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LIFE COACHING

What is the difference between career coaching
and career counseling?

Connecting For Results #63
November 9, 2005
Copyright © 2005 by Bill Dueease

Many times people get confused about what career coaches and career counselors do. This leads to misunderstandings, failed objectives, misspent money, and frustrations. Too often career counselors and career coaches are asked to perform duties and produce results they are not equipped, trained, or set up to accomplish. Both career coaches and career counselors will provide you value and results. However, the career coaching and career counseling processes have different purposes and different methods. The purposes and processes are so different that it is almost inconceivable that any one person could successfully perform both processes for you. You will get the greatest benefits from using either service when you understand what their objectives are and how they work. Then you will be able to pick the right process and the best career counselor or the best career coach for you to accomplish your career objectives.

Career Counseling

The purpose of most career counselors is to FILL JOBS. You want to use a career counselor to get a job. There are, at least, four different career-counseling groups that have different approaches to filling jobs and different clientele.

Career Counselors.

Traditional career counselors normally have degrees in career counseling, and many not only have advanced degrees in career counseling but also have attained some form of certification or licensing. They usually work for universities, schools, or large organizations to help students, graduating students, or departing employees (due to layoffs or other reasons) plot career direction and obtain gainful employment elsewhere. They typically administer assessment tests and conduct interviews to create a profile of their clients. They might also teach job-hunting strategies and techniques including resume development. They might create job fairs or organize corporate recruiting visits to campus to provide on site job exposures. Yet, they normally do not set up personal job interview sessions. They are most often paid by the institutions they work for and not the students or job hunters. They foster the use of the trial and error method of job selection.

Headhunters or recruiters.

These counselors or agencies work for corporations to find and recruit people to fill specific jobs for the corporations. The corporations will determine the qualifications and characteristics of the desired employee, and will normally request that the headhunters not reveal that the corporations have openings.
Recruiters approach people to apply for the corporate job openings. They select people they feel the corporations are most likely to hire for the specified open positions. They might give tips to the recruited job candidates and help them make the presentations to the corporations that will improve their chances of being hired. The corporations normally pay the recruiters when one of their candidates is hired. The primary loyalty of recruiters is to the corporations they serve.

Employment agencies.

Prospective employees pay these career professionals to get them jobs, hopefully in an industry and with the company of their choice. These counselors normally focus on certain industries or levels of employment, like executives, project managers, or finance managers and may have expertise in the industries or fields of employment of which they specialize.
They might provide assessment tests you can purchase and take to purportedly learn which categories of jobs you might be best at performing. They might advise you to apply for jobs in the industries or fields that you would get the best paying jobs. They might advise you to adjust your hiring direction based upon the wealth and needs of the industries or fields and based upon your experiences, education, assessment results, and qualifications. They will most likely set up interviews for you, but not always. They might help you adjust your resume to suit the desires of the hiring companies. They might help you adjust your interview skills and you appearance to increase your chances of being hired. They might advise you to obtain certain training certifications or educational degrees to meet the expected requirements of the most lucrative industries. They generally foster the trial and error job selection method.

Some of these counselors or agencies request payment in advance, and you hope for results. Others might agree to being paid a percentage of the money you are paid by the company that hires you, normally over a period of a year. Their primary focus is to get you job offers and to convince you to take them.

Job placement agencies.

These groups are normally attached to governments or schools. They normally have the function of filling as many jobs as possible by matching prospective employers and prospective employees. They usually function more as a clearinghouse for applicants and employers. They might provide a little grooming advice for job applicants. The government or schools they are attached with normally pay them. Their primary focus is to place as many people as they can to benefit the government (to improve tax roles and reduce social service costs) or the schools (to improve graduate successes and future student enrollments). They generally foster the trial and error job selection method.

Career Coaching!

The purpose of a career coach is to assist you to accomplish your career based coachable goals. A career coachable goal is a future place you want to be (in your career) that will require you to grow and improve as a person to achieve it. You use a career coach to improve your career or work position to suit your personal desires and motivations. Career coaching avoids the trial and error method of job selection, by having you discover, design, and develop the work conditions to suit you.

The concept of career coachable goals is relatively new, as is the profession of career coaching. We have found that providing examples will help you understand what career coachable goals are. Here are examples of some very popular career based coachable goals that our clients have achieved over the past four and a half years.

• Transition from your present work position to discover then obtain your ideal income position, so you get to Go to Play Every Day. You will love what you do and do what you love. You will be so good at what you do that you will produce high quality results whose value will attract significant rewards.
• Become a more successful and productive executive.
• Become a more successful and productive manager.
• Transition from a technical role to become a successful and productive first time manager.
• Become a more successful and productive sales person.
• Become a more successful and productive business owner.
• Transition from working for others to become a successful and productive first time entrepreneur and business owner.

When you use a career coach you will discover and unleash the mysteries of you and will learn what motivates you to create the work situations that allow you to perform at your greatest level with the most enjoyment. You will grow and improve as a person so you will achieve your career goals. Your career coach will be loyal to you and will make you the center of attention.

Side by side comparisons

Career counselors fill jobs and direct you on career paths.
Career coaches assist you to accomplish your career related goals, which might include improving in your present position, or obtaining your new ideal income position.

Career counselors advise you to follow the paths to best opportunities based upon their expertise, their knowledge of the employment markets, and their knowledge of you.
Career coaches do not advise you. They help you discover the mysteries of you to create the work conditions around you that will assure your desired successes.

Career counselors connect you with jobs, where you work for a company.
Career coaches will connect you with the best means of work for you, which will include jobs, but also includes becoming a partial entrepreneur and or become a business owner.

Career counselors will have varying loyalties and priorities with others sometimes receiving a higher place than you. You may not be asked to compensate the career counselors you use. Others frequently compensate them.
Career coaches have only one priority, YOU, and your achievement of your career goals.You almost always compensate your career coach. (I recommend that you always pay your career coach personally)

Career counselors are expected to be the experts in their field, and thus your superiors. They will have to evaluate and judge you in relation to their knowledge of the job market. They will advise you on a course of action based upon their job market expertise, your situation, and their interests.
Career coaches will be your equal partner and will not judge or evaluate you.

Career counselors may work with you as a team or group, with your file being transferred accordingly.
Career coaches will establish a very personal one-on-one, confidential relationship with you. Your career coach will reveal nothing about you.

In Summary

You want to consider using a career counseling service to get a job, even a better one, where getting the job is the total focus.

You want to consider engaging a career coach to improve your career, to include getting a better job or more, where you and your career goals are the total center of attention.

Both of these human improvement processes offer you excellent results when you use them right. We hope these explanations will give you enough information on when and how to use these processes to best suit your goals.

TCC success Story 537

We will be providing coaching success stories in this and future Newsletters to meet popular demand.

Enjoy!

Ashwini came to The Coach Connection as a 39-year-old who had been working in IT for the past 14 years and was a Senior Software Developer and Project Manager. His goal was to reach executive-level management within his company or another company. He had been languishing at his present level and had tried to reach the next level on his own and had been frustrated with no real progress. He finally sought help from The Coach Connection (TCC).

Here is what he said about his coaching experiences with The Coach Connection.

What goals did you accomplish from the coaching experiences with your TCC Coach?

Answering the above would mean a simple sentence, that wouldn't be fair to all of my TCC Coach's effort. Rather, I will delineate the goal itself and the process we went through at a high level.

I started with my TCC Member Coach with a long-term goal of reaching an executive position in 5 years. The coach helped me in identifying what short/long term goals, both professional and personal, would lead me to that ultimate goal. Through his insightful questions, I was able to clearly establish what I need to put in place right away. My coach also was very wholesome in his approach to goal achieving. He continually emphasized an inside-out approach to accomplishment, focus on being one's own self, and trusting that notion. This led to a lot of acceptance and a different way of looking at my goals/issues.

I recently got promoted to a Software Architect and a whole lot of that credit goes to my TCC Member Coach for his mentoring me! I am confident that similar approach will lead to my ultimate goals.

What did your accomplishments mean to you?

Being recognized by a promotion provides me greater visibility and opportunities. It provides me a stepping-stone to better opportunities both within and outside my organization.

What did you like about working with TCC and/or your coach?

My TCC Coach was highly observant and non-judgmental. He would make suggestions or even hint at them and left it entirely to me to consider and implement it. He was appreciative of the progress I was making and always left me with a high amount of energy after every conversation.

TCC was a truly great place to seek solutions to my goals. I loved the concept of trying out different coaches before working closely with one of them. The choice to identify who you want to work with (and the option to pull out if you can't find such) provides a lot of freedom and confidence in the process. With the number of highly dedicated coaches TCC has and the process of their selection added to my confidence that I need not waste time in finding the right coach elsewhere.

What do you feel we could do differently to further improve the quality and value of our services?

I can't think of any more that you can do, but will let you know if I do in the future.

Regards,
Ashwini Aragam (2005)
With Permission

We welcome your opinions and comments.
Bill Dueease
Editor

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