Hiring a coach is a big step. They can give you incredible support, perspective, and accountability for your career. It can also be really daunting to find the right person for your particular needs.
I’ve hired several coaches over the years and encountered many different types of career coaches and here’s how I would approach finding a career coach that’s a good fit for you.
3 Buckets of Career Coaching
As a simple model to start, I think about career coaches in 3 different buckets:
Exploration: This type of coach is good for you if you don’t actually know what you’re looking for, you don’t know why you’re dissatisfied, and you’re definitely not ready for a job search. They’re able to help you uncover what you’re looking for and which direction you want to head in.
Job Search: This type of coach is helpful if you have a good idea where you are heading but need help getting there. They can help with job search strategy and tactics and more of the nuts and bolts like resume, interviewing, landing the offer, negotiating, etc.
Leadership: This type of coach is helpful if you’re looking to grow in your existing role and get support on challenges in your day to day work. These are also sometimes called executive coaches and they’re able to support you increase your skills (managing people, communication, etc) and will often do reviews with your colleagues to identify areas to help people grow.
There are also coaches who focus on specific aspects (communication coaches, transition coaches, presentation coaches, etc) who may fall outside these specific buckets.
My Process for Hiring a Coach
I’ve noticed that I have a specific process for any time I’m looking to engage with professional help in any area of my life. I do a lot of research, ask for referrals, and narrow my search down to 3 people who look like they could be a good fit. I then do a free consultation call with all 3 (ideally within about 3-5 days) and make my decision soon after speaking to the 3rd person.
There’s nothing particularly magic about that process exactly, so please come up with one that works for you, but here’s what I look for and what I recommend when you start your search:
Learning style - There are many different types of coaching programs that exist (1:1, group, online self-paced, etc) so you’ll want to identify the type of learning style that suits you best for your particular challenge. If you know that you thrive in a group, you may want to join a program with many people who are all working on the same thing - a job search bootcamp for example. If you know that you buy online courses and then absolutely never look at them, you may want to go with 1:1 coaching. Think about the format that allows you to thrive and seek that out.
Connection - A lot of elements go into connecting with a coach: their personality, their experiences, their focus, their background, etc. This is why I speak to 3 different people to get a sense of who I might connect with best. This is also why I’ve labeled myself as a career coach for analytically minded people - my engineering background connects with people who are looking for an analytical approach to career.
Program offering - Coaches work in all kinds of ways so you want to think about the specific program they offer and how it fits with your needs. It could be a one-off engagement that helps you resolve a very specific challenge, it could be a program that runs for a few months, or it could be something that supports you for an entire year. Some coaches have a very specific and structured program and others work on an hourly as-needed basis. For me, I only work with clients in one of two ways, a 4-week program for anyone who is currently in a job search or a 3-month program for everyone else.
Goal/Expertise - The clearer you are about what you’re looking to achieve, the more clearly you can connect that with a coach’s expertise. This goes back to understanding which bucket you fall into and what success would look like for you.
Experience of the consultation call - You can learn so much about the coach from the consultation call. Did they ask good questions? How much time was spent getting clear about what you’re looking for and how much time did they spend talking? Did you feel at ease being led through the process? Were they waiting for you to drive the call? How much time did they dedicate to the call? I’ve noticed that for me, one of the best indicators of someone who is a good fit for me, is getting to experience their expertise on the call. I love getting to see their expertise whether it’s learning about a particular topic, being asked incredibly thought-provoking questions, or experiencing a mindset shift that helps me see something differently.
Questions to ask - I always recommend you come in with a few questions you want to ask. Here are some of my favorites:
How will you know if I’m the right client for you? What are the characteristics of the ideal person you like to work with? Who do you love working with?
What kinds of results do your clients get? How do you define success?
What are people usually missing/not doing that is stopping them from resolving the challenge I have?
Bonus: Prior Coaching - If you've done coaching before, it can be incredibly helpful to reflect on that experience before hiring your next coach.
What did you like about that experience?
What did you connect with and what allowed you to get the results you did?
What didn't work/what was missing?
What's different about what you're looking for this time?
Are You The Right Client?
Ramit Sethi wrote something that really stuck with me - most articles talk about how to find the right coach/trainer/course but almost none cover how to be the right client.
“A good student can get great results with a mediocre program. But even a great program cannot save a student who’s not ready to do the work.” - Ramit Sethi
So what does it look like to be the right client? From my perspective, you need to be ready to:
Invest financially - Coaching is an investment in yourself and your career. It isn’t designed to be an easy decision, it’s designed to be a big commitment that will hold you accountable for making the change you want to make. The investment may feel like a stretch and it will require something of you that you haven’t been asked to give before. Investing allows you to rise to the challenge and grow in new and exciting ways.
Commit to the process - Coaching requires time and energy so you need to be mentally ready. There may be exercises, accountability challenges, homework, etc and they will all take time and energy. No coach wants to take your money and have you not get the results you’re looking for.
Take new and different action - The reason you’re hiring a coach is to help you achieve something you haven’t been able to achieve on your own. This means that you’ll need to take new and different action to get different results. If you’re more committed to defending the thing you’re currently doing or why new actions won’t work, you’re not ready.
Take advantage of what they offer - This means being incredibly proactive about the support they offer and taking advantage of every opportunity while you’re working with them. Some coaches offer unlimited email support, others offer practice interviewing, others offer daily check-ins, etc. Many clients don’t take me up on the unlimited email support that comes with my packages and they miss out on lots of support in between our sessions.
Welcome the challenge - Coaching is also not easy. It promises results, not comfort. You’ll need to welcome that challenge and see that the struggle is what helps you learn and grow and improve. There is courage required to invest and face the challenge.
Let me know if there is anything else you would add to this process and I hope this helps you find the right coach for you - and show up as the right client.