Career coaching Getting ahead with some professional help

Posted on 05. Apr, 2008 by Bill in Employment News

Career coaching Getting ahead with some professional help – by Taylor Lindstrom SFGate

No matter what profession you work in, there always seems to be people who are able to reach their career goals with little to no effort. While everyone else is slogging it out in the trenches trying to go the “extra mile” to get recognized by the top brass, there’s one guy who seems to be able to slide effortlessly up the career ladder, acquiring a flashy new title and a raise with every step upward. And it’s not just people who move up within their own organizations who have the magic touch. Every week there seems to be a story about a paralegal who waves his or her wand and suddenly morphs into a successful bakery owner overnight, and explains this new-found success by shrugging and saying “I just needed to get out of the rat race.” These people seem to get everything they want out of their careers. How do they do it?

What seems effortless may actually be the work of a hired hand. Career counselors are becoming a popular resource for ambitious employees who are looking to get the most out of their careers and define success as more than just waiting for a 3-percent raise at the next annual review. Getting a career counselor in your corner can be an effective strategy to improving your job satisfaction. “We’re like a secret weapon,” says Anne Clarke, founder of LDV Coaching, an executive consultancy based in Walnut Creek. “No one’s going to tell you how they got a leg up on you.”

Considering the amount of time that people spend moving from job to job and sometimes from career to career in today’s job market, it’s hardly surprising that experts have emerged to help people get better at managing the process. It used to be common to get a job straight out of college and stay with that company for decades, but that scenario is no longer the norm. “The workforce today is about moving. We’re talking about three-to-five year transitions,” says Clarke. “You aren’t going to go to a company and stay for life, and everyone is trying to figure out what that means.” For many, it means their careers suddenly need constant attention to make sure it will continue to progress upward rather than stall. That can be a full-time job, and instead of trying to manage this complex process on their own, many skilled employees at all levels are turning to career guidance professionals for help.

Whether they call themselves “career counselors” or “career coaches,” most perform some combination of the two functions. The counseling portion is most often useful to those who are unhappy with their current jobs but are not sure why. A career counselor assesses clients’ strengths and weaknesses and determines the benefits and downsides of a current job to determine what needs to change. “Sometimes ‘I hate my job,’ really means ‘I hate this jerk that calls me every day at 7 a.m.’ Get rid of that phone call, and the job looks a lot better. Some of my job is just parsing where the unhappiness comes from,” says Clarke. Of course, some employees dislike their current situation for reasons that go deeper than minor annoyances or friction with a boss, but Clarke says that even those seemingly small issues can take a big toll on one’s happiness in the workplace.

After the core problems have been identified, coaching is the process of brainstorming to develop a plan of action to achieve the next goal. Coaching can also help with new strategies to improve one’s career if the status quo isn’t working. Susan Urquhart-Brown, a career coach and author of the upcoming book “The Accidental Entrepreneur,” cautions against thinking that forming a plan is the entire process. “You may have a plan, but is your plan wide enough, smart enough, keyed to things that will get you returns? And once you know what your plan is, someone still needs to say, hey, did you follow that plan last week? Someone needs to be able to tell you where it’s breaking down when you don’t get a call back.” For many active job seekers or unhappy employees, simply having an outside perspective can save time and stress. Though it is often difficult for people to judge their own shortcomings, a career counselor can usually put a finger on the problem and suggest an effective solution. For example, something as simple as not dressing for success can have a profound effect on whether or not an employee is seen as “management material.”

It’s not a fun way to be introduced to career counseling, but many companies now offer severance packages that make career guidance services available to employees who have been laid off. “Working with a career counselor or coach will help you move through unemployment faster,” says Urquhart-Brown. “I always ask people who are thinking they might be downsized to negotiate for counseling in their severance packages.” If career counseling isn’t offered automatically, it still may be worth pursuing as a personal investment. It may seem counterintuitive to spend money on a career counselor when that biweekly paycheck isn’t coming in, but a shortened job-hunting period and a targeted plan that focuses on your personal qualifications and ambitions are good reasons to consider it.

If you are looking for a career counselor, referrals are the best way to go, but most counselors are willing to have a short phone session with potential clients to determine whether they are the right fit. The most critical factor when finding a career counselor is having a good rapport. “It’s a ridiculously personal profession,” says Clarke. “You need to be comfortable with me, because in two questions we’re going to be talking about how things are at home. If you’re gunning for a promotion and things are rough at home, that’s going to affect you, and I need to know that it’s there.”

Ultimately, a career counselor is an expert on strategy. Being talented at a job doesn’t necessarily translate into being talented at finding a job or capitalizing on a current one, and a career counselor can be a valuable partner in managing a fulfilling career. Patti Wilson, a career coach and founder of the CareerCompany who was described as “The Guru of Silicon Valley career counseling” in Po Bronson’s bestseller “What Should I Do With My Life,” puts it a little more bluntly. “Anyone who wants to go into a job search by themselves these days is foolhardy,” she says. “It’s not your daddy’s job search anymore.” David Robinson is a senior lecturer at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, and wrote the book “Business Protocol: Contemporary American Practice.”

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