Quick-Start Guide: Outplacement Firms
**Audience:** Practice leaders, program operations directors, counselors, and procurement reviewers at outplacement and transition firms **Time to first value:** 30-day pilot cohort **URL:** startingmonday.app/for-outplacement
What Starting Monday does for your firm
Starting Monday is the between-session operating layer for your counselors and participants. It improves cohort momentum, reduces counselor prep overhead, and gives your program-level leadership measurable placement outcomes to report to sponsors.
Step 1 - Review the evidence and trust pack (15 min)
Before any internal decision:
- Go to **startingmonday.app/for-outplacement**
- Review the pilot observations: early cohorts showed faster first qualified outreach and stronger prep discipline (directional, methodology in trust pack)
- Go to **startingmonday.app/for-outplacement/trust-pack** for methodology, KPI definitions, and claims policy
- Share the trust pack with procurement and legal reviewers before advancing
Step 2 - Define your pilot cohort (1-2 days)
Work with your Starting Monday account lead to define:
| Decision | Options |
|---|---|
| Cohort size | 10-30 executives recommended for initial pilot |
| Track | Executive Transition (VP+/C-suite) or Professional Transition (director and below) |
| Counselor count | 1 counselor per 10-12 participants recommended |
| Pilot duration | 30 days minimum for scorecard evidence |
Step 3 - Pilot implementation schedule
| Week | Action | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| Week 0 | Kickoff and baseline setup - cohort defined, scorecard approved | Partner lead + Starting Monday |
| Week 1 | Activation sprint - participants set target list, first signal review | Counselors + participants |
| Week 2 | Signal-to-action - each participant logs at least one outreach action | Participants with counselor oversight |
| Week 3 | Prep quality checkpoint - at least one interview brief used | Counselors + participants |
| Week 4 | Scorecard review - decide on full program rollout | Program lead |
Step 4 - Counselor workflow
Counselors use Starting Monday to:
- **Pre-session:** Read the session snapshot (what changed since last session, current pipeline, confidence score)
- **During session:** Spend 65-80% of session on strategy vs. the current 45-55%
- **Post-session:** Log commitments and risk markers
- **Weekly:** Review portfolio risk queue and identify participants needing intervention
> Counselors in the pilot cohort reduced context-rebuild time from 20-30 minutes to 5-12 minutes per session.
Step 5 - Program-level reporting
The platform provides:
- Weekly cohort engagement dashboard: activation rate, signal-response rate, prep quality
- Sponsor-ready export: milestone completion rate, utilization, cadence adherence
- Risk triage: participants drifting, stalled pipelines, intervention queue
These reports go directly to your program lead and can be exported for sponsor reporting.
Roles and responsibilities
| Role | Owns |
|---|---|
| Starting Monday platform | Signal detection, prep briefs, activity visibility, scorecard reporting |
| Counselors | Judgment, narrative coaching, prioritization, confidence support |
| Program lead | Cohort governance, adoption accountability, escalation decisions |
Common questions
**"Our participants are overwhelmed and will not adopt another tool."** Frame it as one morning decision list. Adoption improves significantly when counselors introduce it as "see what happened and decide one action" rather than "learn a new platform."
**"We already provide this in workshops."** Starting Monday is not a replacement for counselors or workshops. It is the between-session layer that keeps execution visible between touchpoints.
First action right now
Go to **startingmonday.app/for-outplacement** and read the pilot outcomes. Then request a scoping call to define your pilot cohort.