News > Insurance Synergy - Redundancy Support

Insurance Synergy - Redundancy Support - 2009-12-07

"Outplacement and redundancy support should be about supporting individuals, helping them to be pro-active, getting them motivated, and enabling them to move on...” Andy Edwards, Principal Consultant Insurance Synergy

Insurance Synergy provides redundancy (outplacement) support across the insurance industry, City and UK wide. The support we provide is on a bespoke basis allowing flexibility of content and catering to individual needs and requirements but aimed specifically at the specialist insurance market. Our service is based upon over 30 years experience in the recruitment and insurance industry, and is very much aimed at enabling a job seeker to be able to carry out the required activity to find a new job. We show individuals how to help themselves through our redundancy, outplacement, and career guidance services.

The support we provide may cover: CV writing/review, transferable skills, retirement planning, self employment, interview support and self marketing. It is delivered in workshops / 1-2-1 individual sessions.

‘Group Sessions’ for up to 15 people per session cover areas such as:

• ‘How to look for a job’

• ‘Interview preparation and common interview questions’.

• ‘How to write a good CV’, although we always recommend our working with each person individually to ensure their CV is ‘fit for purpose’, going as far as providing CV typing support.

1-2-1 support includes us guiding the individual on their CV content or helping them write a CV, self marketing (where & how to look for a job), interview technique and practice, handling an assessment centre, self employment, retirement planning, and psychometric testing.

We believe we offer individuals full and complete support in their quest for a new role. We teach them how to register with recruitment agencies, utilise internet job boards and CV databases, identify questions they may be asked in an interview. However we offer an ‘open format’ and ‘non prescriptive’ redundancy and outplacement support service and will concentrate our efforts upon areas where help is most needed. If required we can cover ‘self employed’, VAT registration, setting up a company and retraining.

For individual 1-2-1 support we offer several ‘time’ based packages. These all start with an initial face to face meeting with the option of follow on sessions, a period of telephone support, or a mixture of both. In addition we offer redundancy and outplacement support that covers the active marketing of an individual by an experienced search consultant along with interview coaching. As an outplacement recruitment company we provide the flexibility and support an individual may need, along with the expert insurance market knowledge required to open doors and find a new role.

Alternatively you may just be looking to change jobs or advance your career - and for those individuals we can offer quite extensive career guidance

Support Programmes / Charges

Insurance Synergy charges are based on consultant time and content. Content is flexible based upon individual needs.

Group Support Programmes - can be provided via group seminars. The seminars cover areas such as ‘CV writing’, ‘interview technique’, ‘how to look for a new job’ and ‘handling assessment centres’. We would normally recommend individual sessions are provided as part of the support program. By offering additional ‘open format’ 1-2-1 sessions, we can review a persons CV, cover areas such as transferable skills, retirement planning, and retraining.

£350 + VAT per person for outplacement support - utilising pre-booked meeting rooms our consultants are able to provide very precise support using desktop sharing technology. This support allows access to very experienced consultants but at a fraction of the cost of normal redundancy / outplacement services.

Career Guidance – We can also offer support in helping an individual to develop their career.

Support Areas Covered by Our Consultants

By utilising highly experienced consultants we offer a targeted approach to outplacement support.

Areas our consultants can cover include:

• CV writing and ‘fine tuning’ including optimising a CV for online databases

• How to look for jobs including getting the Internet to work for you - job boards etc.

• Applying for jobs, and how to tailor a covering letter to accompany a job application

• Advice on marketing oneself to prospective employers including identifying transferable skills and determining other potential employment markets

• Handling difficult and competency based interviews - usually covered in a very practical way via running through a ‘dummy’ interview and providing feedback upon how the individual is projecting themselves

• Self employment and retraining - who to approach for guidance and funding

• Active candidate marketing - Having an experienced search consultant work closely with an outplacement candidate to identify potential employers, then having them proactively contacting key recruitment decision makers, selling the individuals skills and ability to them, with the intention of ‘creating a vacancy’.

Our outplacement support and service is totally flexible and we will cover as standard ‘all the basics’, however our service is aimed at identifying where an individual most needs help and support, and concentrating upon those areas.

Who Delivers the Outplacement Support?

Insurance Synergy’s outplacement consultants have all worked in the recruitment and insurance industry, as per attached profiles. We utilise individuals with a predominantly recruitment / insurance mix as a good consultant will have helped people find new jobs over their careers, they know what both human resources departments and what recruiting managers are looking for in a CV, at interview, and most importantly the technicalities involved with the insurance market.

Upon assignment, Insurance Synergy will assign a dedicated outplacement consultant to work with an individual or group of individuals. By dedicating one consultant, a rapport can build up, a fuller understanding of the individuals requirements established, and better and quicker results achieved.

However we fully appreciate that at times some very specific needs occur, this includes psychometric personality and skill profiling, right up to professional counselling.

One such area where we will bring in this extra support is in regards to ‘personality profiling’. Included within some of our outplacement support packages is the option for the outplacement candidate to undertake a psychometric ‘personality profile’. The trauma and stress of being made redundant can often come through within such profiles, thus by knowing what one may show - an individual can be better prepared.

Insurance Synergy’s consultants are based in the City, in the heart of the insurance sector but are also able to operate throughout the UK and internationally, which enables us to provide a fast and efficient service.

Outplacement support sessions will usually be delivered in our 148 Leadenhall Street, London office, alternatively and where appropriate we can work within a clients workplace.

About the Author

Author: Andy Edwards (Synergy Recruitment Consultants)

Principal Consultant