5 Benefits from Working with a Career Coach

Summary: When you are feeling like your career is going nowhere, it may be the time to seek out a career coach to help you reevaluate where you want your career to go and how you are going to get there.

The real world takes up a lot of our free time and energy. Trying to fit in steps for a career move on top of a full time job, family obligations, and other time requirements is difficult. Many don’t realize there are resources available for them to help make that move. A career coach is much more than just someone that acts as a cheerleader when you prepare for interviews. They can help you when you are feeling stuck in the same dead-end or unfulfilling jobs. Just remember that taking the steps to a change does not always produce results immediately, but doing nothing produces no results. Read these five lessons that you can gain from working with a career coach.

1. Look at the big picture of your career goals. While it may be difficult to see where your job can lead you, having an 18-month plan can help you determine if specific choices that arise will benefit you. A career coach is able to help you sit down and wade through the everyday muck to see your career from a different point of view. A new perspective can help you focus your plan and how to move forward with it.
2. Being accountable to someone and talking things through is very helpful. You may not know what your dream career is yet but by talking with someone that is connected to the career field, you can pinpoint an area to strive towards. A career coach can set deadlines for you after you have built worksheets, read materials, and discussed your goals with them.
3. Having a good LinkedIn account is critical. Having any social media account is important but a LinkedIn profile that you keep updated will help you work towards your career goals. A career coach will help you understand why this is so important. You profile lets you document professional experience and organize big projects as you go. It can be difficult to remember what you did on a project five years ago.
4. You get out what you put into the experience. A career coach can only help you so much. You need to be willing to do some work. A coach is your guide but only you can be the one to deliver the results to the potential company during applications and interviews. It’s not worth your time or the coach’s if you are unwilling to help yourself.
5. Be organized and on time. This lesson is crucial in all aspects of life. Career coaches need you to be organized so find a way to works for you with a color-coded Google calendar or folders with sticky notes. It takes time to research, outreach, and plan so keeping a carefully managed calendar is necessary to make sure it all fits in.

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