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More and more people are turning to career coaches to help them plan their next steps and get out of the “prison” of a bad job. What can you realistically expect from these experts?
For many people, logging back in after a vacation brings to the fore unpleasant feelings: Do I really want to stay in this job for another year?
Almost everyone goes through periods of questioning their job, whether that be when there’s a big life change, when their job no longer feels fulfilling, or when they simply want to do other things. But now, nearly two years after the pandemic began, Never before have so many people rethink their careers.
While workers can turn to friends and family to get them through such crises, a huge career-coaching industry has emerged in recent years promising to help people find new direction in their working lives and equip them with the skills to set and achieve goals.
Coaching has gone from being the exclusive domain of the executive elite to increasingly being available as a corporate perk or something individuals seek out. But coaching is an unregulated industry, and hiring a coach can be expensive. So what exactly is career coaching, and what isn’t it? How do you find a good coach? And what can you expect if you decide to hire one in the new year?
The International Coach Federation (ICF) is one of the world’s leading professional coaching organizations, and it’s a testament to how much the industry has grown in recent years. When she started working for the ICF in 2005, its CEO Magdalena Mook, who is based in Lexington, Kentucky, US, says it had 8,000 members. “We’re approaching 50,000 now,” she says, more than half of whom are from outside the US. In 2019, the ICF said: 71,000 career coach practitioners Globally the industry is estimated to be worth $2.8 billion (£2.1 billion).
Mook believes that while coaching was once the preserve of senior executives, there’s a growing realization that everyone can benefit from career-development advice. Companies are starting to introduce in-house coaching programs, and younger people in particular expect to receive coaching when starting a new job “almost as a requirement rather than a perk,” he says.
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“People are trapped in this prison of their own making. They’re trading job security for job misery.” – Andrew MacAskill (Photo: Getty Images)
And for people considering a career change, speaking with a coach outside of their workplace can be extremely beneficial, Mook says.[The coach] They can see patterns and behaviors and question them. They can be curious and question the status quo.”
Career coach Andrew MacAskill, who formally launched his Hampshire, UK-based coaching group Executive Career Jump with his wife Zoe in 2019, believes coaching is long overdue for mainstream adoption. He points out that we turn to experts to plan our finances and trainers to get in shape, but when it comes to our careers, “most of us don’t have any strategy in place.” As a result, he says, “many people are trapped in prisons of their own making, accepting job misery in exchange for job security.”
MacAskill says it’s all too easy for workers to tell themselves that changing jobs is too complicated or “too late”, and when self-confidence wanes, “they start to believe they’re the problem”. This is where a career coach steps in, he says, “to help you get unstuck and see the possibilities”.
For those considering career coaching, Mook says it’s important to “understand what coaching is and what it isn’t.” Both she and MacAskill emphasize that coaching shouldn’t be used as therapy. Mook points out: ICF Code of EthicsThe code states that if a client clearly needs a therapist or psychiatrist, career coaches have a duty to refer them to an appropriate professional.
Coaching is also different from mentoring, says Mook. A mentor is usually someone with more experience in the same industry that a mentor can turn to for guidance, while coaching is more about having the skills to guide someone on their journey of self-discovery. “Can a coach share their knowledge? Of course. But a coach is not someone who gives advice. A coach is someone who guides a person to find their own path,” she says.
[The coach] They can see patterns and behaviors and question them. They can just be curious and question the status quo. – Magdalena Mook
A coach’s goal is typically to help clients identify their goals by looking back at their careers so far, what has been most rewarding or challenging, what has energized them or frustrated them. For example, MacAskill asks clients to write a Wikipedia article about where they want to be in five years’ time, then think about how to get there by “applying my business skills to my career.” But while some people know exactly what they want from their careers, others may need to explore what’s important to them at work to identify their next steps.
That’s what Josie O’Donovan experienced when she reached a career dead end in 2020 and sought coaching. The 44-year-old from Milton Keynes, UK, loved her job in customer relations for a major car company. But after maternity leave, she couldn’t find her passion again and felt her career was being hindered by part-time work. She wanted to pursue a more altruistic career but was “very scared to make a big change.” “I think I was completely paralyzed by my own thoughts, my failures and my limiting beliefs,” O’Donovan says.
She found a career coach, who spent time identifying her values and “challenged my ideas about what was important to me.” The coaching process gave O’Donovan “the realization that I could step into something different,” and a resignation visualization exercise helped her see how liberating it would be to quit her job.
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It’s important to understand that a career coach is not a therapist (Credit: Getty Images)
“I think taking the time to think and reflect, and having someone challenge those thoughts and reflections, is a really useful process,” O’Donovan says. In March 2021, she took the plunge and quit her job to start a customer relationship management consulting firm, which is doing well. She is fulfilling her desire for more meaningful work by taking on many clients who work on social and environmental issues.
Experts say a committed approach like O’Donovan’s is essential for coaching to be effective. Paying a career coach isn’t a magic bullet, in itself. A good coach can help you identify point A, where you are now, and point B, where you want to go, and then figure out the best way to get between them, says Mook. “What’s so important about coaching is that it helps you get really clear on what you want, what you need, what your concerns are, what the opportunities are.”
But both MacAskill and Mook cautioned that finding the right coach is key – a lesson Piotr, 38, learned the hard way.
In February 2021, he signed up with a career agency that promised to help him polish his resume and get his name out there to the tech companies he was targeting. In addition to recruiting, the company also manages the careers of its clients, saying it supports people as they mature in their work. But while it helped him find and apply for jobs, that long-term career support “didn’t materialize,” says Piotr, a New Jersey resident from the United States who asked not to give his last name. When he asked for guidance on things like presentation skills, “they flatly told me to look at the contract because it was a different service.”
He ended up getting a job at a tech startup he found and applied to directly, but didn’t realize he was locked into a contract with a hiring agency for a year after he got the job. Any Piotr eventually negotiated with the agency only to get out of the contract, for the flat fee of about $10,000, but in retrospect, he says it was a painful experience because he signed in a rush to find a new job. “I should have thought it through a bit more carefully,” he says.
Don’t splash out big bucks until you know if it’s right for you – Andrew MacAskill
Mook says membership in a professional organization is one good way to vet a coach because it means they’ve received minimum training, adhere to a code of ethics, and regularly update their knowledge base. But it’s also important to talk to two or three coaches to make sure you’re compatible. Also, ask for personal references and “always, always look at references,” she says.
McCaskill recommends looking at your coach’s social media to see if they’re “applying their advice” and building a good brand. But ultimately, coaching is very personal, so “the best career coach for one person may not be the best coach for the next person,” he says. It may be worth paying for exclusive sessions or more affordable group coaching before shelling out big bucks, he adds. Whatever you do, “don’t put a lot of money into it until you know if it’s right for you.”
Last year, survey results showed that workers around the world I’m considering quitting my jobAmid the job market and ongoing pandemic, this trend is unlikely to fade in 2022.
“People are questioning everything right now,” said MacAskill, who has seen a surge in interest from people wanting to start their own businesses, go freelancing, or “just have clear goals for their careers.”
While a career coach can’t wave a magic wand and make your January work woes disappear, given the current state of employment fluidity and workers’ growing desire to find a career that better aligns with their life and values, more people may be turning to a career coach to help them decide their next steps.
