What your outplacement report should show

A report that counts logins and sessions completed shows use, not what participants produced. Ask your provider what it reports beyond use: a resume that passes an applicant tracking system, references ready to speak, and a clear list of target companies.

Utilization is how many participants logged in, how many sessions they completed, how many resources they opened. It is easy to measure and report. It is not the same thing as an outcome. A participant can complete every session on a curriculum and still not have a resume that passes an applicant tracking system, a set of references ready to speak on their behalf, or a clear sense of what companies to target.

Access to a coach, a portal or a job board is one thing; what the participant produced with it is another. When you evaluate a provider, ask whether its report shows where each search stands and what is holding it back, or just whether the access was used.

This isn't a claim about how fast anyone gets hired — we don't have outcome data to make that claim yet, and we won't make it until we do. It's a claim about what gets measured in the meantime, and whether a figure such as “62% logged in this month” (an example, not a real number) tells an HR buyer whether the program is working.