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Why You Should Hire a Career Coach

Many people have no idea that career coaching exists for you. As a career coach, I exist to help you stop being in a career rut that makes you unexcited. There are many reasons why you should hire a Career Coach, check out the list below to see 5 reasons you should hire a Career Coach. 

  1. You’ve sent out (insert big number) of job applications.

    I once worked with a client who hired me only after applying for 80 jobs within the last month. She’d received precisely three replies. That’s 2.6 jobs a day, every single day, for a month. And only received three replies. You can imagine his mood and level of frustration by the time she got to our doorstep.

    Now, we were fortunately able to work through what was going wrong (her resume was not aligned to her target job field, and She was doing zero networking through the search process) and we constructed a new plan. This helped her start landing interviews within two weeks of our initial meeting.

    If this sounds remotely like you, stop what you’re doing and think about enlisting a coach who understands how this works. So many job seekers don’t understand how, specifically, the process works today. They know nothing about ATS systems that typically reviews applications before a human ever lays eyes on it, no less how to strategize around the so-called resume black hole.

    A career coach—particularly one who understands the recruitment process inside and out—can help you understand the game, and enable you to avoid the endless rounds of “apply now,” “apply now,” “apply now” that so many of us endure. They’d help you find your target field and get appropriate resumes into that field.

  2. Help You Establish a Career Path, Not Just a Job

    Career coaches are trained to get to know you as an individual first, then a professional second. I ask about who you are and what you love before we get into career discussions. The reason for this is because many people choose their careers based on earning potential, discovering later on that they are unhappy, unfulfilled, and miserable. A career coach is there to take your personality, qualifications, and passions, then help you to find a career that is challenging, promising, and fulfilling. I want you to follow your passions…. not the money.

  3. Keep You Accountable

    Like a good personal trainer, a good career coach wants you to reach your full potential and attain your goals. Therefore, a career coach will be there to motivate you, track your progress, and check in on you to ensure that you’re doing what you should be doing to get where you want and need to be in your career. By having that accountability, you are less likely to stray from your intended career path and more likely to work harder to reach your intended goals. Every client I have is required to sign an accountability contract.

     

  4. Your resume isn’t as impressive as you think

    If you’ve seen one of those Internet memes showing an athletic Daniel Craig in a tailored suit running smartly in a scene from a James Bond movie with the caption “What you think you look like when you’re running” accompanied by the picture of an out-of-shape man in running shorts wheezing as he jogs, with the caption “What you really look like when you’re running”, you get the idea.

    The power of your resume lies not just in the message but in how you communicate it. Just because you’re impressed by your own work experience and education doesn’t necessarily mean others will be too. The more competition there is for a job, the more imperative it is for your resume to jump out of the pile, but that requires a merciless assessment of how your resume will play with recruiters and an objective edit with the aid of a good coach. Given that your resume may be the only communication from you that many employers will ever see, it better be strong enough to get you an interview. I do this through resume word clouds that ask “Is this the story you want to tell?”

  5. A career coach can help you develop a solid job-search plan.

    Do you know what your value is to a prospective employer or client? Do you know how to best describe and pitch yourself? Do you know who the most important contacts are in your database? A career coach will assist you with the answers to come up with a strategic plan of attack to get hired. Your coach will ensure that you are telling the right story through your bio, resumé and LinkedIn profile.

    I will also help you sort through various possible opportunities (open positions, networking events, conferences, existing contacts, new contacts and the like) and prioritize the ones that could generate the most results. Having a plan will aid you in blowing past the inevitable discouragement of knocking on doors day after day. And if your plan gets fuzzy, your coach will encourage you, helping you face the next day.

If you're ready to take your career to the next level, schedule your FREE career coaching consultation today.
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What Do Your Leaders Say About You When You’re Not in the Room?

“What do your leaders say about you when you’re not in the room?”

The board room door closes and chit chat amongst leaders begin as they wait for their meeting to start. “How’s Bob doing this month?” A senior manager asks. Your manager grins, “Bob is doing okay, he comes in late every now & then but he’s doing okay.”

That one statement can determine your next promotion. When you think people aren’t watching, someone probably is. My first year on the job, I was sitting in a meeting with high level executives, and an intern came in. This intern was brilliant to say the least however he spent his time in the meeting trying to connect to the internet in order to watch a soccer game.

The intern didn’t say much, but within that 2 hour meeting his manager had received four complaints about him. His brilliance was no longer the focus of attention because the negativity outweighed the positive.

Let’s think about this in another sense. When you go to hotels and they have comment cards for you to fill out, how often are you going to leave a comment: – when something good happens or when something bad happens? Likely you will leave a complaint over praise, if you are like most Americans.

Corporate America works the same way. That 3 day report you worked on finishing can easily be overshadowed by those 10 minutes you were scrolling through Facebook and a manager saw you.

Your strongest reputation comes from what people say about you when you’re not even in the room.

When I decided I was interested in a promotion, my mentor told me to make sure I told my current boss I was looking so that he could advocate for me. I was confused, why would I tell him I want to leave his team? Wouldn’t he try to stop me? My mentor explained that a good manager wants you to succeed. You succeeding means that they are succeeding.

After I made it through that conversation with my boss, he let me know that he was reaching out to the hiring manager to let them know how much he recommends me. Those little things matter especially considering he was probably going to get a call anyway.

What do you think your manager would say to another manager about you? Would they go on and on about your impeccable timing skills or details analytic reports or would they say that you miss the detailed tasks or small deadlines? Those small deadlines add up over time. 

There are 5 things I want you to think about when thinking of career progression.

  • Am I spending down time on my phone or am I asking for additional tasks?
  • Do I speak when I walk into a room?
  • How often have I completed my assignments on time WITHOUT having to be reminded of them?
  • When was I  reprimanded multiple times on the same topic?
  • Have I been caught off topic?

If most of these are negative, it may be time to rethink the image and persona that you are putting out into the world. 

Think through these and let me know how your answers turned out in the comments. Are you a pro in reputation management? Don’t forget to subscribe!

XOXO

Nikki