Transitioning out of a PEO after 6 years [N/A]
Hi everyone,
I am looking for some perspective or advice from fellow HR and Benefits professionals. I recently was laid off after 6 wonderful years with a major PEO. Since then, the job hunt has been a bit of an eye-opener, and honestly, a struggle.
I have 6 years of total PEO experience. I started handling employee benefits and platform inquiries, then moved to the client side for 5 years. I focused heavily on benefits funding, annual renewals, and complex escalations involving Health, LOA, and COBRA. My most recent role was handling senior leadership-level escalations—basically acting as the fixer for the most complex issues.
It has been a month of daily applications, and I am hitting two major challenges:
- Most HR roles I see right now want one person to do it all for example payroll, benefits, tax compliance, and more. Coming from a PEO, my experience is very deep but in specific lanes. I feel like I am being overlooked because I haven’t touched every single HR pillar simultaneously.
- The PEO I worked for used a proprietary platform. Every job posting now seems to require Workday, Rippling, or ADP as a hard barrier. It feels like companies are no longer willing to train on software even if you have the underlying subject matter expertise.
I’ve worked with the outplacement company provided by my former employer, but aside from a better-looking resume template, it hasn’t been helpful. I’m starting to feel like my PEO background is actually a disadvantage in the broader market because it is so specialized.
Since other PEOs are not local to my city and remote options are feeling more limited by the day, I am seriously questioning if I need to pivot careers entirely.
My questions for the group:
• Has anyone successfully transitioned from a PEO to an in-house HR or Benefits role? How did you bridge the generalist gap?
• How are you handling the software requirements like Workday when you have the knowledge but not the specific UI experience?
• Are there specific industries or roles that value the high-level escalation skill set more than others?
I appreciate any suggestions or even just a bit of encouragement. Apologies for the long post, it has been a long month.