Your Career Coach Is Not A Magician
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Your Career Coach Is Not A Magician
How to work more effectively with your career coach to get better results
A friend of mine woke up one day and decided a career coach was the ultimate solution to his job-hunting challenges.
He had been job hunting for a few months and wanted a shortcut to land his dream role.
He had had enough.
To him, all he needed was to pay about $150 to be assured of any job he wanted in the industry.
Thankfully, he consulted with me before making the payment. I told him not to bother paying a coach yet.
He asked why.
I told him he was unlikely to find a job with his current mindset of not believing and working hard to land his dream role.
“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” — Norman Vincent Peale
A career coach was unlikely to assist him in landing a role with his static mindset and low-energy drive.
With his high expectations from the coach, he was unlikely you put in the work required to make his job search successful.
Career coaches are a clever bunch of professionals.
We must be subject matter experts, psychologists, tutors and advisors to deliver personalised coaching advice to job seekers and young professionals from varying backgrounds.
It takes a lot of work to be a great career advisor.
To be an advisor, you must have gone through the mistakes, challenges, and difficulties job seekers face.
After all, experience is the best teacher. It’s hard to teach what you haven’t experienced.
A career coach may not be the solution to your job hunting challenges if you haven’t fixed your mindset to be ready to put in the work and spend quality time developing quality applications for the roles you want.
Your Career Coach Needs Your Help
“The average person puts only 25% of his energy into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.”
— Andrew Carnegie
I have seen many job seekers pay career coaches and go to sleep in their job search process. They get a fine-tuned cv and cover letter from a coach to re-ignite their application power and go to sleep.
They sometimes apply to many other jobs using the same resume without adapting the magic resume to new situations. They forget that no two job ads are ever the same.
They mistakenly assume the version of the resume or cover letter they got from the career coach is the anointed one and should never be modified.
The result?
An underwhelming achievement from their job search.
If this is you, then I’m afraid a career coach may not be the solution to your job hunting challenges. Your career coach needs your help more than you need theirs.
You need to put in the energy or effort required to keep your job search going after you have consulted a career coach.
“The harder I practice, the luckier I get.” — Gary Player
Prepare To Be Accountable And Persistent
“Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.” — Booker T. Washington
You will have a more successful job search if you develop an accountability mindset before giving your hard-earned money to a career coach.
The job search process can be long and discouraging. It can take anywhere between six and 12 months to find the role you want, depending on your skill and experience profile.
If you are not prepared to do the work, you’d need more than a magician to land a role.
Closing Thoughts
Career coaches are a clever group of professionals.
We spend a lot of time researching and learning the latest strategies to help mentees advance their careers.
We must simultaneously be psychologists, teachers, subject matter experts and great listeners to deliver quality work to mentees.
But guess what?
Your career coach needs your help. They need you to keep up the work you have done in applying for jobs after they helped refine your resume, cover letter and LinkedIn profile.
They need you to keep adapting to new situations and applying for jobs. They don’t want you to develop a fixed mindset. Instead, they want you to grow in the processes.
Your resume is not static. Use what you have learned and keep improving the process.
Your career coach is not a magician.
They need your help to shine. Adapt your learnings from the career coach and use them in new situations.
Your career coach needs your help to succeed.
Do your part by being persistent and accountable.
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” — Walt Disney
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