Chances are, with COVID-19 unexpectedly disrupting your life, you are likely thinking about your career, hiring trends, and the best ways to improve your skills and how to showcase them to future (or potential) employers. As a Career Coach, I take great pride in providing helpful and supportive advice to students as they explore career possibilities and gain confidence in their job-seeking skills.
In this article, I’ll share some of the undeniable benefits of working with a Career Coach. Let’s start by understanding what a Career Coach actually does. A Career Coach works with you to create new possibilities by asking purposeful and powerful questions to determine an action plan specific to your needs, all the while providing built-in accountability and a safe space.
What Can a Career Coach Do for You?
1. Help You Gain Clarity About Your Future
The process of preparing for a career can be overwhelming. That’s why my #1 goal as a Career Coach is to help you gain clarity about their future. Clarity helps bring focus. It’s hard to do a job search when you’re willing to do anything, anywhere.
With a clear goal, you will be more open to discovering career possibilities that are aligned with your vision, strengths, and past experiences. Start by asking yourself, what are three job functions I can focus on in my top 3 desired locations?
2. Expand Your Options as You Explore Industries
Sometimes, in order to gain clarity, you need to explore a variety of career possibilities. For this, the best place to start is often by understanding your past experiences and the skills you learned or used to be successful. As a Career Coach, I utilize visual thinking techniques such as The Wandering Map, to uncover themes and trends that reveal your natural strengths and abilities.
Alongside a Career Coach, you can discover what careers align with your strengths, and how you can further develop these strengths for use in a variety of industries.
How can you get started now? Check out this article from The Muse about career exploration to learn a few pieces of advice for what steps to take next!
3. Connect You to Resources
A Career Coach can connect you to resources that align with your interests and assist you in your career exploration and job search. In addition to connecting you to relevant career resources like job boards and professional associations, we guide you through best practices for networking. For example, learning how to connect with alumni can be essential to networking and gaining additional guidance on career paths of interest.
So, how would you reach out to an alum who has experience in your desired career industry? For tips on how to send an outreach message, read Steve Dalton’s book on how to use technology to get the right job FASTER.
4. Provide Feedback
When practicing for a sport or hobby, feedback on your technique is important. The same is true when you create a resume or prepare for an interview. It is important to receive feedback on your professional documents (including digital profiles such as LinkedIn) so that your experiences and strengths are articulated in a way that will capture your future employer’s attention.
One of the best ways to receive feedback is to ask for it. You can do this by reaching out to a trusted industry professional and asking them to review your professional documents, provide feedback on your LinkedIn page, or conduct a mock interview with you!
5. Support Your Journey
When you work with a Career Coach, you are not alone. A Career Coach is someone who teaches you how to explore career possibilities, create your professional documents, network with professionals, search for jobs and internships, successfully interview, and so much more. We provide guidance as you begin your journey, figure out where to start and encourage you to keep going. We are also some of your biggest cheerleaders when you make meaningful connections and land the job of your dreams!
So, what does this mean for you, the person who has been on the fence
about working with a Career Coach?
Do it! You have so much to gain.