GuideCareer Coaching4 min read
How to find a career coach who actually moves you forward
Career coaching is cheap compared with a wrong move and expensive compared with doing nothing. Here is how to tell which one you are buying.
By Margaret Osei, Research Editor
A career coach helps you make a decision about your working life and then act on it. That is the whole service. Everything else, from CV reviews to interview practice, is a tool in service of that decision.
This guide covers what career coaches do, when the money is well spent, what it costs, how to tell a coach from a CV service, and the questions to ask before you book.
What a career coach does
Career coaches work on three kinds of questions. Direction: what do I want the next five years to look like, and which options fit? Transition: how do I move from here to there, including the search, the interviews and the negotiation? Performance in role: how do I succeed in the job I already have, get promoted, or handle a difficult manager?
The method is structured conversation plus homework. A good coach asks questions that make you produce your own answer, then holds you to the plan. Some coaches add assessments (strengths, values, personality). Treat assessments as conversation starters, not as verdicts.
What a career coach is not
Not a recruiter: a coach does not have jobs to offer and should never charge you for introductions. Not a CV writer: some coaches offer document work, but a coach who only edits your CV is a service provider, not a coach. Not a therapist: if the question is anxiety, burnout or a relationship at work that keeps you awake, a therapist or counselor is the right first call, and a good coach will say so.
When it is worth paying for
Career coaching earns its fee in four situations. You have an offer and cannot decide. You have been searching for months without interviews and do not know why. You are in a new role and it is not going well. You want to change direction and every option looks equally plausible.
It is a poor investment when you already know what you want and simply have not started, or when the job market in your field has collapsed and no amount of coaching changes that.
What it costs
Career coaching is priced below executive and business coaching. Individual sessions are common, and packages of four to eight sessions are typical for a transition. Prices vary by country and by the coach's background; coaches who previously worked as recruiters or HR leaders in your industry charge more, and often deserve it because they know how hiring decisions are made from the inside.
Compare the total for the package to the value of the decision. A negotiation coach who improves an offer by one salary step pays for themselves in the first month.
Employer-funded coaching and outplacement
Many companies offer coaching through leadership programs, and companies that lay people off often pay for outplacement coaching. Both are worth accepting with one condition: confidentiality. Ask in writing what the employer will receive. Progress against agreed goals is fine; the content of sessions is not.
If your goal is to leave, do not use an employer-funded coach for that conversation.
Credentials and signals
Career coaching is unregulated. The credentials that carry information are the same as in other coaching fields: the International Coaching Federation's ACC, PCC and MCC, the Association for Coaching's accreditation, and the EMCC's individual accreditation. A background in recruiting, HR or a hiring role in your industry is a second, independent signal.
The strongest signal is references. Ask for two former clients who finished more than a year ago, and ask them what changed after the coaching, not how the sessions felt.
Red flags
Guaranteed placements. Fees tied to a percentage of your future salary. Packages sold on the first call with a discount that expires today. A coach who cannot name the industries or roles they know well. Testimonials without names. No written goals.
Questions to ask in the first call
- What kinds of transitions do you work on most, and which do you turn down?
- What does a typical engagement look like, session by session?
- Which assessments do you use, and what do they cost extra?
- Two references from clients who finished more than a year ago?
- Have you hired people yourself? In which roles and industries?
- How do you work with someone who is not doing the homework?
- What do you charge, and can I stop after two sessions?
The short version
A career coach helps you decide and then act; recruiters get you interviews and therapists handle what keeps you up at night. Pay for coaching when you face a real decision, a stalled search, a difficult new role or a change of direction. Expect four to eight sessions for a transition, ask for two old references, insist on written goals and, in employer-funded coaching, on a written confidentiality rule.