Choosing the Right Career Coach

The coaching industry has blossomed overnight and now you can find a coach for virtually anything. It seems that anyone can bill themselves as a coach and charge $150-$200+ per hour, whether they are qualified or not. I’ve had 9 career coaches, some of whom I paid, and the quality has ranged significantly. At times, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the insights that my coaches uncovered. I’ve also been severely disappointed. (I sometimes cynically think some coaches just spew random, off-the-cuff advice for an hour — what stake do they really have in your success as long as you can pay them? They’re not on the hook for finding you a job.) I find that people (including my past self) find a career coach through a friend’s recommendation, without doing much due diligence. STOP!

If you’re looking to pivot into the social impact sector (or at least explore what that might look like), here are some tips on finding the right career coach for you (and a lot of these tips would apply to finding a career coach regardless of sector):

Clarify why you’re looking for a career coach. A lot of people generally have a sense that they want coaching, but can’t concisely articulate why. Set clear goals if you can; otherwise, when you engage a coach, ask them to help you set clear goals. For example:

• Social impact landscape scan: Are you looking for a coach to help give you ideas about what types of social impact careers out there? Then select someone who has deep and broad experience in the social impact space (usually you can get a sense for this by scanning both their LinkedIn profile as well as looking the number and types of connections they have on LinkedIn). I had this coach whom I assumed had broad exposure to the social impact sector for various reasons, and it turned out she did not — so she kept referring me to the same three nonprofits she was familiar with. Very frustrating and unimaginative. Ideally you want to find a coach who’s very well-networked, which means 500+ connections on LinkedIn, especially connections that you’d be interested in speaking with. However, it may be challenging to find a coach with strong social impact experience because the social impact space is rather new.
• Tactical help with your cover letter, resume, and interviewing skills. This is pretty standard in some ways. Find a coach who has very strong communication (verbal and writing) skills, prior experience doing recruitment for social impact roles (so they’ll know how to best position your experience), and/or has had a lot of success with getting job offers. (On a side note, a career coach suggested taking an improv class to help with interviewing skills — really helps you to learn how to speak confidently and increase awareness of how you sound — no uptalking!!)
• General motivation and strategy development to find a job. Maybe you already have the right network, but you need motivation to get started with tapping that network. Find a coach who can help you develop a manageable strategy and also can provide encouragement and accountability to implement your plan. In this case, I’d suggest that you find someone you “click” with given that the focus of this coaching is motivational/cheer-leading and probably personality-driven. You may also want to find someone who has some training in therapy, since many motivational blockers may be tied to deeper, underlying issues.
• Advice to address your current work situation. You need a coach who probably has significant managerial experience and very strong interpersonal skills, and can navigate relational dynamics. (In contrast, if your coach has been an independent consultant for most of their career, I don’t know if they’d really understand workplace dynamics.)
• Career advancement. Select a coach who has been able to successfully advance in their own career, and has strong interpersonal skills and relational savvy (can navigate politics). Here it also does help to have a coach who has broad knowledge of the social sector, so that they can give you ideas of what career advancement might look like, beyond your current organization. The problem is a lot of social sector orgs don’t have clearly articulated career paths for more junior staff or succession plans for their leaders, which is a real painpoint for junior staff looking to advance.

Ask your potential coach if you could speak to previous clients, especially those who had similar reasons as you do for seeking out coaching. More generally, ask your coach how many previous clients they’ve helped with similar goals (and what percentage of their clients have these goals). Also, ask for samples of past work products, if you’re asking for help with improving your resume and cover letter.

Ask your potential coach what their strengths/specialties are, as well as their gaps. First, this will give you a sense of whether they are able to address the issues you’re dealing with. Second, if they’re unable to articulate gaps, then I’d be a little suspicious about their competence, self-awareness, and/or integrity. No one is good at everything. In fact, you may need to get a couple coaches depending on your goals for coaching.

Ask your potential coach if they’ve personally addressed similar issues that you have. It isn’t always necessary that your coach has had personal experience, but it may be helpful. For example, if you’re looking for executive coaching, and your coach has never been an executive themselves, I would question the quality of their advice. Or, if you’re struggling to be motivated to transition / find a job, and they’ve also personally been in a similar rut and successfully navigated out of it, they would potentially have empathy and additional insight for your situation and how to best motivate you. However, on the flip side, sometimes having had a similar personal experience can bias a coach towards prescribing that you do what worked for them… which may not work for you! In that case, make sure your coach is a flexible thinker who can think of different strategies, instead of using the same tired one over and over.

Do you have other advice you’d offer to people looking for a career coach? Please comment or contact me!