The Job Doctor's Prescription for Northpointe's 338 Workers: A WARN Notice in a Sale Is an Interview Window, Not a Pink Slip

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — Nov. 15, 2026 — A WARN notice for 338 jobs usually reads like an ending. At Northpointe Bank, it is closer to a handoff. The Grand Rapids-headquartered lender has filed a state WARN notice covering 338 positions in Grand Rapids, Cascade Township and DeWitt, effective Dec. 31, as it sells its distributed retail and consumer direct mortgage origination business to CMG Financial under an agreement signed Oct. 26. CMG intends to offer employment to a majority of Northpointe's retail sales and consumer direct teams, along with some operations and support roles, and workers who are not offered positions will receive severance and benefits continuation through Dec. 31. Northpointe cited sustained higher interest rates and lower national home loan volumes in describing the sale as a strategic repositioning.

"Here is the diagnosis most workers miss: in a sale, a WARN notice is not the same as a plant closing," said CJ Eason, President of Workforce Development at Hired in Michigan. Eason is known to job seekers as "The Job Doctor" for her no-nonsense, solutions-based approach to job problems. "The buyer did not purchase buildings and logos. The buyer purchased the work — the loans, the customers and the people who know how to do it. That makes the weeks before Dec. 31 an interview window. Workers who treat it that way walk into the new company. Workers who wait quietly for a letter are the ones who get left out of it."

Eason's prescription for the 338 affected workers is three steps, starting this week. "One — build your proof page before anyone asks for it: the loans and files you handled, the volume you moved, the customers who ask for you by name, in numbers. A buyer keeps the people whose work it can see. Two — get your answer in writing: your role, your pay, your location and your start date with the new company, and if there is no offer, your severance and benefits dates in writing too. Do not let Dec. 31 arrive on a verbal promise. Three — run a parallel search now, while you are still employed. The typical unemployed American has now been looking for 11.9 weeks, the longest stretch in about a decade outside the pandemic, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A search you start from a paycheck is a completely different search from one you start from a deadline."

That last point is the national takeaway, Eason noted, because the same pattern is playing out in sales and mergers in every state: "Wherever a business is sold instead of shut down, the acquiring company is hiring the experience it just bought. The worker who shows up with proof of the work — not just a title — is the worker who gets carried across. You are not begging the new owner for a job. You are showing the new owner the asset it already paid for: you."

Michigan workers who want to put step three into practice in person can meet hiring employers face-to-face at Michigan's largest job fair event, hosted by Hired in Michigan on Thursday, Nov. 19, from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Radisson Hotel Southfield. The event is free for job seekers; details are at jobfairgiant.com. "Bring your proof page," Eason said. "Whether your next employer is CMG or someone you meet that afternoon, the page does the talking — and right now, 338 experienced mortgage professionals in West Michigan have a head start most job seekers would envy: their work is in demand, and everyone in the deal knows it."

Eason is available for interviews on the Northpointe sale, what WARN notices do and do not mean in an acquisition, and how displaced workers can shorten a search that is getting longer nationally.

About Hired in Michigan: Hired in Michigan is a 501(c)(3) Community Empowerment organization specializing in helping military and military-connected families, in partnership with Spouses Works, the Department of War, and Blue Star Families. It operates jobfairgiant.com, Michigan's largest job fair event, and MichiganHired.com, where job seekers find verified, real job opportunities.

Media contact:
CJ Eason
President of Workforce Development, Hired in Michigan
jobfairgiant.com · MichiganHired.com
eason@hiredinmichigan.org · 248-237-3600