Author's note: This article originally appeared on my LinkedIn profile. You can read the original version here.
Are you leveraging your strengths, actively working towards your life and career goals, and being recognized for your contributions by your company?
For 80% of workers globally, the answer is no. According to Gallup, while 20% of workers are "engaged," 62% are psychologically disengaged, and 18% are miserable at work. Gallup’s study reveals that "people who hate their jobs are more likely to report anger, stress, physical pain, and worry, and less likely to report positive experiences such as enjoyment, respect, intellectual stimulation, and laughing and smiling a lot."
If this sounds like your situation, consulting with a coach outside your company might be the key to getting you back into your peak flow state. But what exactly is a career coach, and how can they help you?
In this article, we'll explore common challenges employees and candidates face, the role a career coach can play in your career and life, and our support model to help people.
Drawing Parallels from the Sports World
In the sports world, the highest-performing athletes have teams of coaches and agents supporting them in every aspect – from sports psychology and nutrition to leadership training, skill development, marketing, and contract negotiations. This support team helps players identify, develop, and leverage their strengths, set and achieve inspiring goals (like winning championships), build teams with complementary skills, and achieve financial success.
While we admire superstar athletes like Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry for their on-court prowess, their agents are behind the scenes securing lucrative partnership deals and negotiating record-breaking contracts. Their coaches are focused on helping them evolve from productive rookies to hall-of-fame players.
Applying This Model to the Corporate World
What if we applied this model to the corporate world? The corporate world is just as competitive, but we rarely see a performance-driven development and support model implemented.
I've partnered with more than a dozen CEOs who are extremely focused on building the “next big thing," but they seem to ignore the basic tenets of our human nature like celebrating wins, tying performance to bonuses, and focusing on building team-oriented cultures that create identity and belonging that are commonplace in the sports world.
We are also susceptible to something called the "hedonic treadmill.” Philip Brick and Donald T. Campbell introduced this idea in 1971 in their essay "Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society.”
According to Philip and Donald, it's in our human nature to set goals, achieve them, receive a reward like a raise or promotion, and feel temporary elevation in happiness before we adapt to our new income level and title.
Think about your current situation. When you started at your “not so new” company three years ago, you were motivated to learn new technologies, hit sales targets, lead teams that can build exciting products, obtain new responsibilities and job titles, and reach new compensation expectations.
If you've achieved those goals and haven't set new ones, you may suffer from disengagement. Disengagement is when you do what you do simply because you did it yesterday, which leads to disengagement and a lack of performance and “passion” in your work.
So it is up to the management team to inspire their people with a new vision and continue to have conversations with their teams about setting new development goals that their teams can aspire to keep them motivated.
However, few companies establish a culture where retaining top talent through development is a core principle that is role-modeled and rewarded. (Netflix is one of the rare companies that describe their culture as a sports team, assembling a dream team, and winning championships.)
While many HR teams have positive intentions to help their employees, most are extremely overstretched. For large companies, the ratio can be 100 employees to 1 HRBP… but with recent layoffs, the ratio can be much worse.
Those who are left are focused on implementing the basic pillars of HR like compliance, payroll, employee relations, and benefits aspects of their support model as opposed to focusing on employee performance.
Is an external career coach the answer to help you?
What is a Career Coach?
A career coach is like a guide for your professional life, offering personalized advice, support, and strategies to help you achieve your career and life goals. Similar to other types of coaching services, we each have our own approach based on our industry experience, research, life experience, role models, and first principles thinking we draw from.
Career coaches use specialized surveys and assessment tools to help people understand and define:
• Career and life priorities
• Leadership values and strengths
• Career history
• Work that brings them joy
• Negative self-talk that’s holding them back
• Goals (career, financial, life)
• Work environments in which they will thrive
Top 5 Common Problems a Career Coach Can Help Solve
Career coaches are skilled at addressing a variety of career-related issues. Here are the top five problems they can help you overcome, with detailed solutions and practical examples:
1. Facing Your Imposter Syndrome and Negative Self-Talk
Problem: Many professionals struggle with feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt, often doubting their abilities or career achievements. Companies are also known for promoting people to management positions without giving them the education and training to help them succeed in a completely new discipline. As a result, people create generic narratives about their personal stories and careers, and lack management systems that they can draw from to lead their next high-performing team.
Solution: A career coach helps you recognize the power of your own story, challenge these negative thoughts, building confidence through self-awareness and positive reinforcement. They also provide you with advanced training that helps you lead with authenticity and succeed at the next level.
Teaching frameworks and mental models like OKRs, inversion, incentive-based bias, and risk control combined with techniques such as mind mapping, reflecting on one’s past success, and adversity they’ve overcome foster a stronger, more resilient mindset.
2. Career Uncertainty and Lack of Direction
Problem: Feeling lost or unsure about your career path can be confusing at best and paralyzing at worst, leading to indecision and a lack of progress. Many people – if not most – don’t have a clear career plan and goals to help them reach where they ultimately want to get. We end up in a role, perform the role accordingly, or just hop around from role to role without a strategic plan for our growth and success.
Solution: A career coach will conduct assessments to understand and define your leadership strengths, technical skills, leadership values, and career goals. They will help you develop self-awareness about your intrinsic gifts, guide you in setting life and goal priorities, and develop a strategic plan to actualize your vision for the future.
3. Finding Job Opportunities and Landing Interviews
Problem: Struggling to find job opportunities or land interviews is frustrating and demoralizing, especially in a highly impacted job market. Many people are tired of being ghosted by companies and recruiters, and wondering how to stand out from the crowd.
Solution: A career coach will review and refine your resume and LinkedIn profile to make them stand out to recruiters. They can help you develop your leadership presence and leverage narrative-driven storytelling to communicate your strengths, skills, and story. They teach you how to leverage your reputation and activate your network. They also teach you networking strategies to uncover hidden opportunities, and extend their network to generate more qualified leads.
4. Interview Perfomance
Problem: Lack of practice, knowledge, and interview preparation can lead to poor performance during job interviews and can cost you opportunities. Our brain physiology works against us because we tend to view the world through a negative lens. Maybe you’ve been at the same company for 5 to 10 years and you don’t know how to tell your story. Or you’re simply out of practice with interviewing – and practicing on your own isn’t helping you improve and sharpen your skills because you don’t have a feedback loop.
Solution: Through mock interviews and feedback sessions, a career coach helps you practice common questions and turn interviews into two-way conversations instead of the standard question-answer format. They teach you preparation techniques to befriend your interviewer, reduce anxiety, and help you craft compelling stories using the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) method to demonstrate your qualifications.
5. Strategic Offer Analysis and Negotiation
Problem: Evaluating job offers is a complex exercise that can lead to negative outcomes, both psychologically and financially. If you’re interviewing with a FAANG-type company or an early-stage startup, you may be lacking a multi-faceted evaluation model that includes risk control to help you evaluate companies and determine which is the best option for you.
Solution: A career coach helps you assess the risk and reward from a multi-faceted perspective focusing on role design, manager, financial risk, company culture, and management team. They guide you during the offer negotiation, identifying key negotiation points in cash compensation and equity terms, setting targets for performance metrics, and preparing counter-offers.
Why This is Important to You
Understanding the importance of coaching is crucial for several reasons.
Career coaching can significantly improve your job and life satisfaction by helping you identify and address the root causes of your dissatisfaction and disengagement.
With tailored strategies and support, you can enhance your performance, increase productivity, and achieve your career goals more effectively.
Whether you’re looking to develop your leadership capabilities, find a new employment opportunity, or start your own business, a career coach provides the necessary guidance and resources for career advancement.
Additionally, career coaches help you set boundaries and priorities, create a healthier work-life balance, reducing the risk of burnout.
Expert salary negotiation and career strategies can also lead to better life and financial decisions, greater job security, and ultimately support your long-term professional and personal goals.
Key Takeaways
A career coach provides personalized support and strategies to help you navigate career challenges and achieve your goals. They are different than your HR team who is a representative of your employer and may have conflicting goals. For example, a career coach who is an expert in salary negotiation is paid to help you negotiate the highest offer possible. A recruiter who is paid by the company is incentivized to negotiate a fair salary, not necessarily the best offer.
They can assist with career uncertainty, job search difficulties, interview performance, career transitions, networking issues, workplace challenges, professional development, salary negotiation, goal setting, and managing imposter syndrome.
Drawing parallels from the sports world, career coaches offer a holistic approach to professional development, much like the support teams for elite athletes.
If you’re feeling stuck, unfulfilled, or unsure about your next career move, consider partnering with me. I can provide the guidance and support you need to unlock your full potential and achieve your career aspirations.
Book a free consultation with me today to learn more about how my coaching services can help you thrive in your professional journey.