You feel that your work-life is not quite on track. You had a job you loved -- but, over
time it began to feel routine or mundane. Or perhaps you loved your job but it began to
consume your entire life. And, you began to feel that there must be more to life than work, work, work! Or, maybe, you found yourself trapped in "golden handcuffs", working in a less-than-interesting job for a more-than-interesting salary. Or, maybe you never felt that you had the ideal job. Maybe you were of the work-to-pay-the-bills, "remember, that's why they call it work", mentality. But, over time you came to realize that you wanted more out of your job. You didn't want a job, you wanted a "calling". You've been thinking and talking about this for a while. You have asked the significant people in your life and your friends about it. You've consulted colleagues and mentors. But you still aren't sure how to go about charting your career path. You want to talk about it with someone who is knowledgeable and experienced, someone who can help you formulate and pursue a work-life plan.
You are considering seeking help from a career coach or counselor but, how do you
wade through the plethora of options to figure out who might be most helpful? How do
you go about assessing the qualifications and backgrounds of potential coaches or
counselors. There are four issues that you should consider. These are:
- How do you assess your own needs and expectations?
- How do you review your prospective counselors or coaches qualifications?
- How do you consider whether you should work individually or in a group?
- How do you review what you should consider paying?
An important prerequisite to selecting a coach is to clarify your own goals and needs.
Yet, if you knew the exact nature of the help that you needed, you might not need to
seek career counseling. It is the old "chicken and the egg" problem.
Before getting started, undertake the challenging step of writing a paragraph about the
kind of help that you think that you need. Do you need help figuring out what you would like to do in the work world? Do you need help developing a strategy for doing it? Do you need help addressing obstacles that stand in your way? If so, what are these obstacles? List the obstacles. What is preventing you from achieving your goals? Is it not knowing your goal? Is it not knowing enough people who have successfully achieved similar goals? That is, are you seeking a network of people interested in similar professional goals who are at various stages of their own professional development? Are you looking for help with specific aspects of work-life such as salary negotiation or being more assertive with the boss?
After writing this paragraph, write a second paragraph. Describe your special talents
and strengths. If you are uncertain as to your special skills -- ask five friends what are
your five best talents. Finally, write a paragraph describing how you will know if the
"coaching" has been successful. What, specifically, will be different. Don't just say
something like, "I will have a lucrative job that I love". Detail the steps that you will
need to take in order to achieve that goal. That is, describe something of the process
that you hope will take place to lead you to this goal.
This step is critically important for two reasons. It is important because many people
seeking career coaches or counselors, understandably, expect or wish for magical or
instantaneous solutions to problems that they have had for many years. They may seek
career coaching with the thought that they will attend 3-4 sessions and resolve their
difficulties. And, they are disappointed when their difficulties do not magically remit,
immediately. While a short-term focus may be very appropriate and realistic for a new
or a relatively situational difficulty, long-standing struggles may yield only to a more
persistent effort. Thus, this kind of personal inventory will help you to clarify your
expectations, your strengths and it will help you to assess whether your time-table and
expectations for career coaching are realistic.
The second benefit of this step is that your self-inventory will help you clarify the
nature of the coaching that you require. For example, the array of professionals who
offer career coaching includes, persons with MBA's, masters in information technology,
masters in counseling, psychologists, social workers, psychoanalysts and numerous
other backgrounds. Each offers something unique. If you know that you want to
pursue training to be a internet administrator and your goal is to figure out how to
network in that world, you might consider seeking coaching from someone with special
expertise in that area. Similarly, if despite economic success, you have never enjoyed
your work, you might consider working with someone who might help you begin to
become more aware of your likes and dislikes, such as a psychoanalyst or a mental
health professional who specializes in career or work-life concerns.
What if you find it impossible to write these paragraphs? Difficulty writing these
paragraphs is a "diagnostic" sign that you should seriously consider a
psychoanalytically-informed, career assessment. This type of assessment is described in
detail in the August 2000 issue of Washingtonjobs.com and it can be found at:
Identifying the sort of work-life help that you need.
After you define your goals and needs, how do you go about finding a career coach or
career counselor, especially when the titles "career counselor" or "career coach" are not
regulated by state law in most states. This means that anyone can legally hang out a
shingle and call themselves a career coach or career counselor. Yes. Anyone. So how
do you assess whether your prospective counselor has the requisite skills to be helpful
to you.
For what sort of expertise are you looking? Do you want someone with expertise in
information technology? Publishing? .coms? Or, do you feel that your career struggles
are more related to difficulties with self-esteem, conflicts about success, self-doubt or
others struggles that you do not fully understand. In any case, you should obtain
information about their credentials. Anyone who you are considering should be willing
to describe and document their credentials.
Unless you need highly specialized, career-specific, expertise, you should seriously
consider seeking out a licensed, psychologist, social worker, counselor or some type of
helping professional, who specializes in career counseling or coaching. An advantage to
working with a licensed mental health professional who specializes in career coaching is
that they have broad-based training in understanding and changing human behavior.
They are trained to understand and to address roadblocks to change. Moreover, they
are trained in and expected to adhere to the ethical and professionals standards of their
discipline. They are well trained listeners. Finally, if they feel that they lack the
requisite skills to help you, they can do an assessment and refer you to someone whose
skills match your needs.
Licensed professionals will be able to document their credentials. An other alternative
is to seek out someone with an MBA or a business background, again, this depends on how you define your needs. Finally, you might want to seek someone with field-specific expertise (i.e. if your goal is to publish, someone in publishing).
Finally, there are a plethora of "coaching" programs. They are still in their infancy and consequently, less is known about them. The important thing to remember about unlicensed professionals is that they may not be prepared to deal with psychological and emotional concerns. And, while some will be very skilled with niche-specific expertise, others will have few or no credentials at all.
When you contact your potential counselor, you should consider whether you should work individually or in a group. Individual consultation, which is often a good place to start, can afford you the opportunity to focus very specifically on your unique issues. However, real benefit can be derived from working in a group and sharing the wisdom of the group. Often group members provide helpful suggestions, ideas and support to each other. Beyond these benefits, groups are often cost-effective. Ask your career coach if they lead groups.
People working in the career counseling arena, with individuals, vary greatly with respect to the fees that they charge. Some charge a per session rate for a 45 minute session while others charge a per program rate (which can cost several thousand dollars). Beyond this, one should be a bit wary of "scams".
I do not recommend seeing any counselor/coach that requires that you sign on for an entire program. An exception to this rule seems to me to be participating in a time-limited group. Counselors who lead groups need to ensure that the group is viable. Therefore, they often require "tuition" at the outset. This seems quite legitimate to me as long as the fee is for a short-term group of 6-10 sessions.
Other than that, my bias is to urge people to pay a per session rate. In this way, you
can reviewuate the benefits as you progress. I know that Dick Bolles, the author of,
"What Color is your Parachute", shares this view. To be fair, I do know some reputable
people who charge by the program. The problem is: I don't know how to tell you to differentiate between them and those who are less than scrupulous. Consequently, it
seems to me that paying per session as you go is the most prudent course.
In sum, career coaching can be enormously useful. Taking a few preparatory steps can
improve your results exponentially.
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Connect with Dr. Lynn Friedman
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Dr. Lynn Friedman works with professionals and professionals-in-the-making to help them to achieve their life - relationship and work - goals.
To schedule an appointment with Dr. Lynn Friedman, feel free to give her a call at: 301-656-9650
Is your career off-track? Are you unhappy at work? Do you find it impossible to follow through on the suggestions of career books and coaches? Download Dr. Lynn Friedman's pdf file examining the kinds of help that might be useful.
Subscribe to Dr. Lynn Friedman's work-life ezineSend her an email telling her that you'd like to subscribe and telling her what you think of the site.
Corporations on the Couch Read Dr. Lynn Friedman's monthly, Washington Business Journal, column on understanding workplace dynamics.
For your questions about relationships, psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, check out Dr. Lynn Friedman's new website, The Washington Psychoanalyst.
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