Career Coaching allows you to identify what you want from your work life and assess if your current job gives you what you want. However, it can also help you deal with a range of career problems, some of which are detailed below, but if you want to find out more take a look at our blog 7 things that career coaching can be used.
Career coaching is also about pushing your comfort zone and stretching you. By doing this you are likely to get to where you want much more quickly than if you were working without a Coach.
During the coaching sessions you’ll identify what skills you have and what you might need or want to develop to land your ideal job. You’ll also create a plan of action to help you achieve your desired outcome, whether that’s an understanding of your career goals, a great CV, help with interview preparation or just clarity on what’s next.
"You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes, you can steer yourself in any direction you choose." - Dr Seus
How does Career Coaching work?
The Coach will not give you all the answers, but they will guide you through a range of activities to help you find the answers and decide on what action to take. So be prepared to do most of the talking and work. If you just want the answers on a plate or in a nice 10 minute formula that’s not likely to give you the results you’re looking for.
Sessions are usually an hour and take place at a frequency that suits you, often clients choose bi-weekly as it allows time to carry out any actions identified.
Coaching is not like counselling, where you spend a lot of time examining the past. Coaching is mainly about looking forward to what your future could look like and identifying what action you want to take to make that future reality. Whilst your coach may touch on elements of the past it is usually only to better understand your current situation and identify if any past behaviours are keeping you “stuck” where you are or stopping you from achieving your goals.
Career coaching is about you choosing the topics and areas you want to focus on as you are the expert in your life and work life. The Coach’s role is to help you answer those big career questions. They may do this by giving you activities or tools to use to do some thinking or planning or it might just be by asking you a range of great questions that help you think about your situation in a different way.
You are in charge of where the conversation goes, so if there is a topic that you don’t want to discuss for whatever reason that’s entirely up to you.
What does Career Coaching help with?
Career Coaching can help with a wide variety of questions or issues. Here’s a few examples to give you an idea:
You feel stuck in a job you hate, dreading Monday morning and counting down the days until your next holiday. You know you want to change, but just aren’t sure where to start.
You don’t know what to do next in your career.
You want to get promoted, maybe you’ve been turned down several times and don’t know what now.
You’ve been made redundant.
You want to set up your own business.
You want to retire.
You’re having trouble with your boss and don’t know how to handle it.
You’ve been recently promoted to a Manager and are struggling because you’ve been dumped into the role with little support.
Your confidence has taken a knock because you’ve been in your job a long time and feel that people are taking you for granted.
You’re managing a project, it’s something new and you feel like you’re floundering.
You’ve got communication issues within your team or with your Manager / Key Stakeholders.
The key thing is that Career Coaching gives you time to discuss your chosen topic with someone impartial without the fear of judgment.
How can I get the most out of Career Coaching?
In order to get the most out of Career Coaching, you have to be ready to move forward. You have to want to make changes and do the work you identify. You have to be prepared for your thought process, behaviour’s and assumptions to be challenged and to be given feedback. If you use Snow Limits Coaching this challenge will be done with kindness, but with the understanding that this is what you are paying us for. If we just let you get away with not challenging yourself we wouldn’t be doing our job right.
If you like the idea of solving the problem, but don’t want to make the time to take action then you’ll be wasting your opportunity.
Does Career Coaching really work?
If you put the time and effort into it - yes! How do I know? Well I’ve done it myself, I used a number of coaches to help me plan my career change from being employed by a big Corporate into running my own successful business. They helped me identify what steps I needed, navigate some of the challenging conversations and take action to learn lots of new skills that were required.
If you don’t believe me here’s a few quotes from past clients:
“I learnt if you really want it you can get it if you have the right motivation and plan.”
“This experience has had an incredible impact on my confidence and motivation it was a real discovery”
“The coaching session have given me confidence at a point of huge change in my life”
How Do I Choose a Career Coach?
There are several things to take into account when choosing a coach. Coaching isn’t a regulated business so anyone can and does call themselves a coach. To avoid a bad experience check out your future coaches credentials.
● Have they any relevant training or qualifications?
● Are they members of any industry bodies?
● How long have they been Coaching?
● Have they got any testimonials from happy customers?
To answer those questions, I have a background in training, HR and Project Management and am a member of both the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development and the Association for NLP and follow their code of ethics in my coaching. I have been coaching informally for most of my career supporting line managers with tricky HR situations, coaching and developing them in my role as a Training Consultant and more formally for the last 6 years. If you would like to see some testimonials prior to working with me, use the contact us from and I'll be happy to send you copies.
What Next?
It’s also important that you feel comfortable with your Coach, you’ll be talking to them about lots of different things, some of which you might feel self conscious about. You need to feel confident talking honestly about your Career and any issues. Most coaches offer a no obligation conversation to help get to know them and for you to ask any questions. They will also want to make sure that they can help you and if they can’t a professional coach will tell you and might even be able to give you someone else who might be suitable.
If this article has answered your questions or concerns about career coaching and you want to get in touch to see if we can help, click here to make an enquiry.
**The information contained above is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this blog are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this blog. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this blog. Snow Limits Coaching disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this blog.
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