Career Exploration – Career Coaching Services

Career Coach - Career Coaching

Services by the hour - no commitment.

The Benefits of Career Coaching

Career coaching is an excellent investment of time, money and effort for anyone who wants control of the trajectory their career is taking. Perhaps you've just graduated, or are just about to graduate, and want to get onto the first rung of the career ladder. Perhaps you're looking for a better job, a more worthwhile or satisfying job.

Whatever your circumstances, career coaching offers you help in three main areas. First, it can help you come to a clearer sense of what it is you want from a job and a career, and help you determine what career paths this suggests, along with understanding your own strengths, and having a clearer sense of your ambitions. This self-knowledge is an essential first step to a rewarding career – a career that will enrich every aspect of your life.

Second, career coaching will help you develop the skills and strategies that make for successful job-hunting. Once you know what kind of jobs you want, the next step is to find them, and to make sure that employers notice your efforts. Knowing where to look for jobs, and how to craft a resume that gives you the real opportunity to compete for them, involve skills that few people have had any reason or opportunity to develop...until the need arises.

Finally, career coaching can help you with the messaging and delivery that will put you in the best possible position to convince employers to give you the job you want. From targeted cover letters to preparing for interviews, to finding the right way of expressing your qualities and skills to potential employers. These are things a career coach can help you with.

When it comes to all the practical skills involved in finding and getting your dream job, an experienced coach can act as a mentor, guide and resource.

Career Coaching for Adults, Students and Graduates

It's a sad fact that a good education doesn't guarantee you a good job – certainly not the great job you're looking for. It takes practical know-how and hard work to turn a degree into a dream job. And even when you excel in the hard work department, that's where career coaching comes in.

A career coach can offer you advice and help in finding and getting your ideal job by helping you clarify what exactly you want from a job and a career, and what sort of job best fits your talents, education and individual personality. A career coach can be a valuable ally in the task of finding jobs to apply to; there are far more jobs out there than you think. Career Coaching can help you develop the many skills that successful job-hunting demands - from writing a resume that stands out from the crowd, to nailing interviews, to maximizing the potential of networking.

A skilled career coach can be an effective motivator and supporter when the task of finding a really good job seems daunting or impossible. Please contact us to learn more.

Career Testing and Interest Assessments

What do you want to do? It's important to know you're focused on the right kind of work – jobs that match your expectations, talents and skills. There are a wide variety of tools available to those who want a more objective sense of their aptitudes, interests, values, and personality, and what these mean for their choice of careers. Tools like these are products of decades of empirical analysis and improvement, and when they're taken and interpreted under the guidance of an experienced career coach, they can prove highly effective for anyone seeking greater clarity about their choice of careers.

Job Search Strategy

A compelling resume and effective, targeted cover letters are crucial tools in the fight for the best jobs. Some employers can easily receive thousands of applications a year and haven't got the time to interview more than a fraction of applicants. They employ mass rejection to cull applications and knowing how to avoid the cut is essential. The attrition rate among resumes is why it's important to go beyond the resume and learn how to use the growing range of online resources, including LinkedIn, to your best advantage.

Interview Coaching

Once you've passed the first hurdle and created a resume that gets noticed and put in the small pile, the next step is an interview, or a series of interviews. The competition will be strong, so it's essential to put work into preparing for interviews; from knowing about the employer and understanding what they're looking for, to being able to answer those inevitable questions about your own interests clearly and authentically.

Preparing properly for an interview has a second advantage, the higher your level of preparation, the more relaxed and confident you'll be going into the interview, and the better sense of who you are the interviewers will get.

Many colleges and universities offer career advice, but nothing can compare with the individual attention that comes from a coach, and the years of experience they bring with them. Coaches don't default to cookie cutter solutions; they help clients understand themselves, and to bring this understanding to everything from letter and interviews to the choice of career itself.

Getting to Work at Getting Work

Finding a new job is a job, and never so much so as when you don't have a job. Good coaching will help you organize this job as efficiently and effectively as possible, helping you research opportunities, making sure your resume is the best possible reflection of your career to date, and that your cover letters speak to each potential employer.

The job of finding a job needs to be organized, with maximum efficiency and effectiveness. Coaching will help you make the best use of your time. It will make sure that you don't just send out five resumes a day, but send out five effective, tailored resumes, with letters that hit the bullseye with respect to each potential employer's expectations.

Attitude

Confidence is a factor among the most important element you can bring to the search for a job, with the help of a coach, positivity. With the help of a good coach, you have the power to turn a potentially stressful activity into one of the best. Effective career coaching can ensure that you never get caught in the vicious circle of self-doubt, avoidance and dread. Take stock, make a plan and get to work.

Time for a Change of Job or Career?

Ok. You have a job. But it's not quite the dream job, or the dream career, you imagined yourself having. Or perhaps it is nothing at all like your dream job. Perhaps your employer clearly undervalues your contribution and talents, and it's increasingly obvious that you're in a dead end. Or perhaps you've been successful, but want a job that is more meaningful, more interesting or more aligned with your personal ideals.

Whatever your reasons, it's never too late to change jobs or careers, and it doesn't need to involve a leap into the void. It's all a matter of strategy. Coaching can help you at every step of the way.

Explore Options and Interests

The first step in any good strategy is to determine exactly what that strategy should be working towards. What are your career objectives? Are they attainable? Are they too modest?! What are your interests? What are your talents, skills, strengths and weaknesses? How do these relate to the demands and circumstances of your target career? If a client wants it, there are a host of objective tools available for looking at these questions. Cognitive styles, interests, emotional intelligence, leadership quotient, personality traits can all be explored in depth, with a coach who's had experience interpreting and integrating the results.

The next step is to prepare the tools that will help you get the attention and interest of employers. This begins with a resume, and cover letters that target the needs and pique the interest of your dream employers. Identifying your best references and establishing an online presence. You're marketing yourself; the more effective your strategies, the more opportunities you'll have. Once you have all this right, you're ready to start actively looking for jobs. Even in the slowest economy, there are thousands of jobs out there, waiting to be found.

A career coach can't find you a new job. You have to do that yourself, and its hard work. But coaching can make sure that your hard work is focused on strategies that actually do work. And in the process, coaching can prepare you to enter your new career with greater insight and self-knowledge, and a clearer idea of just what you want from it.

When it comes to all the practical skills involved in finding work you are passionate about, an experienced coach can act as a mentor, guide and resource.

Please contact us for more information.

info@careerexploration.com

716.836.2153