I am trying to find/change my career trajectory. Its a good cozy job, but I want something that I get excited to work on in the morning. Career change is hard, for a lot of reasons. So I cant just try out a lot of different careers, and need to be more methodical in finding out the ideal fit.
have a general idea of the direction I want to go in. However, I think a lot of my decisions have been made under peer pressure or expectations of other people. I am looking for somebody who can provide me an objective assessment of my strengths and weaknesses, and to move towards a career which relies more on my strengths and innate (unconscious) drivers. There are millions of coaches online.. and it seems everybody these days wants to become a coach. So I am wondering how to find a reliable coach who will get you to where you want to get to?
What do you look for when searching for a career coach and how do you determine whether it’s beneficial?
First of all, build a list of career coaches available in your area. Try to rank them according to critics, comments, availability … Then, meet some of them, for a first interview, to discy what you are looking for and how you can be helped.
You should look for people who have a high availability, and for experimented professionals. Ask them for references on similar coaching missions. Take the time to meet several of them – as you would do for any job interview.
Now lets talk about changing a carreer : what do you want to do? Are there job in this field? If there are job, its is were you live or you will need to relocate? The salary would be good? Don’t forget you will start as an inexperienced person so the salary could be low.
Talking about it with the coach is a good idea. Having an other opinion will surely help you. Depending on the country some assiociation exist for this topic and you can contact them for free.
Hiring a career coach is similar to buying food : if you want to play the price game, don’t expect top-notch quality. If you decide to engage in a coaching relation, you need to be comfortable with spending enough for the advice to be actually valuable.
You have no way of knowing beforehand whether or not it will be beneficial for you. It’s similar to seeing a psychologist : for some people, it makes wonders, for some people, it doesn’t do much. However, career coaches are professionals, and if you cannot solve an orientation problem yourself, they are the best suited people to help you.
You will only know how beneficial it was when you will have a new job. If you are happier, it was beneficial, otherwise, it probably wasn’t.
Think about where you see yourself in 5 years time. Based on that, look through LinkedIn profiles and ask people out for coffee and conduct informational interviews. Learn more about what they do, what challenges they face, and what they enjoy about the work that they do. You need to learn the in’s and out’s before you make a career switch. Do your homework.
You only live life once so make it the best.
Hope that helps.