How To Become A Career Coach
As a life coach you may be perfectly positioned to become a career coach. On this page I explore the skills and qualifications you need and how you can help job seekers with career advancement, adult and student career coaching, resumes, redundancies and more.
Three Steps To Becoming A Career Coach
1. Get some career coach specific qualifications
Whilst you don't have to have any specific qualifications to become a career coach, it can help your credibility if you have taken some training to earn certification specifically in this area. As you can imagine, there are many courses offered that focus on career coaching.
You will often use similar skills as you would in life or personal growth coaching. So if you don't yet have any life coach training, and are aiming for this niche, make sure the life coaching school you enrol with offers modules and materials for career coaching. Here are some questions you will find useful to ask before you enrol in any training.
If you are planning to work as a career coach in a school, university, recruitment agency or corporate organisation check out their requirements so far as your qualifications go. In some cases you may find you need a degree in psychology or counselling.
2. Choose your career coaching niche
Within any coaching niche, such as career coaching there are other niches you might want to focus on depending on your own background and experience. These sub-niches include working with:
- School or College leavers.
- People seeking a new path or to re-enter the workforce
- Empty Nesters and Retirees
- People in an industry you have worked in such as accountancy where there is a high demand for career coaching.
- People facing redundancy (I enlarge further on some of the possible career coaching niches here)
If you haven't yet decided where your niche would be in career coaching or, if you want to become a career coach, you'll find more ideas for your career in jobs and opportunities for life coaches.
3. Get familiar with the job market
When you become a career coach, there can be much more to the role than the critically important process of helping your coachee to discover a new career. For example, they may want to progress in the speciality they already have,
This means that you to understand the job opportunities available in their geographical and skill - based area. You also need to be able to provide advice as to where your client should look to find job opportunities.
Keep up with industry talk about jobs and become familiar and keep up to date with online job search sites so you know which ones to recommend.
Five Ways You Might Work With Your Clients
The Coaching Tools Company has a very useful tool called the 'Career Discovery Ponder Sheet' Using it with your career coaching clients, it will help you:
- Ask 21 thoughtful career questions designed to stimulate your client's thinking
- Discover common threads and themes that point to possible careers
- Get clients re-inspired by identifying qualities to incorporate into their work-life
1. Resumes, CVs and Job Applications
Sometimes the client who comes to you for career coaching will want help with telling their story so they can present a compelling case to prospective employees. If you have the background and skills you can offer this as part of your service.
If you don't feel confident about your own resume skills, I recommend that you check out ResumeWriters.com, a credible and trusted service that specialises in creating resumes that stand out from the crowd.
Part of this process might also be helping them master interviewing skills so they come across to the employer as a good prospect for the job.
If you are coaching them around this issue I found the book "ACED: Superior Interview Skills to Gain an Unfair Advantage to land Your Dream Job" full of useful information and hints.
I recommend you check out these two resources for helping your clients present themselves well and get that job.
2. Recovering from redundancy
Job redundancy can mean that your client will need more help than just exploring new career options. Depending on the circumstances, their confidence may also need restoring. Even if there are glowing references and a payout with redundancies, there is often an emotional cost that can leave a person feeling fragile and disillusioned.
This is where your life coaching skills will really come into play as you help restore their confidence and motivation.
My Recommended resources when working with career coaching clients affected by redundancy.
If you DO choose to become a career coach you'll find the chapter on "Cleaning Up Old Failed Goals" in my book Be Your Own Goals Coach invaluable. It is particularly useful for clients who have a lot of negative thoughts about themselves after redundancy. My preview of Be Your Own Goals Coach also has lots of useful hints to help them make the right choices around their next job career.
And career coach Steve Preston has written an excellent book Winning Through Redundancy; Six Steps to navigate your way to a brighter future.
3. Career change or advancement
Times have changed when it comes to defining a work path that continues, perhaps for decades. Not so long ago people were expected to get a job when they left school and stay there, until retirement. if you had changed jobs regularly you could be labelled unstable!
Nowadays, as employees evolve and discover new paths, it’s seen as quite OK and even encouraged and desirable to change direction and employment many times in your working life!
I am sure no one left school wanting to become a life coach, yet, here you are!
The client may come to you because he or she feels like a round peg in a square hole. Or their current occupation seemed like a good idea at the time, (or they were pushed into it by parents or peers) and they now feel it it’s time for change to a more authentic career.
Alternatively, someone who comes to you for career coaching may be an executive who is quite satisfied with their career path and how they are going.
They may just want to improve their communication and relationship skills, get some tips on time management and maybe to master How and When to Delegate so they can accelerate up the career ladder to where they know they belong.
You can find more about finding your niche as a career coach by following Cindy Schulson's step by step system to identify your niche which is free on her website.
4. 'Empty Nesters' and Retirees
'Empty Nesters', those parents whose children have been their life but have now left home, are often looking for adult life and career coaching to find a new and fulfilling direction to fill the gap.
Same goes for people who have retired from their long time job but still want to be part of the workforce, maybe by owning a small business or consulting from their years of expertise and experience.
These are growing niches with plenty of opportunity for the career life coach.
Marc Miller's book Repurpose Your Career : A Practical Guide For baby Boomers, is also worth a look.
His own story is fascinating and the book is specifically targeted to Baby Boomers - a growing coaching niche for career coach.
5. School leavers or college graduates
When you become a career coach you will often have young clients who, after all the stress and strain of exams need help working out their next steps.
Even with good passes, school leavers are often still unsure of their first career path and need career life coaching to help them get clarity and decide which direction to take in either further education or a job.
Using Personality and Workstyle Profiling To
Guide Your Clients
Many life coaches who also become a life coach use a profiling system to help the client understand their best career fits and maybe why previous career choices haven't worked. There are numerous profiling systems around and it is a good idea to become certified in one that resonates with you, and fits your coaching specialty, so you can confidently include it in your career life coaching process.
Personally, I am familiar with DISC and have used the Kolbe™ Profiling System to help me better know my clients. I have found Kolbe a particularly wonderful tool for clarifying the clients working style and the sort of working environment that will bring stress free work satisfaction.
And I invite you to subscribe to my monthly Life Coaching Accelerators - coaching tips and case studies from my 20+ years as a life coach and download my "10 Powerful Coaching Questions And How To Use Them".
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