Don't want to sign the separation agreement? More power to you. In that case, you might to think twice about accepting any extra help in the form of resume service that come as part of the layoff package. They may be of some help to certain people, but I see plenty of mixed comments on other forums that they were not very impressed with companies like lee hecht. They claim that they didn't help them find a job and they didn't feel they got expert help with resumes. It would be common sense that any company would try to offer whatever it can to try to mitigate potential financial liability like sweetening the severance pot to include a free resume consult, so even if you dont accept seagate payout, I would bet that you'd be viewed as having accepted at least some Seagate help if you let company provided experts tweak your resume. Don't know if that is happening but kind of seems a little suspicious in my opinion and so after I saw another post promoting these services that smelled a little to much like an advert.
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When I was laid off in 2009, Seagate paid for a 3 month stint at Right Management. Highly professional staff there, and highly useful. Must have cost Seagate a bundle. Sounds like they're being cheap now with just offering LHH. Working at Medtronic now, and loving it. Fcuk uncertainty, and Seagate.
Why are there situations like this ? I have an idea. It is no secret that is getting more common for companies to offer "re-employment" services as they are kicking people out the door. My goodness, how kind of these former employers huh...? But wait, think about it for a moment... Companies care only about money when it comes down to it - all companies. And no individual within a company is exempt from getting axed despite where they think they are in the food chain either - although there most certainly has always been your a$$ or mine in the working world and there always will be which unfortunately probably does drive decisions.
Here is the deal with the LHH thing... If, for example, a company, like Seagate, chops 1000 heads and 10% of them go unemployed over the next 6 months to a year then that company, Seagate, has to quietly worry about a potential lawsuit coming from a hundred people. In fact, Seagate, and other companies, have had that very thing happen in the past, just google and you find successful class action suits against Seagate. Hypothetical scenario... a successful suit from 100 laid off people will most likely pay out lost wages at a minimum - in this case it would be about 100 x avg salaries of those laid off.. say 50k. So potential payouts could be 5 million or more given this estimate right ? A couple things that make that a little less likely are that people in large part don't go around suing companies all the time and class action suits are take effort to get together. Nevertheless, the point is that there is a potential for a company to suffer financial penalties and a bad image - including bad press and there might even be political implications that could affect their bottom line in the future.
How might a company thwart this you ask. Hmmmm... well, just contract with a company like LHH... pay them about $200 per head chopped (I am guessing on that). The product they provide (to the company laying people off) is to constantly prod the laid off individuals to straighten out their resumes and they promote the goodness and excitement of being on the job hunt. Even if all they do is to remind the thousand chopped heads once every few days to keep applying for a bunch of jobs, the reality is that their prodding will probably have an effect on people to get back to work a little quicker than they would have otherwise. If a company like LHH could successfully prod those particular 10% employees I mentioned above, who might take longer to search for jobs that actually match their skill-sets and education - and who may also have the gumption to sue their former employer, then they might be able to get them back work within 2-3 months vs letting them take their time to find a good non-temp-agency job. By doing so, the risk to the company that laid them off is greatly diminished when all laid off people get new jobs as soon as possible.
At that point, a company might be much happier at the prospect of facing suits from 5 to 10 out of a 1000 who are suing for 3 months pay or so - much much less $$$ for a company to pay out right ? Seems like LHH services would be a good investment on behalf of the company then huh ? If that is indeed how it works and I were a company like Seagate, I would hire LHH too. Now, in the world we hope we live in, some decision-making individuals within a company probably do care about the employees on a personal level and feel bad when they let people go, but we need to remember that those individuals act as a company to make a business decision which always means lower the costs and make more money - period. It is just the way of the business world.
As an American, I am ashamed at how all our sweetheart industry leaders, Dell, HP, Seagate, health industry, energy, and so on have profited greatly by evading taxes and lowered salaries and overall costs by offshoring. I hope these leaders go down in the history books as modern day greedy low-life examples of the robber barons of old. Just like many years ago when business leaders and companies started to grow a conscience they built libraries and colleges and whatever. Sometimes it seems like history repeats itself. It seems our modern day industries also want to give the appearance that they have social responsibility and care about the environment blah... Hey, habitat for humanity and food bank are wonderful causes, as are many others, but they do not substitute for offshoring American jobs by the thousands while lining their pockets do they?
So here is a silver lining or at least a funny part to me.. Each one of us has the right to sell our tech, energy, health tech industry stock and reinvest it at our will right ? Perhaps we should take the money and re-invest it in companies like LHH - and other companies that do little more than better enable larger companies to successfully chop heads and send US money off shore. Hey.... what is that saying ? If you can't beat them join them. haha. that seems like good financial sense to me... Perhaps we could be more choosy too when spending our money on products from these companies when the reality is that many people didn't need their products in the first place.. Do you really need that new PC just to do facebook ? Do you really need the latest cellphone or another external hard drive ? Wow, how did people ever get by with less technology 10, 20, 30 years ago. It must have been impossible huh?
I agree with everyone here - LHH was of no help. They recommended I check the news papers for openings or search on google for local companies. They have no connections or leads of their own. I tried one of their virtual career fairs and all the companies were other temporary labor services such as Aerotek and nothing outside the east coast. No representatives were available to chat with and I never got any reply to the couple questions I had.
I had a similar experience with LHH. Kept hounding me to visit their office and I did once just to keep them away. Not useful for people who have tons of experience. Maybe ok for fresh graduates.
I've known many who were laid off and they all had nothing but bad things to say about the resume service that Seagate offers. They told me not to even waste my time with it. Wish they wouldn't pay for that Bologna and would just pay an extra week pay Instead. Or even just one extra day. It would be a better use of the money.
I used LHH and i was not that impressed. I already had my resume in order like all of us should. I guess they were a little help but I was surprised at how they hounded me near the deadline. They started calling all the time so I let them help me.