Career Coach: When to Hire One
Career coaches are kind of pricey, especially if you’re unemployed, just getting started in your career, or are just coping with the uncertainty we’re all dealing with and trying to save money. Here are some points to consider when it comes to when people are most likely to need a coach as well as some DIY or low cost/free resources to try first.
First Job
While it’s tempting to say that even if your first job is the one you have in high school, given the time and resources, you might actually benefit from some direction. The good news is if you’re still in high school or college, you can probably get quite a bit of support from a guidance counselor (in high school) or your career services center in college.
What to expect: You might take some interest assessments, complete a comprehensive interview with the counselor about classes you’ve liked/hated and ideas you have about careers you want to explore. It’s helpful to go to your meeting with a sense of how much additional education (if any) you want to complete and any fields you have already considered as well as a list of volunteer activities you have completed.
First Resume
If you’re looking for your first job and you have never written a resume before, that’s okay. It doesn’t make you weird, but it does mean you have some work ahead of you because the first resume is the most work.
High school and college students: career counseling or guidance is your best friend here. They have books, sample resumes, and sometimes, software with templates and keywords/ideas for transferrable skills to get you going ASAP and make your resume look fabulous.
Anyone outside of high school and college: visit your public library. Most public libraries have a lot of resources to help you put together a good resume. Sometimes they even offer workshops for job seekers.
The challenge with a first resume is identifying your transferrable skills and translating them into ways you have added value somehow when you don’t have an established work history. (Transferrable skills are skills you can use in multiple jobs—as in they “transfer.” Common skills like these include customer service, active listening, data entry, and problem solving.)
Mid-Career Change
You definitely need a career coach even if you’re unemployed. Stick with me on this one: this is a career transition that affords you some huge earning potential that will be harder to get back later. You have experience that you might not have been compensated for appropriately in your previous position (or the one you’re moving out of) and you know how things work. Also, you have a better sense of what you like and you don’t like.
If you have a solid resume, a lot of confidence, and know exactly what type of position you’re looking for, you could just find a headhunter and hope for the best, but unless you’re in a specialized industry that relies heavily on headhunters (like IT, high-level management, or healthcare) you may be better off negotiating on your own.
What to expect: Shop around for a career coach that you like and has a fee schedule that works for you. Also ask about their education, training, and experience. Make sure that you’re comfortable with them. The working relationship you have is key. Once you find the coach for you, they will probably ask you to share specific goals for your work together and draw up an agreement that you will work on those goals together, how you will meet, how often you will meet, the fee schedule, and mutual expectations for your work together. Depending on how your coach works, you might be asked to complete a thorough intake form with your work history as well as your family’s work history. Other factors such as your goals for personal life, career goals, preferences regarding work/life balance, and important role models for you might be included in either a form or an intake interview.
After the intake, your coach might ask you to complete some assessments that help capture a picture of your interests, skills, and opportunities for professional development.
From there, you and your coach will discuss options for you moving forward. Once you’ve weighed the pros and cons of different directions, your coach might encourage you to gather more information from other people in your network to help determine what is best for you at this point in your life.
Then, you develop a plan with time-specific goals and ways of measuring progress and check-in with your coach periodically on the execution of that plan. After that, you might choose to drop in to fine-tune what you’re doing or you might choose other resources such as groups of other professionals, a mentor, or just brainstorming with trusted friends or colleagues.
Retirement
While it might sound odd, most people actually prefer to do something after they leave the traditional workforce. Personal goals like time with family, time spent on hobbies, or travel might take more priority during this time, but there’s often the question of other possible contributions either through paid consulting or volunteer work.
In this case, a career coach is not a make-or-break professional, but they can be good to consult with if your budget allows it.
The advantage of working with a coach in this case is they are impartial and they have knowledge of resources that other people in your circle might not be aware of. This frees you up to explore all the possibilities and can save you time and aggravation with whatever you choose to do (or not do.)
Going Back to School
If you are considering graduate school, a professional certification program, or any other training that is going to require a significant amount of time and money, a few sessions with a career coach can actually help you come out ahead.
In many cases, you might be able to either skip the additional schooling or at least find a job that will help you pay for the training you want.
If you’re not feeling flush enough to pay a career coach, your local librarian can probably point you to some free resources to help you gather more information about what is actually required for most professions. A lot of the government databases have good information, but they can seem a bit intimidating and unwieldy at first, so it’s helpful to have an expert walk you through them. Some libraries subscribe to databases that provide career information, resume templates, and courses to help you brush up on skills like apps in the Microsoft Office Suite and more.
Information sessions and meetings with admissions counselors at programs you’re considering can be helpful and definitely attend those meetings when they’re offered, but beware: the person running them is selling a program, they aren’t an expert in the field you’re considering. (At least, not usually.) This can be problematic if you are looking at entering a licensed profession because a lot of programs offer different tracks or offer programs that look similar to what you would need for licensure, but they aren’t necessarily right for that. So, you could go all the way through your training and pay for it only to realize later that you need to redo a bunch of it. Not good.
Feel free to contact me with your burning career questions and I will respond as best I can either in the comments or in a future post.
