What does it take to become an amazing career coach – and how would I know if I’m suited to career coaching?
Do you need certain qualifications to become a career coach?
Could career coaching be a good next step for you?
Career coaching is more popular now than it’s ever been.
People need help and support at every stage of their careers, from young people starting their working lives to folks who’ve been in the workforce for decades.
Career coaching clients have questions like these:
How do I decide what kind of work to do next?
How can I brand myself to get the attention of recruiters and hiring managers?
How will I know what salary level to shoot for in my job search?
How can I get interviews – apart from submitting applications to careers sites?
Should I stay at my current job, or look for a new one?
What are employers looking for in a new hire?
What if I have an obstacle, like employment gaps or a series of short-term jobs?
What do I need to know before I go to a job interview?
Clients look to a career coach to help them navigate these issues and many more!
What kinds of backgrounds do career coaches have?
Career coaches come from all backgrounds and from every industry and function.
Some career coaches have worked as managers or HR people but many others haven’t.
There is no particular background or career history that makes someone an amazing career coach.
It’s more about their wisdom and life experience than having a specific career path or educational background.
That’s one of the best things about career coaching!
WHO YOU ARE matters more in career coaching than what you’ve done professionally.
Here are ten signs you’d be an incredible career coach:
1. You enjoy talking about career topics and hearing the stories of people you meet.
If you love to hear people talk about their career backgrounds and the twists and turns of their career paths, you’re well-suited to career coaching. A big part of coaching is helping people value their own career story and help employers see what’s powerful about what they’ve done in their careers so far. We call this process Reclaiming Your Path.
2. You’re eager to teach non-traditional, trust-based techniques to people in transition.
I started writing about work and careers in 1997 because as a long-time HR leader, I didn’t like the career advice I saw in articles and websites at the time. The standard career advice taught people to grovel and beg for a job. I knew that wasn’t necessary and wasn’t even helpful. I created a new, non-traditional and power career curriculum that has helped thousands of people get the jobs they deserve. If you share my view that the best career coaching celebrates what people have rather than focusing on what they don’t have, you can be an amazing career coach.
3. You already help your friends and family members with their career issues and challenges.
It’s easy to tell who would be a fantastic career coach because they’ve already been career coaching, sometimes for years, for their friends and family members. People gravitate to them when they’re stuck in the wrong job or need career advice. Maybe that’s you!
4. You like brainstorming with people to help them surmount job search and career challenges in creative ways.
Career coaching clients want to brainstorm about their situation and look at a range of solutions to their career problems. Career coaches look at obstacles from all angles because they know there’s a way to get over, under, around or straight through any career problem that crops up for their clients.
5. You are excited about career coaching as a part-time or full-time profession.
Career coaches work for themselves, part-time or full-time. They may do career coaching alongside a full-time or part-time job. They may do other kinds of coaching and consulting too, or they may do something completely different in their non-career-coaching hours. As a career coach you’ll decide when you want to work and how much time to devote to career coaching. It’s your decision. After all, it’s your business and your life!
6. People tell you, “Wow! You are a good listener,” and/or, “You have amazing advice!”
Listening is a critical and central aspect of career coaching. Listening and empathizing with clients is what sets great career coaches apart from others. If you enjoy listening to people and understanding the fear and pain that can accompany career setbacks and disappointments as well as the triumphs job seekers and working people experience, you’ll be an incredible career coach.
7. You understand that it can be scary to step into something new (a job search, for instance) and you are happy to help clients step through their fear to reach their goals.
Fear of change is a universal issue. It’s hard to step into new territory. As a career coach you’ll help your clients step into their next career adventures by encouraging and reassuring them. We all need someone in our corner, and people in career transition especially need that support!
8. You are ready to take on a new challenge – launching and growing your own coaching business.
Your coaching business can be a part-time endeavor or a full-time career. You can start your business with one or two clients and grow it to become 100% of your income. Stepping into your entrepreneurial power as a business owner grows muscles that everyone needs in the new millennium working world. Luckily, it’s not hard to start a business. You just have to know how.
9. You resonate with the Human Workplace methodology and mindset.
I started our company, Human Workplace, in 2007 to reinvent work for people. Now we share career, leadership, HR, entrepreneurial and life advice with over three million followers around the world. Our view is that work is a human-powered activity and that all of us have a flame inside us that wants to grow. If you share this mindset, you can join the Human Workplace Coach Network and step into career coaching with us!
10. You enjoy and get fulfillment from helping people step into their power.
The most important part of any career coaching engagement is helping your client realize how powerful they are, and use their power to help themselves and others. It’s a wonderful feeling to help someone see themselves as powerful when they haven’t always felt that way.
Human Workplace Career Coaches realize that no matter who you are, not every job opportunity or every employee deserves your talents. We teach job seekers, “Only the people who get you, deserve you.”
Why Become a Career Coach?
You can become a career coach, launch and grow your own business and work with clients virtually and/or face to face. As a career coach you will set your hours and coaching fees. You won’t fill out a timesheet, have a performance review or report to anyone.
You’ll do good and important work helping people overcome obstacles and step into new adventures.
Best of all, you’ll see the impact of your work – something many people in corporate and institutional jobs struggle to do. You’ll positively influence your clients and teach them skills that will help them throughout their lives.
Is Career Coaching mostly writing resumes?
Career coaching isn’t just about writing resumes anymore. It’s about helping clients get altitude – that is, perspective – on their lives and careers, to zero in on their next, best career move.
It’s about helping your clients brand themselves for the jobs they want – not any job they could conceivably perform.
It’s about helping them put their best stories forward in their resumes and in job interviews – to let recruiters and hiring managers know how they’ve had impact on their employers’ success in past jobs.
It’s about helping your clients prepare to sail through a job interview with confidence.
It’s about helping clients get the jobs they deserve – and knowing which jobs to pursue and which to avoid.
Is Career Coaching right for you?
Career coaching is not for everyone. It’s a bad fit for someone who hates talking to people or doesn’t like brainstorming.
However, career coaching is a great career for someone who wants to make a tangible difference in people’s lives.
Career coaching is a path out of the nine-to-five rat race and into independent business ownership.
As a member of the Human Workplace Career Coach Network you’ll be part of a group of awesome career coaches who teach and coach using the same methods and mindset and refer clients to one another.
What’s the next step?
If you’d like to talk about this, click here to tell me a little more about you and your situation, and schedule a call with me!
We’ll get on the phone and talk about whether career coaching is the right move for you. I’d love to collaborate with you to get your career coaching business up and running. Let’s do it together!