You’ve read about them, heard interviews with them, and now your best friend just told you she’s working with a career coach. Is it time for you to consider career coaching to take the leap with your professional aspirations? Possibly.
When a Career Coach Might Be
a Great Idea
If you feel like your career has stalled (or failed to get started), a career
coach can help you identify obstacles that may be holding you back and help you
craft ways to overcome those obstacles. Or if you have a specific workplace
issue, career coaching can help you both understand the complexities of that
issue and explore and/or try out potential solutions. If you have a specific
career weakness (poor communication skills, ineffective negotiating skills, a
presentation technique guaranteed to put your audience to sleep, etc.) that
you’d like to address, a career coach can help you improve those areas quickly
and effectively.
Additionally, career coaching can be event-focused. For example, if you have a major career event coming up – a job interview, a salary negotiation – a career coach can work with you to prepare you to manage that event confidently, strategically, and successfully.
What’s the Difference between
a Career Coach, a Business Coach, and an Executive Coach?
Generally, a career coach focuses on individuals at either early stages of
their career, and thus concerned with “growing” in the right direction, or
those at transition points trying to manage a change, opportunity, or threat
successfully. A business coach tends to focus on helping small business owners
grow their businesses (rather than their careers).
And an executive coach generally works with individuals at high levels of company (e.g., chief financial officers, vice presidents) who, although adept in many professional areas, still have weaknesses that are affecting their job performance.
How to Tell If You’ll Work
Well with a Career Coach
Some personalities benefit greatly from career coaching, others find it a
complete waste of money. Although certainly the knowledge and ability of the
specific career coach plays a big part in the success of your relationship and
results, another consideration is whether or not you take well to “coaching.”
For example,
• Do you take constructive
criticism well?
• Are you able to act consistently and promptly on recommendations
and advice?
• Do you enjoy having someone else hold you accountable – or do you
hate to be “nagged?”
• Are you willing to invest time in thinking about and following
through on your career coach’s recommendations? (Otherwise, quite frankly, it’s
not worth the investment)
• Can you afford it? If not, but you feel you would benefit from
career coaching, hit the library and check out some of the numerous career
advice books on the shelves
Do You Need a Career Coach
Who Specializes in People with Disabilities?
There are a couple of considerations here that help you make this decision.
First, are the career issues you’re dealing with specifically related to your
disability (or is it your sense that they are)? Keep in mind that if the issue
is that your employer is limiting your career options due to your disability,
you may need an advocate rather than a career coach. But if your disability is
causing you to limit your career growth, then you may want to discuss this with
a career coach specializing in people with disabilities.
Second, it can sometimes be tough to find a career coach who’s just the right fit personality-wise for your needs. Since there are relatively few career coaches who focus on people with disabilities (although this number is growing), this may make it even more difficult to find just the right person to advise you.
How Do I Find and Evaluate a
Career Coach?
First, consider what type of coaching you need – general “help me get my career
going” work or something more targeted? Next, determine whether you want to
work with a coach who specializes in people with disabilities. Then start
contacting career coaching firms and interviewing potential coaches to get a
feel for their approach (inspirational? firm task-master? cheerleader?
psychology-focused?) and how those approaches might work for you. Also, poll
your friends, family, and professional network to see if they can recommend a
coach that they’ve worked with successfully.
Bottom line: a career coach can a great resource for helping you achieve specific career goals if you’re clear on what those goals are. But do some personal exploring first to make sure you know what questions you’re trying to answer.
