A career coach provides wide-ranging support and practical advice for all aspects of career development. Your career coach will work with you, one-on-one, and tailor their services to your unique situation.
From fostering the right mental attitude to crafting the perfect cover letter, a career coach has many techniques up their sleeve with which to help you achieve your career goals.
What does a career coach do?
Everyone who employs the services of a career coach will have a slightly different experience. A good career coach is an expert in providing a bespoke service, perfectly designed for the needs of the individual. Initially, it’s likely that a career coach will discuss your requirements, your previous work experience and your goals and dreams. They may give you tests to take, to assess your personality and discover where your skills lie. They’ll delve deep to truly understand you, so they can make sure their advice is tailored exclusively for you.
Why might you need a career coach?
There are several reasons why you might benefit from the services of a career coach. Let’s look at some of the most common…
Those looking to progress in their chosen career
If you’re not moving forward within your career, a coach will be able to help you identify the barriers to progression and work with you to find ways to overcome them. A career coach can support you in your climb to the top of the career ladder.
People wanting to change career
There often comes a time in our lives when we just need a change. After following the same career path for many years, we can feel as if we are stuck in a rut, or that we’ve reached all our goals and now we have nothing left to aim for. Or perhaps you simply don’t like your current job very much and would love to do something different.
When we feel like this, it can be difficult to make the move. We may think it’s a ‘better the devil you know’ situation and stick with our unfulfilling job. Taking that leap into a new career can be a whole lot easier when you have a career coach by your side. You can talk through your ideas, and they will help you to create a realistic and positive plan for your next move. People who hire a career coach are more likely to make the leap into a new role and make a success of it.
Anyone struggling to find work
If you’ve ever sent out a whole load of job applications without any success, you’ll know that sinking feeling of defeat. You start to question your abilities, and you can easily fall into a downward spiral. A career coach will work hard to get you on the right track again. They can work with you to perfect your interview technique, make sure your resume is on point, and look at ways in which you can give yourself an advantage over other applicants, such as taking extra training courses to increase your relevant skills.
The benefits of hiring a career coach
Over a lifetime, most people could benefit from the services of a career coach, so let’s take a look at the many ways in which they can help…
Helping to choose a career path
You know what you love to do, perhaps you have an idea of the type of job you’d like, but you don’t have any clear plans. By discussing your dreams, interests and experience with a career coach, you can begin to develop a clearer picture of where your career path would ideally take you. From there you can start to make real plans, narrowing down a preferred industry to focus on specialist roles within niche markets. For example, if you’d love a role that would help people, but your skills lie in IT, then your career coach may suggest you apply for programming jobs within the healthcare sector. This would then give you a career you’re good at, that will make you a decent living, but that would also be rewarding on a higher level.
Assisting with job hunting
Finding a job can be rather complicated these days, particularly if you’re new to it. Many of us have never searched for work online, and there are so many different job sites out there, that it can be confusing and overwhelming. A career coach will help you to navigate this process, they’ll know which sites will work best for the type of jobs you’re looking for, and they will help you to set up your profile and apply for positions. They’ll also have other ‘outside the box’ ideas, and depending on your circumstances, they may suggest something you hadn’t thought of, such as starting up your own business.
Setting goals
Your career journey can seem more tangible when you have specific goals to aim for. A career coach will help you to set your goals, but they’ll also focus on the journey, and the goals you achieve along the way. It’s important to see progression in all aspects of life, and by setting a series of smaller goals, as opposed to one huge one, you will see how well you’ve done when you regularly achieve goals. It’s like losing weight. If your goal is to lose 30 pounds, losing 3 pounds would seem trivial, you’re so far away from your goal that it feels like you’re never going to make it. However, if you set a series of goals to lose 5 pounds each month, then your 3-pound weight loss is over halfway there! You feel more positive and you’re on the right track to eventually reach your ultimate goal. A career coach will work with you to set achievable goals and ensure you maintain a positive mental attitude along the way.
Transitioning between careers
Changing careers can be difficult, but the support of a career coach can make all the difference. They can help you prepare for the change and suggest ways to make the transition smoother. They may find courses you can take that will enhance your knowledge in a certain area, or perhaps boost skills that will be more prevalent in your new role such as public speaking or making presentations.
Improving job application and interview skills
Most jobs you apply for will receive a huge number of applicants. These days applying for jobs can be done so quickly and easily online, it only increases the number of applications that the employer is going to have to sift through. Will they sit and thoroughly read each one? That’s highly unlikely. In reality, people are busy, especially those looking to hire more staff. We can reasonably presume that resumes and cover letters will get a cursory glance. Some will be put to one side for extra attention, and the rest discarded. Your career coach will work with you to craft a resume and a cover letter that stands out from the crowd. They’ll know the latest trends and they’ll understand how to best showcase your skills and experience. In addition, they’ll be able to work with you to improve your interview techniques, with mock interviews being an incredibly useful tool to reduce nerves and cover any questions that might be put to you.
Creating the perfect work-life balance
Of course, work isn’t all of life, and while a career coach will help you succeed in your career, they are also there to ensure your career enhances your life rather than hindering it. A good career coach will assess your needs and your requirements outside of work too, they can then use this information to ensure your work, and your home life are in perfect balance. Perhaps you’d like a job that gives you more vacation time, or you simply cannot work weekends due to childcare commitments, but evenings would be fine. Whatever your circumstances, a career coach can help you find the career that perfectly suits you, your life, and your family.
