What is a career coach?

A career coach is your partner who helps you figure out what you really want to do with your life.  Then makes it easier for you to stay focused on your goals and reach them faster than you would have on your own.  A coach listens, offers advice, encourages, and challenges you.  It's someone with special training that can give you a toolkit to help you create your dreams.

Unlike traditional career counseling, a career coach looks at the whole person.  You consider your personal, family, and business aspects of your life.  In other words, career coaching is unique because you focus on you¾ and your goals.

Coaching is not psychotherapy.  A career coach does not assess and diagnosis your mental health.  Nor is a career coach an employment recruiter, placement agency, or headhunting service.

Career coaching takes a creative approach to helping you reach your career or job goals. You fully participate by discovering your own answers and leveraging your strengths.

• Discover your life passion and then learn how to get paid for it. 
• Identify and integrate your core values, interests, skills, and talents into a viable career path. 
• Get effective emotional, structural, and strategic support. 
• Eliminate fears, distractions and other barriers to your success. 
• Feed your confidence and gain momentum by getting results.
• Master self-marketing skills
• Expand your network of contacts.
• Increase your energy and productivity.
• Accelerate your career and personal growth.
• Obtain a job that fits you or create your "dream" business.
• Attain the lifestyle you have long desired.

People come to a coach because they either want to achieve something, fix something or make an important change in their life. To begin the process, you receive an in-depth career assessment and identify your real needs and priorities. Then together we develop an action plan that fits you and is based on your specific goals and objectives.

You will focus on what is most important to you. If you are out of work and need income right way, your short-term goal will be to generate the cash to pay the bills. Or, maybe you are feeling frustrated and stuck in a rut. Then you might put your attention first on finding out why you are stuck and removing those obstacles. Other examples of what you may want to get out of coaching include:

• Clarifying your ideal career path
• Aligning career goals with your personal values
• Polishing your networking skills
• Reviewing your cover letters, resumes, letters of introduction, etc.
• Preparing for interviews
• Reducing and managing stress
• Solving problems you may be having with a manager or coworkers
• Improving your relating skills
• Developing your time management skills
• Negotiating and getting a raise
• Boosting your work productivity
• Creating balance in your life

In his best seller, What Color Is Your Parachute?  Richard Bolles reports that a creative approach to career-change has the highest success rate of any one method.   He says, "86 out of 100 job-hunters who faithfully follow it" obtain work.  The creative method that Bolles talks about is one of many instruments included in the career coach's versatile bag of tools.

It's important for you to know that this non-linear approach to creating what you want, takes some time, and does not produce results overnight.  You must be committed to the process and your personal growth.  The coach is not here to do the work for you or fix your problems.  Instead, the coach provides you with the systems, structure, and support that create the conditions for you to effectively use your talents, abilities, and knowledge to accomplish your goals.

How committed are you to getting what you want?

 It depends on what your needs are and where you are in the career transition process.   A coach usually asks for a minimum commitment of three to six months.   However, many career-changers choose to work with a coach for one-and-a-half to two years. 

"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day.  Teach him how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime." (Stephen R. Covey, Principle-Centered Leadership)

"Coaching is about helping people slam shut the gap between what they've got now and what they want for themselves."

Inc., June 1997

". . . a coach will help you identify your marketable skills, define your life and career goals, and then create a game plan to help you reach them."

Money, December 1997

"If athletes, singers and actors can use coaches to deliver the best performance possible, there's no reason working moms shouldn't have the same hidden helper when it comes to competing in the demanding business world."

Working Mother, March 1997

"Need a life? Get a coach."

Newsweek, February 1996