of thousands of active job listings across the Web. Then, a specialist assigned to the employee’s account hones these results by hand — ensuring that only pertinent leads are delivered to each employee.

Transition Concierge To-Go was launched as a BlackBerry application in April, and will soon be available on the iPad and Android phones. You can find the app listed in Apple’s Web app directory.

More workers are looking for the exit, the government reports.

The Great Worker Exodus of 2010 may finally have arrived. Several economists last year had projected a huge uptick in workers walking away from their jobs, but when January 1 rolled around and the economy was still mired in layoffs and unemployment, their prognosis seemed a lot less likely.

That appears to be changing. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of Americans quitting their jobs in February surpassed the number being laid off or fired—the first time that’s happened since October of 2008. For the 15 months since, the average number of workers quitting their jobs has been hovering around 1.75 million, way down from the 2.7 million average since the BLS started tracking the data 10 years ago.

Clearly, the largest and longest recession since the Great Depression created a widespread feeling that anyone was lucky to any job, making workers a lot less likely to risk leaving a regular paycheck. Also, there weren’t nearly as many jobs to go to, and there was fierce competition for a lot of jobs that might have previously been easy to transition into.

However, job dissatisfaction, employee ambition and other factors that prompt workers to leave their job didn’t go away. That’s why surveys conducted in the last quarter of 2009 found that as many as 60 percent of workers said they planned to seek another job when the economy improved.

That job exodus appears to have begun, with the BLS reporting that about 1.87 million people quit their job in March. That’s 100,000 more people quitting than were laid off in the same time period. The shift will likely only get bigger, and it has companies specializing in recruitment and outplacement services ramping up for a big need in the market, according to the Wall Street Journal:

Adecco Group, a world-wide staffing firm based in Zurich, has seen several of its clients ask for candidates for key positions after employees made surprise departures, says Vice President Rich Thompson. Although so far there haven’t been widespread departures, Mr. Thompson says his company is readying itself for large-scale changes within the next few months. “We’re preparing for a massive reshuffling of talent at all job levels in all industries,” he says, noting that the recession earlier this decade was so short and shallow that the turnover this time around is likely to be much greater.

While a shift like this can be scary for companies looking to retain talent, overall economists see this kind of “workforce mobility” as a positive sign for the economy. Time Magazine added it to its list of reasons the economy “isn’t a total basket case” and the Motley Fool made it one of three signs the job market is back.

However, the timing could be more a matter of perception than real change in the economy. Indeed, stockbloghub.com points out that while fewer jobs are being lost, there is still a dearth of new jobs being created:

The problem has been, at least since the middle of 2009, not with too many people being fired, but with not enough new jobs being created … In February and March, the rate of new hires did pick up a little bit, but it remains at a very low level. In March this year, there were a total of 4.242 million people who got new jobs, up from just 3.670 million who found new jobs in March of 2009. The total number of people who lost their jobs fell to 3.698 million this year versus a total of 4.444 million who lost their jobs in March of 2009….The number of job openings has started to increase (the job openings numbers are a snapshot of the last day of the month, while the hires and fires are the totals for the month), but they still remain far below the worst points of the 2001 recession and the jobless recovery that followed it.

Almost one-quarter of employers around the globe say they can't fill crucial positions.

From our Problems We Didn’t Expect to See in 2010 Department comes news that despite continuing layoffs, economic crashes and exorbitant unemployment numbers, there is still a huge talent shortage among employers worldwide. In fact, it’s only gotten worse.

Last week, Manpower released their 2010 Talent Shortage Survey, a study of more than 35,000 companies in 36 countries. In all, 31 percent of employers said they were having trouble filling critical positions in their company, up one percent from last year. The ten countries hardest hit were Japan (76%), Brazil (64%), Argentina (53%), Singapore (53%), Poland (51%), Australia (45%), Hong Kong (44%), Mexico (43%), Peru (42%) and Taiwan (41%), although China was right behind that with 40%. In the U.S., 14 percent of employers reported trouble filling positions.

So how exactly can there be a talent shortage when unemployment rates are so high around the globe? Manpower calls it a talent “mismatch”; in other words, job seekers aren’t well-suited for the available jobs.

The list of top unfillable jobs looks nearly identical to last year’s: 1. skilled trades; 2. sales representatives; 3. technicians; 4. engineers; 5. accounting and finance staff; 6. production operators; 7. administrative assistants and production assistants; 8. managers and executives; 9. drivers; 10. laborers.

“As the global economy slowly recovers, employers will remain focused on maintaining financial flexibility and doing more with less,” said Jeffrey A. Joerres, Manpower Inc. Chairman and CEO. “Applying the same mindset to their workforce, employers have gotten more specific about the combination of skill sets that they are looking for, not only seeking technical capabilities in a job match, but holding out for the person that possesses the additional qualities above and beyond that will help drive their organization forward. This conundrum is upsetting to the ubiquitous job seeker, who will need to take more responsibility for his/her skills development in order to find ways to remain relevant to the market.”

However, some believe that the whole idea of the talent shortfall is a myth. Kevin Wheeler of the recruiting site ere.net writes:

Even in this recession, everyone I speak with is moaning about not being able to find the quality candidates they think they need. Maybe they have caused their own problem by narrowly defining jobs, by using yesterday’s criteria to solve today’s problems, and by a lack of imagination. We (hiring managers, executives, HR folks, and recruiters) set up expectations and define jobs based on what is traditional. We work from habit and past experience. This is not necessarily bad, but may not match our current needs or the available supply.

Wheeler believes there are two keys to correcting the “mismatch”: better training that will allow employers to mold the skill sets of their employees better, and expansion of the pool of candidates, which he sees as widening job expectations and definitions. Recruitment and outplacement services are another resource for “matching up” talent with openings.

Wheeler’s main point is that whether or not there is a talent shortage in 2010, there doesn’t have to be one; whatever mismatches exist, they can be fixed. That’s the best thing for both employers and employees, and his conclusion—while admittedly idealistic—is a reassuring thought: “There are no labor shortages or surpluses — there are just shortages of imagination and an unwillingness to accept responsibility for filling our own needs.”

Finally a bright spot: more employers are trying to ease the uncertainty of downsizing.

The current recession has led to a slew of layoffs, so it’s not hard to understand why many people consider this the worst period in their lifetime to be part of the workforce.

But if there’s anything positive to take away from the downturn, it may be the increased interest in and awareness of the importance of offboarding employees the right way.

As Jen Carpenter writes:

The economic downturn …gave rise to an increasing number of companies taking an interest in outplacement. Outplacement has become a sure-fire way (no pun intended) for employers and employees alike to have the best possible experience during the downsizing process. It not only helps displaced employees amp up their skills and find their next job, but it also helps employers maintain a good image of their company and its practices.

More employers were already beginning to realize that last year, according to a separation practices study that found:

More employers have adopted outplacement as a solution to preserve their employer brand and reputation. In 2001: 53% of companies offered outplacement services to all officers and all senior executives compared to 67% in 2008—an increase of 26%; 50% of companies offered outplacement services to all executives compared to 65% in 2008—an increase of 30%; 39% of companies offered outplacement services to all exempt employees compared to 55% in 2008—an increase of 41%.

In the U.K., The Guardian reports this month that public-sector layoffs are likely to create a similar demand for outplacement services, even as they’re cutting operating costs:

So why would central HR departments bother with outplacement services when budgets are so tight? To some extent this would depend on the resources they have. Outplacement specialists – well some of the larger ones – will be able to handle the fall out from redundancy and restructuring programmes, from dealing with the legal aspects of redundancy, to helping those who lose their jobs find other options, to refocusing and re-energising those employees who stay on.

If this trend continues, we may at least look back on this recession as a turning point for how employers deal with cuts in the workforce.

Some notes from Social Media Camp on how the job search has changed.

It’s inevitable in this day and age that by the time any cultural phenomenon truly arrives, doubters will be counting the days until its downfall. You know you’ve made it when you’ve inspired a backlash.

That’s what happened lately with social media. A cynical streak has crept into the cultural conversation over Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the like. The most common complaints relate to “information overload,” the kind Christy at Quirky Fusion describes:

I’m predicting that we’re going to start seeing some backlash. We already are in platforms like Twitter. We’re going to start seeing more and more people pretend to listen (followers and friends are status points and resume builders in the social media world), while really tuning out. And if no one is listening, why should we continue to talk? In my wishful-thinking world (a lovely place, really), people will start reining in on their over-sharing and choose their tweets, updates, whrrls and posts with a little more restraint. In reality, I think that’s less likely to happen.

Blowing off steam is all fine and good; no one would argue that social media in any of its current incarnations is perfect, and it’s natural for emerging technologies (which many people forget that all of these platforms are) to bring their share of frustrations.

What’s more worrisome is when prognosticators begin ignoring social media’s relevance, and advising others to do so, as well. We’re beginning to see some of that advice dished out to job seekers, at a time when Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites are more important than ever.

This is not a good call. Panic over “overnetworking” is not a wise response to the complexities of social media, at a time when it is such a critical tool in recruitment, outplacement services and job search.

Much smarter is to figure out how an admittedly complex and rapidly changing social media landscape work for you. Tara Weiss has some great basic tips on how to make Twitter work as a job-search tool, as well as some stories that underline why all of this social-networking stuff—far from being sinister or empty hype—can actually make your life and job-search easier in the end.

Consider Kyle Flaherty’s story. He left a marketing position in Boston determined to find an in-house public-relations job. He tweeted about his decision and included a link to his professional blog where he described the kind of work he was looking for. Within days, his tweet was retweeted. That is, an acquaintance forwarded it—to his current boss. “I don’t think I would have gotten this if not for Twitter,” says Flaherty, who moved from Boston to Austin, Texas, for the new job with a pregnant wife and a two-year-old son.

Obviously, that’s not the typical Twitter job search story, but the point is that social media has given jobseekers a whole new set of tools. Weiss recommends following the right people, as Twitter can connect you to important people in your field that you might otherwise have no access to. Maintaining a profile and a feed that shows how engaged you are in your profession is important, and so is looking for companies and even hiring managers who may tweet their job openings.

Best of all is this quote that I think sums up social media’s potential for employment opportunity: “’There is nothing revolutionary about this stuff,’ Flaherty says. ‘It’s evolutionary. Back in the day, we would have sent out cover letters, a few years later e-mails, and a few years later we updated our blogs. The beauty of Twitter is that it’s as if you’re at a networking event all the time, in real time.’”

Oh, and before you get in too deep, absolutely look at this rundown of social media mistakes that can ensure you don’t get the job you want.

The most important thing is to figure it out now, if you haven’t already. Because, guess what, social media’s not going anywhere.

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at how social media’s importance for businesses has changed, too.

Today we announced the release of Transition Concierge To-Go, our new mobile app for transitioning workers, on Blackberry devices, with versions for the iPhone and Android to come soon.

The mobile app is a natural extension of Transition Concierge 3.0, which is all about leveraging Web-based technology to put people in jobs faster. Whereas traditional outplacement firms typically require laid-off employees to come to their offices for group seminars, grief counseling and such, we’ve always believed in taking our services to the jobseeker directly.

And what better way to do that than by delivering jobs to their phones?

Here’s the full release:

Laid-Off Workers Get Job Leads on the Go with New Mobile App from RiseSmart

Transition Concierge To-Go™ extends next-generation outplacement solution
to BlackBerry, iPhone and Android-based phones.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (April 15, 2010) – RiseSmart, a leading provider of Web-enabled outplacement and job search services, today announced the launch of Transition Concierge To-Go, a mobile application that delivers personalized job leads and other job-search tools to the smartphones of laid-off workers.

“Traditional outplacement providers still build their offerings around the outdated idea that laid-off employees should come to a physical office to attend seminars and be taught how to find a job,” said Sanjay Sathe, founder and CEO of RiseSmart. “Transition Concierge takes the opposite approach. We go where the employees are — and our new mobile app is a perfect example of this.”

Transition Concierge To-Go is an extension of Transition Concierge 3.0, RiseSmart’s next-generation outplacement offering that provides highly personalized job leads to laid-off workers each week via an online interface. The mobile app will initially be available on BlackBerry devices, followed by the iPhone and Android-based phones.

Transition Concierge To-Go sends relevant job opportunities directly to workers’ smartphones, enabling them to:

• See the latest job leads that match their skills and preferences;
• Tag jobs they like for follow-up;
• Send themselves a reminder to take action on a job lead;
• Review notifications for job-related Webinars and networking events;
• Contact a RiseSmart Transition Specialist via phone or e-mail with feedback or to request additional information;
• Review preferences, settings, favorites and more!

A primary distinction of Transition Concierge 3.0, compared to traditional corporate outplacement offerings, is that the solution provides highly personalized job leads to each employee on a weekly basis.

RiseSmart uses proprietary aggregation and semantic search technology to match each employee’s job preferences against hundreds of thousands of active job listings across the Web. Then, a specialist assigned to the employee’s account hones these results by hand — ensuring that only pertinent leads are delivered to each employee.

About RiseSmart

RiseSmart provides the next-generation outplacement and recruitment process outsourcing solutions. The company leverages a common technology platform, proven methodologies, and one-on-one support to help employers with their workforce strategy, and displaced employees with their career strategy. RiseSmart drives significant ROI to organizations by offering affordable pricing, reducing severance costs and unemployment taxes for outplacement services and reducing cycle time and cost of hire for recruiting services. For more information, visit www.RiseSmart.com.

Will the much-hyped employee mass exit be Exodus 2.0?

What if they had an employee exodus and nobody came? That’s what we’re seeing so far, as dire forecasts of a massive number of dissatisfied employees walking away from their jobs have yet to materialize. Some experts predicted it would happen as early as February, others said March, still others left the possibility open for any time in 2010.

In some ways, this prediction didn’t seem too far-fetched. As Megaforce’s Megablog put it:

It’s not unusual for employees to leave a job after a downturn, quite simply because improving conditions typically result in more job opportunities opening up. However, many factors point to the strong possibility of massive employee turnover in 2010. According to the CareerBuilder survey, about 1 in 5 workers plan to leave their current job this year. OK, we all know the 80-20 rule. Which 20% of your workers do you think is planning on leaving? It’s a good bet that the ones leaving are the ones you’d like to keep.

That last bit strikes the same chord that much of the arm-waving on this matter has hit over and over again: “Watch out, employers, if your workers are unhappy, they’re about to revolt!”

Back in January, a study by the Australian recruitment firm Chandler Macleod Group found about 95 percent of the survey’s 930 participants were looking for work, with 73 percent actively looking and 57 percent believing they were within about 90 days of finding a new job.

“Employee exodus” became the watchword across countries and industries, triggering alarm in the U.S., Britain, Australia, India and other countries , and leading outlets as far-flung as Lawyers Weekly to project the possible effects on their field.

The gist for those who subscribe to this mass exodus theory is that employees have been beaten down by the recession and beaten up by their employers, and want a fresh start. Yahoo! Hotjobs conducted their own survey back in December with 806 hiring managers and recruiters, 44 percent of whom predicted a rush to the exits by workers. Wrote Larry Buhl:

As an example of how hard it may be to keep top talent in 2010, Mark Anderson, president and chief economist for ExecuNet, told Yahoo HotJobs that 90% of executives will now take calls from executive recruiters, a sign that more of them are now considering other options.

In an article for LiveCareer, Maria Hanson referred to a survey by Harris Interactive that found most workers are unhappy with their job, with 66 percent dissatisfied with their pay and benefits, 76 percent dissatisfied with their current opportunity for growth in their job, and 78 percent dissatisfied with their employer’s effort to keep them. Hanson sees the coming shake-up as a great opportunity for workers, advising them to aim for promotions and raises, and move on if they don’t feel they’re getting what they deserve. She has a warning for employers, too:

Career experts anticipate that this job dissatisfaction will translate into a mass exodus once the economy turns around. When more jobs become available, employees will be more than happy to leave behind job stagnation and flagging wages to hunt for better employment opportunities. Companies that don’t make changes now should be prepared to lose even their top employees. “We’re surprised to see how many companies have not improved [employee relations] during the recession, but have become more Draconian,” says HR specialist Glen Earl. “Those types of companies will see massive turnover.”

But why haven’t we seen any indication of this shake-up yet? The obvious answer is that the economic recovery simply hasn’t materialized as quickly as many expected, and much of the gains so far have been infamously “jobless.” But another possibility may be that while the recession has caused workers around the world no end of frustration and worry, they may be more sympathetic to their employers’ own tough situation than their current level of stated dissatisfaction indicates.

None of this is to say that the Great Employee Exodus of 2010 isn’t still yet to come. But for right now, it’s still no more than a fantasy for a recession-battered workforce.

It's a small world for a lot of analysts looking at the hiring outlook.

Four times a year, the release of Manpower Inc.’s Employment Outlook Survey defines the mood on hiring trends around the world. Based on interviews with 61,000 employers, the survey has become possibly the most trusted barometer on the worldwide job market over its nearly half a century in existence.

The key word there is “worldwide.” The EOS takes a snapshot of employer attitudes in 36 countries and territories around the globe. And yet, for some reason, most of the analysis of the survey is still remarkably provincial, and with the release this month of the newest numbers, it’s more of the same.

American news outlets tend to zero in on the news for their own metropolitan market, or at best the U.S. outlook as a whole, sometimes completely ignoring the data from other parts of the world. And it’s not just a Yankee ego thing—other countries are just as guilty of ignoring the bigger picture in favor of the hometown stats.

That’s understandable to some degree; we all have a natural inclination to care more about what’s going on in our own backyard. And providing a breakdown to the local level can be especially useful due to the sheer amount of data packed into this report.

There are so many competing numbers, in fact, that different analysts can paint entirely different pictures of the hiring outlook. Daniele Sahr of The Huffington Post, for instance, writes of the U.S. employment picture: “Are we nearing a rebound in hiring? If the anecdotal evidence is any indication, we certainly are. According to Manpower’s quarterly Employment Outlook Survey, hiring in almost every sector is about to get better.” That’s because employers in 12 out of 13 industry sectors reported that they will add staff in the second quarter of 2010. (Once again, it was bad news for the government sector, which was the unlucky thirteenth.)

But others, like Mark Fightmaster at bloggingstocks.com, had a far less exuberant take on the U.S. numbers, writing of the current hiring outlook that: “While this percentage is better than the same quarter a year ago, it is virtually flat from the first quarter. In fact, it is down slightly, as a net 6% of firms hired in the first quarter.” That’s because about two-thirds of U.S. employers said they plan to keep staffing levels flat.

Overall, the consensus is that hiring levels are inching up in the U.S. At a seasonally adjusted five percent, there’s a moderate uptick in expectations for hiring in the U.S., as the adjusted outlook at this time last year was –2 percent.

However, that’s only in the U.S. What is far less reported is that if we take a look at the bigger global picture, there is some interesting information about new markets around the world.

The strongest year-over-year outlooks are coming from India, which reports a whopping net employment outlook of 39 percent, with hiring expected across all geographic regions and industrial sectors.

Brazil, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, Peru and Costa Rica are also reporting very strong hiring expectations. The entire Asia Pacific region (with the exception of Japan) looks strong for job growth, and a modest improvement is projected throughout the Americas.

Overall, employers in 27 of 36 countries and territories expect some positive hiring activity in the second quarter, with only eight reporting negative hiring expectations. Last year, 18 countries and territories were reporting negative outlooks. Based on Manpower’s latest, it’s clear that the global job picture is improving.

I’ve had the privilege of speaking with analysts and editors from organizations like Gartner, Aberdeen and Human Resource Executive over the past several days to tell them about the latest generation of RiseSmart’s outplacement solution, Transition Concierge 3.0. We’ve been gratified and humbled by the response.

One analyst credited us with reenergizing the $3+ billion outplacement market. Another said our solution was unlike anything else he’d seen.

Here’s an excerpt from our press release on Transition Concierge 3.0:

Transition Concierge 3.0 significantly expands the capabilities of the original Transition Concierge service, launched in 2008, with an improved state-of-the-art CRM interface, which employees use to manage their participation in the Transition Concierge program. Through RiseSmart CRM, employees are able to access a wealth of job search and career management tools and services.

A primary distinction of Transition Concierge 3.0, compared to traditional outplacement service offerings, is that the solution provides highly personalized job leads to each employee on a weekly basis. RiseSmart uses proprietary aggregation and semantic search technology to match each employee’s job preferences against hundreds of thousands of active job listings across the Web. Then, a specialist assigned to the employee’s account hones these results by hand — ensuring that only pertinent leads are delivered to each employee.

Specific components of RiseSmart CRM include:

• Activity Dashboard: The central hub of information and the first page the employee sees after signing in to the site, the Activity Dashboard includes job search status updates, notifications of to-do items and job leads, and a snapshot of recommended events, blogs and articles.
• Job Preferences: Employees enter preferences (industry, job title, location, etc.) that are used to determine which job leads the employee will receive. The employee can upload a resume and/or enter detailed additional background information, which RiseSmart’s support team utilizes to better match the employee with search results.
• Resume Wizard: Each employee receives a professionally written resume as part of the service. The Resume Wizard captures information about employee accomplishments and experiences that a certified professional resume writer then uses, in conjunction with one-on-one consultation, to craft a new resume.
• Job Inbox: Employees receive job leads each week in their Job Inbox. The employee can apply directly to jobs from the inbox. Employees also can manage and organize their job search to show jobs they have applied or interviewed for, and to add notes and follow-up reminders.
• LinkedIn Integration: The Job Inbox features LinkedIn integration, enabling the employee to view and network with LinkedIn contacts at any company posting a job opening.
• Job Rating Engine: To improve the leads they receive on an ongoing basis, employees can rate individual job leads. This feedback is incorporated into future searches.

RiseSmart effectively uses the Web and the phone to provide a superior quality of high-tech and high-touch service, matching individuals to the right Transition Specialists and certified resume writers from our virtual network, allowing us to deliver a consistent level of service across the country. An employee has access to one-on-one assistance during every step of the job-finding process.

Measurable ROI for Employers

Because all interaction with Transition Concierge 3.0 can be monitored online, employers can accurately track program participation levels, job leads delivered to each employee, and employees placed in new jobs.

With RiseSmart, employees find new jobs nearly twice as fast as the national average, significantly reducing severance costs, unemployment taxes, and other layoff-related expenditures. According to 2009 data from the Institute for Corporate Productivity, the cost of Transition Concierge 3.0 is about half that of traditional services.

Below are a couple of screen caps from the Transition Concierge user interface. If you would like a full demo of the Transition Concierge service, e-mail us here.

Employees can manage and organize their job search to show jobs they have applied or interviewed for, and to add notes and follow-up reminders.

The Job Inbox features LinkedIn integration, enabling the employee to view and network with LinkedIn contacts at any company posting a job opening.