What do the best career coaches actually do?

By Neil Patrick

Do you need a career coach? How do you find the best career coach for your requirements?  

Career coaching is a new and high growth industry. There are over 300 coaches following me on Twitter alone. It’s arisen because as job search becomes ever more competitive and challenging, people are discovering the hard way that being really good at what you do is no longer enough to ensure that you have a successful career.

The best career coaches provide the insight and key skills that people need to reach their career ambitions. Whether that’s finding and getting hired into a new job, moving forward in an existing career, or making a complete change of direction mid-career.

But with so many coaches out there, how do you know what to look for to find the best coach for you?

Do you even need a career coach?

So I turned to my good friend Marcia LaReau, founder and President of Forward Motion US to try and find some answers to these questions. Marcia is exceptionally well qualified to deal with this subject. Since founding Forward Motion, Marcia has helped hundreds of people succeed in overcoming their career obstacles.

NP: Marcia, why do you think career coaching is needed at all?

ML: Thank you Neil. First I’d like to say that the definition of career coaching has changed dramatically with the economic situation. As we become a global, technology-driven economy, the very core attributes that are needed for businesses to succeed is changing. That in turn has changed career coaching.

Prior to the Great Recession we believed that we could define what we liked and enjoyed and pursue that as a career. At that time career coaches helped their clients identify what they liked and enjoyed and then helped them find a place where they could do those things, get paid a living wage and hopefully, grow their career. It was a long-term outlook.

Today this isn’t enough. It’s still important for a person to understand what they enjoy; however, businesses have been under a mandate to cut costs, increase profit margins and get everything out of their employees that they can. I don’t’ mean to infer that businesses are all being run by inhumane ogres. Many businesses are simply trying to survive. I also don’t mean to infer that there isn’t a fair amount of inordinate greed that causes companies to drive their employees past what is reasonable.

Let me get back to career coaching—the point here is that companies do not have the capacity to focus on the career growth of their employees (unless it is part of their succession plan and directly benefits the company). So today, everyone who wants to work is in charge of their career development and the direction they will pursue.

The scope of doing this is huge! People have to be aware of their core attributes from a business perspective. They have to position themselves both online and in the business community as a viable, credible resource in their areas of expertise. Then they have to understand the changes in their industry and how they can remain viable in a changing market. It’s a lot!

Today’s career coach is also a job coach and understands the hiring processes and the employment market. A career/job coach guides their clients to maneuver through the distractions to identify the employment goal and scope out an effective path to get there. In the process their client should (in my opinion) learn how to manage their career so they are proactive with regard to their future security.

Without a career coach, many people have become resigned to the idea that if they get a job that gives them a living wage, then they should be grateful and settle…even if they don’t like what they are doing for eight to 10 hours a day (or more), five to six days a week.

NP: Should someone use career coaching when they have a job, or is it really just for when they are facing unemployment?

ML: Businesses, industries are changing at record speed today. In my opinion, everyone should have a career coach and check in with him or her at least once a quarter and more often if there are signs that a business is losing its place in the market. Further, it is expected that everyone will change jobs every three to four years. It could be within a company, but not necessarily.

I believe every person who wants to work for more than five years should engage with a career coach as someone who is watching their industry and market and identifying potential disruptions that could cause an unwanted financial situation. In addition, the career coach should be looking for opportunities to grow potential earnings and help the client maintain their credibility in the industry and move their career in the direction that suits their long-term goals.

All the people that I talk to want to end their career strong. Today that is easier said than done!

NP: Does everyone need it, or are some job sectors more suited to it than others?

ML: Disruptive innovations such as Big Data and social media are changing the landscape of every job sector. So in my opinion, everyone should have a regular “career checkup” with a qualified career coach.

NP: If someone loses his or her job and money is consequently really tight, how can anyone justify spending money on coaching?

ML: How can they NOT justify it? One of the primary goals at Forward Motion is to reduce the time to employment. A good career coach should reduce the number of weeks of unemployment significantly.

Let’s say that a standard (non-executive) job search costs between $2K and $3,500. If a person makes, let’s say $52,000 a year. So the job search costs less than one month of salary. AND if the average job search is approximately six to eight months, and the job coach reduces that by four months, then the client is now $12,000 ahead because they spent $3K on a career coach.

Also, with a career coach, the chances a person will get a better job at a better salary, increases significantly.

NP: Tell me about the typical problems people come to you with?

ML: Their situations run the gamut of the imagination. Some people just have no idea how to go about the job search. They are bewildered and overwhelmed. Others have tried everything they can think of and used every available cost-free option they could find—nothing worked and the finally called me.

Some people are in industries that are failing or have already died and need to assess their transferrable skills and/or re-credential themselves and figure out how to get a new career path without having to start from scratch at as an entry-level employee.

And then there are the early-career millenials who see record-high unemployment numbers in their college friends. They don’t just want a job, but they want to do something that brings value and doesn’t just fill the pockets of corporate business owners and investors.

Finally, about 30% of my business includes executives, who many times have reached out to their network and come up empty. Executives, more than any other group, come to me earlier in their job search. They know they need help and that they aren’t an expert and they want someone who can advise them.

NP: And how does coaching help people overcome these problems?

ML: A good career coach knows the market and the current hiring practices. They can put together a customized program that will reduce the time to employment through a carefully designed, flexible search strategy.

A truly dynamic jobsearch strategy is anything but a shotgun approach where people apply for a ton of opportunities and hope something happens.

I believe that an effective program sets a foundation for the search by identifying the most viable employment opportunities where the jobseeker is found credible, and where they qualify for the jobs. Then they must create an airtight identity both online and through their application materials. That includes a stunningly polished and customizable cover letter and résumé. With the foundation in place, we apply for 5 jobs and find out how what happens. We then rework the materials and apply for five more jobs. Within two or three iterations, the client is getting calls for jobs that are a good fit.

NP: What can you tell me about your success rates?

ML: First, I don’t abandon clients. If they are diligent and conduct themselves in a professional manner, then we will work until they are hired. It’s harder in some industries than in others.

Nonetheless:

- 98% of Forward Motion clients get hired
- 76% of mid-career clients get hired in 68 days
- 96% of early-career clients get hired in 45 days

NP: If someone is considering career coaching, how should they go about finding the best coach for them?

ML: First, there should be a good fit from a relationship perspective. In other words, there should be open communication. A good career/job coach sometimes has to say things that are personal and private. The relationship should develop so that when comments are made, that are difficult to hear from the jobseekers perspective, the jobseeker knows it is being said with his or her best interest in mind. So the relationship must be candid and comfortable.

Second, the career coach should be someone who diligently wants to get place his or her client in a new job. This is tricky since the jobseeker brings in income for the career coach. There are some career coaches who want to sustain the relationship to earn more income. I am sorry to report this. I handle this by putting a cap on the cost of the jobsearch. So the jobseeker knows that expenses won’t get out of hand.

NP: What does it cost? And are there any things you’d caution people about?

ML: I try to provide my clients with choices around the costs. An early-career search may go as high as $2,500. A mid-career (non-executive) search may double that number although I haven’t had anyone do that. Executives are a different ballgame and it depends on how much he or she wants to do and how much I would do. So an executive search might be as little as $2500 and include no more than a stellar résumé, or it could be as high as $20K and include the total management of a jobsearch.

NP: Thanks Marcia.

ML: Thanks Neil.

I'd like to thank Marcia for the time she has taken to share these valuable insights. You can find out more about Forward Motion US and their resources and services here. Do please post any comments or questions below and we'll do our best to answer them.

How to recover from job loss when you're over 50

By Neil Patrick

Almost everything the baby boomers learned about how to get a job when we were younger is now redundant.

There’s a secret army of people who have fallen off the radar for government help with unemployment. It’s the over 50’s. If you are a specialist skilled worker over 50, the support available is really scant.

For older workers who lose their jobs, the statistics are truly horrific. Though the unemployment rate for people over 55 is just 5.1%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared to the overall rate of 7.3%, when older workers lose their jobs they are out of work for a long time, according to the AARP Public Policy Institute.

In August 2013, 47% of job seekers over 55 had been looking for 27 weeks or more. According to the Institute, on average, unemployed people over 55 have been jobless for nearly a year: 50 weeks, versus 34 weeks for those under 55.

Until now, Western governments have never had to address the problem of highly educated professional people being unemployed. In the past it was always semi-skilled and unskilled workers who would find themselves without work, if an employer or industry sector went through hard times.

And so government support agencies were set up to provide help for workers of this type. They developed simple programmes to support people like this. Help with writing their resumes. Advice on how to seek out potential employers. Help with interview tips.

These sorts of programmes were reasonably effective too because unskilled and semi-skilled labour is highly transferable – for example if you are a truck driver, you can work for a mining company, or a grocery delivery business or a healthcare provider.

So the unemployed of previous recessions were manageable by and large.

Fast forward to today. The economic crisis hasn’t just affected semi-skilled and unskilled workers, it has hit hard into the skilled professional classes too. This is a whole different problem. And because compared to the young unemployed, the 'grey' unemployed are less numerous and less likely to cause trouble, they remain a low priority for government help.

Let’s say you used to be a mortgage credit risk analyst. You probably had more job opportunities between the late 1990’s and the 2008 crash than you’d ever have thought possible. Mortgage lending was through the roof as banks and borrowers got drunk on the crazy credit boom merry-go-round. And the job market reflected this situation.

Then we had the financial collapse of 2008. Almost overnight, the lending stopped. And even now, more than five years later, banks are still lending nowhere near the amounts they were before the crash. No-one wants to hire a credit risk analyst.

An old colleague of mine was a seriously clever mathematical guy, who had spent 20 years of his career becoming an expert in the development of credit risk scorecards. In 2008, he lost his job with many others in the lending industry. And he’s been unemployed ever since.

Government help is virtually non-existent for the highly skilled professional who’s become unemployed, especially if they are over 50.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. You’re smart and you have a good mind. So use it!

Yes the job that you used to have may be gone forever. Your industry may be in meltdown. You may feel that you’ll never get back the career you once had.

These things may all be true. But it’s not the end, if you take on board some simple alternative truths.

The first fact to take on board is that almost everything we learned about how to get a job when we were younger is now redundant. We have to completely recalibrate how we think about our jobs and our futures.

And you can do it. Here’s the good news:

1. Do not define yourself by what you used to do

Instead think of all the skills and competencies you acquired in your decades of work. Think broadly about these. You might for example be a really great at organisation, leading teams, researching, writing reports, complicated mathematical evaluations. Forget the application of these skills and isolate them as part of your personal asset value.

Being really clear about this personal asset value is the foundation of your next career step.

2. Create your strategy before you start the search

Do not rush into sending your resume off and asking people if they know about a job opening. Instead, in the weeks and first few months after losing your job, you should start the re-evaluation process. Think of it as an opportunity rather than a problem. You suddenly have the chance to become who you always wanted to be, instead of the person your old job defined you as.

By all means have discussions within your network about what they are doing, but remember you are looking for a problem you can help solve, not necessarily a job someone wants to fill.

3. Get focussed and forensic in your search

Don’t hunker down behind your computer. Do not spend hours hunting jobs boards for possible job vacancies. Do not mass mail or email your resume to every opening you think looks like a possibility. You only need one job. Instead of the splatter gun approach, sit down do your homework and focus on your targets like a sniper.

If you combine this forensic approach with extensive networking and intelligence gathering, you’ll uncover pathways into what is called the hidden jobs market. These are the jobs that are never advertised. And some estimates suggest that this is now as high as 80% of all skilled hirings.

4. Tap into the real intel

Get out and network with all your old contacts. Read the local business press to see what problems businesses are having that you might be able to help them solve. This is where you’ll discover real opportunities.

5. Get your networking amplifiers working for you

This where to invest your time online. Sharpen up your LinkedIn profile. Increase your connections – not because they will necessarily have a job for you, but because as LinkedIn sees you are more active on the site, it will improve your search ranking. So when a recruiter does a search for your skill set in your location, you’ll be higher on the returns and they’ll find you.

6. Use social media to help

As I’ve written about here, and in many other posts on this blog, there are a ton of ways you can use social media to help you with your job search. Again the secret is to be smart and to have a strategy.

Having a blog is really powerful too. And if you do this, you’ll destroy at a single stroke the idea that many employers have that older workers are just not up to speed with today’s technologies. See my post about this here


And finally remember this. The economy isn't going to improve dramatically anytime soon. There’s not going to be a sudden surge of new jobs coming over the horizon. The number of people going after each job is only going to increase. And we cannot rely on the government to help us.

The way you will win isn't by getting lucky. It’s because you will make sure you are a better hunter and a perceived as a better candidate than the competition. Fortunately that’s not too hard, if you hunt smarter not harder.