If you are interested in Career Coaching, please reach out to us on the contact form below:
Career Coaching is an area of Organisational Psychology that “enables people to recognise and utilise their resources to make career-related decisions and manage career-related problems”. This concept applies to the work-related part of a person’s life, but this may also have additional considerations for the person’s non-work life, as coaching is holistic and cannot separate work and non-work impacts.
The use of career coaching here is different to career guidance. This is because the core principle of career coaching is that the coachee / client is the expert, the coach is simply facilitating and empowering the individual to arrive at their own conclusions. Whereas, in career guidance the expert is not the coachee but the individual they pay to provide the expertise.
The career coaching process has a number of steps. These may be slightly different
depending on the coach, but the underlying principle is the same: create a space for the coachee to learn more about themselves so they are better prepared to make a fully conscious decision on what career path may suit them
best.
The Career Coaching Process:
For the first meeting the coachee is given space to voice their self-perceptions and they current career situation. These may have a bias or negative view due to emotions or other factors involved and therefore the first step in the process is for the coachee to complete a series of self-report questionnaires in order to help the coachee move towards a more constructive perception and allow a baseline for decision and action. These questionnaires will help establish the coachee’s values, motives, and skills. This helps enable the coachee to understand where they are now, who they are and where they want to be.
This first session is typically very liberating for the coachee. They are given a listening ear to voice the stresses and strains they are currently experiencing with their career. As an individual’s career is such a significant part of their lives, being given space to voice the stress can lift a weight off their shoulders and then the questionnaires give clarity and a self-understanding that can be invaluable to the individual.
The second session will typically discuss reflections from the first meeting and between the previous session and this, they will have completed some psychometric assessments. These being a strengths-based assessment and a personality-based assessment. The results of these assessments looked deeper at who the individual is, what their strengths are and how their personality can help clarify what types of careers may suit them best. Again, these psychometrics
give invaluable insight to the individual on their preferences and where their strengths lie, the discussion to follow then looks at where can these be used
most effectively.
After the second session, the individual is given homework to research some of the career areas brought up from the questionnaires and psychometrics. They are looking at the pros and cons of these roles and some potential paths to working towards these careers. The third session then brainstorms the work that the individual completed between sessions. Probing these pros and cons lists and teasing out the practicalities of these relating back to the questionnaires and psychometrics that were completed.
Before the final session, the individual is typically narrowed down to a few key career paths or career area. They are then asked to complete some in depth research into how to work towards these paths and to potentially speak to people working in these areas for on the ground experience. The final session works with the information gathered from these tasks and works towards creating an action plan for the individual going forward.
This complete career coaching process not only helps the individual work in the right direction towards the most optimal career path for them, but it also provides to space for the individual to learn and explore themselves, which is something people are not typically given a lot of space to do. How can we know what we want if we haven’t explored who we are?
Career Coaching in Vitae Consulting:
Here in Vitae Consulting we provide Career Coaching. If you are interested in the process or are someone who could benefit from career coaching, make sure to check out our page detailing the package we provide or you can send us an email on info@vitaeconsulting.com for more information.
Resources:
Nathan, R., & Hill, L. (2005). Career counselling. Sage.
If you are interested in Career Coaching, please reach out to us on the contact form below:
Established in 2003 Vitae Consulting is passionate about identifying and maximising the potential of individuals and teams and ultimately supporting the organisation.
