The Value of Working with a Great Career Coach
What it's like to work with a career coach
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Three Takeaways from this piece
The value of working with a career coach
Jenni Fink (my favorite career coach!)’s perspective on how to best use a career coach
My Recommendations for Career coaches if you are looking for one
A few weeks ago, Deb Liu (CEO of Ancestry.com) and author of Perspectives wrote a post about how her career and leadership coach helped her unlock some great insights to propel her career. She also wrote about the value of career coaching in her own career and how it led to her success. It made me reflect upon the great coaches I’ve had in my life, and specifically around the importance and value that a career coach can offer to a professional thinking about making a career change.
As someone who has been a career coach and who regularly engages in the coaching community one of the biggest questions I know that career coaches face, is helping people understand how to best work with a coach, and how a coach can help them achieve their goals.
Similarly, I talk to a lot of job seekers and career switchers who often have questions about what it’s like to work with a coach. To solve this, I wanted to go to my expert-coach in residence, Jennifer “Jenni” Fink.
I met Jenni when I was a first year MBA student at UNC Kenan-Flagler. In addition to getting help in fixing up my “career deliverables” (resume, LinkedIn profile, etc) Jenni was a great thought partner on helping me navigate career choices.
Since that time, Jenni and I have gone on to become friends, and I have enjoyed watching her grow in her own career, as she’s gone on to work at leading MBA programs including Fuqua and UC-Berkeley-Haas, to now, where she is the Founder of Fink Development, a career and professional development firm.
Note: Make sure to read to the end, where you can get my recommendations for career coaches
Tell us about yourself! What's the first job you ever had, and what did you learn from that experience?
Jennifer: Oh boy, I’ve had so many jobs throughout my career, I’ve lost count. My first “big” job was managing a Hallmark store during my undergraduate years in school. I was the ripe age of 20, managing a staff of 15, and fully responsible for every aspect of growing a business from the ground up. Like, literally, from cement floors to fully functional. It was absolutely one of the most foundational experiences in my career.
I learned an immense amount about management, leadership, operations, and basically all of the aspects of running a business. But, I also learned a lot about people. I truly believe that working in retail teaches you lifelong skills in customer service, empathy, patience, kindness, conflict resolution, and performance under pressure that you just cannot get in such a concentrated fashion anywhere else. Lessons I learned during that time, I still carry with me today.
You run Fink Development, a Career Development and Coaching firm, and coach many clients. I am curious to know what are some of the common misconceptions or misunderstandings about working with a career coach?
Many people get confused about the difference between a coach, advisor, mentor, counselor, and recruiter. I mean, who wouldn’t, there’s a lot of jobs there and they all have a bit of overlap. One thing to know about the profession of coaching is that coaches (at least the ones who are trained and certified) believe that the client is naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. They believe the client already has the answer inside them and it’s the coaches responsibility to help them find it.
Coaches help clients by asking them powerful questions, holding the space for them, raising their awareness, helping them set goals, and keeping them accountable….but they are less likely to tell you exactly what to do unless that’s the most helpful course of action in the relationship. Career coaching specifically can sometimes be a blend between coaching and consulting, because sometimes you just need to learn the most effective tools and strategies for accomplishing the goal. It’s important when you’re selecting a coach that you have an understanding of what their style is and that it matches what you’re looking for.
What's something you know about the career & job search now that you are a career coach, that you didn't previously know before?
Jennifer: No one cares about your career more than you do. I’ve spoken to hundreds (probably thousands) of people after a decade of coaching and they all wish that their employer played a stronger role in their career development. But, the reality is that most employers are really bad at this. It’s a very rare situation when your boss and organization are continually providing you with the skills to navigate your career effectively, and even then it’s a fraction of what you could do if you took control of your own career.
For something that we spend the majority of our waking hours doing, it’s a continual shock to me, how few people really put effort into building a thriving career and life they will love. We spend more time thinking about what tv show we should watch in the evening than we do thinking about how we can love the work we do every day.
While you have many successful clients, I am sure that some have questions or concerns before engaging with a coach. What are some of the common concerns or questions, and how do you overcome them?
Jennifer: Honestly, the most common concerns stem from the ambiguity of coaching. When people are making an investment in time and money, they want to be certain that they will get a good return on their investment and that they are making the “right” choice. It makes sense, our brains hate change and ambiguity, but unfortunately, coaching just doesn’t work that way.
At the end of the day, once you’ve done your due diligence (using some of the strategies and insights shared below), you have to trust in yourself that you are making the right decision. Using the 7 Attitudes of Mindfulness, like (acceptance, trust, letting go, non-striving, etc) can be a really helpful tool in these kinds of moments.
What are some key points someone should consider when engaging with a career coach?
This is a great question. We developed an entire guide around it, which people can download here: www.finkdevelopment.com/coaching. But, some of the top questions to consider are:
Am I ready for coaching? Coaching is an investment in time and money, there are no “quick-fixes”, if you want to truly build a thriving career. If you’re not already bought into the value that coaching can bring to your life, you may not be ready.
Do I have realistic expectations for coaching? Many people come to coaching to solve “big” problems, but they think they can solve them in a 1-2 hour session. It’s just not realistic. For example, if you’ve struggled with being an effective communicator for the last 10 years, a coach isn’t going to miraculously make you a better speaker in three 1-hour sessions.
Does the coach feel like a good fit? Do you leave the consultation with the coach feeling energized, motivated, and confident, or do you leave the consultation feeling skeptical, pressured, and uncertain. There is truth in these gut feelings and I’d follow them, because they can influence the outcome of your coaching.
Is the coach certified or trained in what it is I’m trying to accomplish? Coaching is an unregulated industry, so anyone (truly anyone) can hang up a shingle and call themselves a coach. Get clear on the problem you’re trying to solve, and then try to identify what type of background/credentials a person should have to help you solve it.
What’s my alternative to coaching? Often people get really hung up on the price tag or time commitment of coaching. They want to know, “what am I going to get” for each hour of coaching. I get it, when you’re making an investment you want to think about the return on that investment. But, thinking about the price per hour, or even the price overall isn’t a good metric. For example, if it costs $3600 to hire a career coach, but you land a job 3-months sooner and you increase your salary by $30k more than you would have on your own, that’s a pretty great ROI! But, sometimes the results are less tangible. Let’s say that every single day you go to work miserable, you pay a coach $4500 for 4 months of coaching, and at the end of that journey you have the clarity and skills to create a life where you wake up excited to go to work every day, how do you put a price tag on that?! You have to be ok with the idea that calculating the ROI of coaching isn’t going to be a straightforward process, and this goes right back to point #1, you have to be ready for coaching for it to truly work.
At Fink Development, who are the types of individuals you work with, and what kinds of challenges are you helping them work through?
Jennifer: We work primarily with mid-career business professionals across a wide range of companies, industries, and functions. We have a unique model for career coaching where we break down someone’s career journey into three core stages, clarity, transition, and development.
If someone wants to determine which stage they are in, they can take our free career assessment here (www.finkdevelopment.com/assessment). We help our clients understand what stage they are in, the core problem they are trying to solve, and match them to the best resource or coach to help them solve that problem.
We’ve worked with people on topics ranging from doing a life assessment to understand what someone wants out of their life and career, to navigating a job search effectively, to interviewing and negotiating for senior-level/c-suite roles, and everything in between. Many of our clients know they want more out of their career, they want to feel fulfilled, engaged, and like they are making an impact, but they just don’t know exactly how to get there. That’s where we come in.
Where can people go if they want to know more about Fink Development?
Jennifer: We care a lot about educating people on the landscaping of coaching, whether they decide to work with us or not. We believe that those who have a deep understanding of what they want to achieve from coaching are the ones who get the best results, and that’s what we want for our clients.
We created Fink Development’s Guide to Career Coaching, which people can find on our website (Click Here) this will help them get up to speed on making the right decision for their unique career journey.
Are you looking for a career coach? Check out some of my favorites below:
Julia Wuench - The Authenticity Guide
Julia is a leadership and career coach for emerging leaders, and someone who I’ve met through our entrepreneurial journeys (and because of Jennifer!) (You can check out our conversation here)
What do you enjoy most about being a career coach?
Julia: Facilitating "aha" moments. When someone has a powerful insight and you as the coach have facilitated it in some way and get to bear witness to it? Man, that's the good stuff! "Aha" moments are what drive the client to change.
What's an example of a challenge you recently coached a client through?
Julia: Yesterday I coached a female leader at a Fortune 50 company on how to effectively communicate some major org changes to her team. She emailed me today to let me know that the approach we developed together made those conversations go great. (I always encourage clients to follow up with me via text, email or voice memo in between sessions -- this can be a real game changer for accountability and the coach/client relationship.)
Where can people find you if they are interested in working with you?
My website, www.theauthenticityguide.com, Follow me on LinkedIn, or follow my column on Forbes.
Priscilla Esquivel Bulcha
I connected with Priscilla through our podcast interview and love the work she is doing, both as a coach, and through her podcast, The Early Career Moves Podcast
What do you enjoy most about being a career coach?
Priscilla: I love helping people overcome limiting beliefs about their career potential. These are sneaky beliefs that people have either inherited or picked up throughout their life experiences, and it's where massive transformation hides. Unfortunately, I think our college/grad career services often over-trended on the tactical career skills like writing a resume or mock interviewing, which is what most people think about when they consider career coaching. I like to go a lot deeper to help people get off the hamster wheel for a bit and do much-needed self-reflection and exploration.
What's an example of a challenge you recently coached a client through?
Priscilla: Recently I coached a client on both burn-out and trust in the workplace. She's an experienced paralegal in IP, and has 2 direct reports who are pretty new to the space. She has a hard time delegating tasks partly because she's not yet sure she can trust her direct reports. Instead, she ends up doing a lot more work and feeling both burned out and resentful against her team. We talked about her fear of giving up control - and how the thought "Only I can do this" was creating feelings of frustration - leading to the very thing she didn't want: incapable direct reports who never got the opportunity to learn and grow, and an increased workload for herself. When she made this realization, we started to do the work of shifting her mindset to "my team is ready to step up" - creating an environment of trust, curiosity and learning.
Where can people find you if they are interested in working with you?
Priscilla: If you're interested in getting career coaching, you can book a free 1-hour call with me HERE. You can also check out my website and podcast, where I interview BIPOC guests figuring out their career.
Emily Taylor - Founder, Next Step Careers
Emily has spent the majority of her career helping students and professionals achieve their career goals. Before building Next Step Careers, Emily previously worked with hundreds of MBA students in the Parker Career Center at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Emily has been recommended to me as someone to get to meet by dozens of my own Anderson family, and I had the privilege to chat with her for the first time earlier this summer.
What do you enjoy most about being a career coach?
Emily: I love working with a large cross-section of people, from all over the world all with unique backgrounds. I help them identify the right career path based on their intrinsic interests and strengths, identify the ways to upskill and reposition, and then market themselves to land their next role. It's so gratifying when they nail a final round interview and then call/text me thrilled that they got the offer--often before their significant other or parents!
A few months ago, I started working with a client whose entire career had been in oil and gas, both as a banker and as an operator. The deal flow had stymied and the client wanted to pivot into an industry that was doing good for the world. We assessed his transferable skill sets and interests and identified areas within tech that were a strong match. He then took several online courses to indicate his learning curve and serve as signaling tools to recruiters. We also repositioned his resume and optimized his LinkedIn. Then he began networking, confident in what he brought to the table. He landed a CFO role at a high growth startup and he is doing exceptionally well. I also coached him through the executive MBA process, to deepen his network and credentials in order to best position him for board seats going forward.
Where can people find you if they are interested in working with you?
website: nextstepcareer.org
email: emily@nextstepcareer.org
linkedin: linkedin.com/in/emilymalleytaylor