I was sitting having coffee with a potential candidate who was enquiring about a senior level management job I’m recruiting for, when I had one of those moments of reflection and recalled being in the exact same situation as this lady many years ago. As I sat and listened to this lady try and convince herself, more than me, that this job was the right opportunity for her I knew this job wasn’t the next career step she was ideally looking to take. This job wasn’t going to excite her, motivate her, give her the challenge she was seeking or reignite her passion. I could easily relate to how this lady was trying to talk herself into applying for the job because I’ve done the same thing myself and I wish I had of sought out the advice of a career coach to help me navigate through that time in my life. Maybe then I would have found my passion for recruiting a little earlier.
Elite athletes have sports coaches, business owners have business coaches. People who have or want a career should have a career coach. Why don’t we invest that same level of planning, support and guidance in to our careers? Navigating through career change is tough. In my case and for many of the people I interview for jobs; you know you want a change, you know you have more to offer but you don’t know what that more is or what it looks like or what industry or type of company it could be of value to. I floated along being reactive and simply applied for jobs that were advertised that sounded exciting. Instead I wish I had of worked with a career coach to:
- Understand my personal drivers for work, what my “why” was and how I could add value with it
- Determine what was important to me in what an employer had to offer, what was I prepared to compromise/negotiate on and what was non-negotiable
- Give me insight in to what career paths and opportunities were available and would suit my strengths, passion and my “why”
I consider myself to be pretty lucky as I literally fell into the world of recruitment. It was through no thorough planning, research or well executed strategy. If I’m honest I don’t think prior to doing some temp work that I even really knew the world of agency recruiting existed. Had I worked with a career coach I’m pretty sure they would have been able to point me in the right direction and even shared with me possible career paths such as what a recruiter was and did. With hindsight, knowing the answers to the three dot points above would have given me a pretty clear career roadmap. Sometimes just having an independent sounding board is enough to get clarity and allow you to find the right direction forward for yourself.
Making a wrong career move isn’t going to be the end of the world. I ended up learning a lot about business and myself through those work experiences and I am grateful for those insights and experiences. I’ve seen wrong career moves impact really negatively on people, causing high levels of stress and pressure, destroying their confidence and causing them to doubt their own skills and abilities. A great career coach can help you avoid making that wrong career move and ending up in that situation; they can alert you to opportunities and career paths you didn’t even know existed so that you don’t have to rely on fate and the stars aligning. That’s why I think a career coach is worth their weight in gold.
