What is Career Coaching? » Balanced at Last

What is Career Counseling, Career Coaching, or Career Advising?

Career counseling, Career Coaching, and Career Advising are very similar.

Career Counseling goes beyond to investigate past professional experiences, trends, and patterns that may have triggered professional unhappiness and the need for change.

Career coaching is a process to help unblock, remove barriers, and equip clients with the necessary tools for professional success. A career coach employs many techniques, tools, and deliverables to help clients overcome challenges and advance.

Career advising acts from a place of expertise and advises on the process where career coaches and counselors work and go through the process with you.

All career coaching, career counseling, and career advising use several techniques to help their clients, the services depend on the client and their career journey. For example, an early career individual may need to learn more about what they’d like to do with their life, which employs career assessments, or they may be having a tough time securing their first job, where we’d discuss career search strategies, interviewing skills, resume development, etc.

For a mid-career-individual, it may be about negotiations, leadership development, family-work balance, stretch assignments, networking, next-level resume creation, etc..

For an executive, it may be geared more towards executive job search, networking, resume and interviewing, leadership development, business strategies, etc.

Your career will be more valuable and successful when you work with a career coach/counselor, or advisor. They can objectively see your approach, materials, and strategies and challenge them so you’re better prepared and share shortcuts to get you to your career destination faster.

Why work with a career counselor?

Career Counselors are healers. We work on recovery, focusing on your mental resilience in the workplace. Work is stressful, and compounding factors like a toxic workplace, toxic manager/leadership, burnout, imposter syndrome, self-doubt, confidence, etc., can hurt your professional and personal life.

In Career Counseling, we’re here to help you recover from unmanageable stress and move towards building your wellness plan so you can start managing your challenges better, navigate through workplace politics, heal from feeling burnout, establish practices to recognize when you’ve gone from EUstress (“good stress” – stress that gets us excited and energized) to DISstress (“bad stress” – stress that triggered by unhealthy workload, manager, colleagues, mismatched career and interests, etc.).

Career Counselors are formally trained with a Masters or higher degree. They often come from a counseling background and specialize in Career development.

For example, I have a Master’s degree in Mental Health and Marriage and Family Counseling and a Graduate Certificate in Career Counseling. These help me work on workplace trauma, personal trauma, burnout, motivation, and imposter syndrome from a counseling perspective to heal the unaddressed past to help unlock the next-level confidence.

Career Counselors can be career coaches and career advisors. Thus making them very versatile in helping your career development.

Why work with a career coach?

Career Coaching focuses on getting you to your next position, internally, externally, career pivot, etc.; no matter where you want to go, a career coach will help you. Career coaching is future-oriented and strategic. We talk through your barriers to success and devise a strategy to help you avoid those barriers and empower you to take meaningful steps toward making your moves.

Career Coaches don’t need formal training, nearly anyone can become a career coach. This informal title can give amazing coaches lower barriers to helping people because they can do what they’re naturally good at – helping people.

Career Coaches can be great, but be aware of mediocre coaches who are great marketers.

To determine if a Coach is qualified, ask them questions and challenge them to go deeper in sharing their insights. If they start getting frustrated or annoyed, you need a new coach. The ICF offers formal coaching training, which can help. But, with coaches, it’s best to have conversations and challenge them to share more detailed answers and approaches. I’ve worked with incredible career coaches without a degree; their drive, passion, and determination make them incredible. So, be aware and be open.

Why work with a career advisor?

If you’re in school, career advisors are great to share resources to help you determine which areas you should explore. They’re great for K-12 students trying to get a direction, where one or two pieces of advice are helpful. Most career advisors are knowledgeable in their particular areas of expertise. They are great when you’re specializing in your career.

Better yet, focus on getting yourself a mentor who’s gone through a similar process you have; they’ll be better equipped to help.

Career advisors are great for K-12 grade students.

What Services do Career Development Professionals offer?

We can do a lot, A Career Counselor can also administer formal assessments such as the Myers Briggs Typology Inventory (MBTI) assessment, which can help you understand more about yourself and how to leverage your strengths to jump-start your career development. The Strong Interest Inventory (SII) can help career-started and changers to learn more about their interests and how they can overlap to help them create a better career path that aligns with their authentic self.

(Check out the MBTI and SII Sample reports, or take both assessments to get a 23-page report on how to get the most out of your career. Please see our pricing page for more details if you’d like to take these assessments.)

Now, for a nearly endless list of Career Development services we provide:

Career exploration and decision-making
Resume and cover letter writing
Job search strategies and networking
Interview preparation and practice
Salary negotiation
Career advancement and growth
Skill-building and professional development
Entrepreneurship and starting a business
Balancing work and personal life
Managing workplace stress
Time management and productivity
Building confidence and self-esteem
Overcoming fear and self-doubt
Developing leadership skills
Building relationships and networking
Managing difficult coworkers or bosses
Coping with job loss or career setbacks
Navigating office politics
Building a personal brand
Improving communication skills
Setting and achieving career goals
Understanding industry trends and career paths
Identifying strengths and weaknesses
Developing a positive attitude towards work and life

Improving job performance and productivity
Discovering and pursuing passions
Achieving work-related certifications or degrees
Building a professional network
Learning negotiation skills
Exploring alternative career paths
Creating a career action plan
Building a personal mission statement
Assessing job satisfaction and engagement
Improving time-management skills
Building resilience and coping skills
Setting boundaries at work
Enhancing emotional intelligence
Improving work relationships
Learning how to delegate effectively
Learning to manage a team
Building a personal support system
Building a professional portfolio
Developing a career roadmap
Understanding different work styles
Improving decision-making skills
Fostering creativity and innovation
Building a personal growth plan
Learning to navigate change

There are many more that we haven’t listed above because all clients are different and they needs different services. If you’d like to learn if and how we can help you in your Career Development, Schedule a FREE Discovery Call.

How is Balanced At Last different from competitors?

We are a bespoke practice, where I am a trained counselor and have been specializing in Career Development since 2009. I’ve helped over 3,000+ individuals over the past 15 years, from retirement, C-Suite, Executives, Sr. Leadership, Directors, Managers, Leaderships, and Colleagues; along with College and High School Seniors. The wide range of clientele helps me understand where you are currently and how to get you to the next level. You control your journey when working with me, and I’m here to deliver your results ASAP, where I’m here to support you in recovery, help you establish boundaries to maintain your success, and challenge you to step into the growth zone to get to your next level career.

The reason my practice is called “Balanced At Last” is because I will help you build a life that gives you confidence in your professional world, so you can develop the work-life balance you see in your life.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Career Coaching:

How long does career coaching take to see results?

Most clients see sustainable results within one month, and all clients see the value within the 1st session.

Your goals will determine what we need, maybe it’s a single session, maybe it’s a package of sessions. The Packages are designed with 10 years of experience in seeing how individuals, as a whole, progress towards their goals. The 3 month plans are great because it takes time to make significant, sustainable, change in your career.

Although, sometimes clients see results within a couple of sessions. Ultimately, it’ll depend on your engagement. General population report taking months (5 months!) to secure a position (Source: TopResume), but with a detailed plan, killer resume and LinkedIn our strategies have found success for our clients.

Why do I need a career coach?

Career development is complex and having an expert help you navigate it makes it easier and speeds up your success.

Career Counselor/Coach you can speed the process of professional development and success, by meeting your aspirations faster, improving your career trajectory, landing that dream job quicker, overcoming burnout so you keep doing what you love, managing work-life stress by balancing the two so you’re fully present with your family and career. These are intangible, getting to a happier place in your career is priceless.

At the end of the day, career coaching helps get you there (wherever “there” is for you) faster.

How much does career coaching cost?

The cost varies, where our Career Development Packages offer the greatest value for support and helping you achieve your goals. We have services starting as low as $75, more than the price, the cost of not getting the support you need could be months.

As previously mentioned, individuals that aren’t working with a career coach can spend 5 months looking for a position. The quickest turnout for my practice was 2 days, from interview to offer and acceptance. Many clients start interviewing as soon as 1 week – but that all depends on their goal and how they’re coming to my practice. If we need to focus on healing, then it’ll take longer because without healing we have a lot of self-sabotaging behaviors that cost time and unhappiness.

What is the Return on Investment for Working with a Career Coach?

I can tell you that I’ve helped many clients DOUBLE their salaries after 3 months of coaching. The biggest salary increase was $250k, from $120k to $370k – a 24,566.67% return. On average, working with me yields about a $25K increase, roughly a 1500% return.

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