How a Career Transition Coach Can Help You Make a Leap
Are you considering working with a career transition coach…but still not sure exactly what they do?!
Working with a career coach can be incredibly helpful if you’re looking to grow professionally or make a significant career change.
Here’s how a career transition coach can help you get where you want to go in your career.
What Is a Career Transition Coach?
A career transition coach* can help you bridge the gap between where you are now and where you want to be.
The key word is transition.
A coach helps you build out that big, beautiful vision of what you want for your career—who you want to be, the impact you want to make—and then helps you walk the path to get there.
Some career changers are great at dreaming big but need support executing.
Others are great at taking action but need help getting clear on what will truly make them happy in their career and life.
When you’re missing either piece, it’s easy to talk yourself out of what you truly want, telling yourself you’re asking for too much or that you’re not being “realistic.”
A career transition coach can help you hold onto your vision and help you get there.
*I use career transition coach, career coach, and coach interchangeably in this post.
How a Career Transition Coach Can Support You
There are 4 different areas where a career transition coach can help you.
1. Clearing the Practical and Mental Clutter
It’s normal that people wanting to make a career transition are focused on where they want to go.
But the beauty of a career coach is that they can also help you get relief in your current situation.
This is important because often we can’t see future opportunities through the fog of our current day-to-day.
A coach can help you refocus the time and energy you’re spending on where you don’t want to be to where you want to go.
There are different ways to do this, but I help people take control in their current situation by helping them work more strategically and lead more powerfully Day 1.
They’re able to drop stuff from their to-do list, delegate more, and carve out dedicated time to actually think expansively about their career.
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There’s a mindset component to this, too. We all have a ton of mental clutter.
The biggest barriers to having the career you want aren’t external; it’s your limiting beliefs about what you think is (or isn’t) possible.
So much of this work is uncovering where you’re creating barriers and holding yourself back.
If you’re worried about making the wrong move or convinced you’d have to start over or take a pay cut, what kind of decisions do you think you’ll make from that place?
I coached someone who wanted to make a living as an artist. But she kept saying it wasn’t a “real career.”
So we had to get underneath the stories she was telling herself so she could first believe she could exponentially improve her life, then take consistent action.
A coach is going to help you challenge those assumptions so you can start focusing on solutions.
Btw, that amazing human is now thriving. (See photo.)
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A career transition coach can also help you reconnect with your confidence.
A lot of people come into coaching at a low point. Even if they’re normally confident people.
Maybe they’ve had a couple of interviews that didn’t go well or aren’t seeing jobs they’re interested in.
Throw in a bit of self-flagellation for not having figured it all out by now, and they’re stuck, telling themselves it’s because of something they lack (it’s not).
A career coach will get you off that roller coaster of self-loathing and despair so you can reconnect with confidence and clarity about who you are and the value you bring.
2. Getting Clarity On the Right Opportunities
There are plenty of jobs you could do, this is about work you want to do, right?
Most people get frustrated with their career options because they start by looking at existing job titles or postings.
And then get discouraged because they don’t see what they want.
A career transition coach can help you get clarity on better options that might not be obvious at first.
The way I do this is by helping people create their own unique path rather than trying to fit themselves into an existing box.
The beauty of this is that we come up with options they never would have imagined.
So many clients come in looking for another 9-5 and have started businesses. Or come in thinking they need to make much more drastic changes than they actually do.
It’s one thing to have clarity at the outset, it’s another thing to not settle once the offers start rolling in.
It’s at that point that many of us start negotiating with ourselves or thinking that maybe we’re asking for too much…”Maybe I do have to take a pay cut,” “I know I said work-life balance was important, but maybe I can grind it out for one more year.”
A career transition coach will help you say no to opportunities that are almost there but not quite right.
So much of getting the career you want is staying the course until you get it.
P.S. If you’re sitting here saying, “Caroline, I literally have no idea what I want to do,” I bet you know a lot more than you’re giving yourself credit for. Check out: How To Change Careers When You Don’t Know What You Want To Do.
3. Defining Your Roadmap For a Smooth Transition
A career transition coach is going to help you make a plan that feels good to you—the right amount of risk, speed, and magnitude of change.
Career change can be scary, especially if you’re afraid of ending up worse off.
Again, the key word is transition.
We assume that a change will be drastic and jarring, up-ending everything we know and love.
It doesn’t need to be that way.
Part of what freaks people out about career change is that we get into black and white, either/or thinking.
People often assume that changing careers means some horrible trade-off, like they’ll have to give up the 5 things they like about their current job if they want a different 5 things.
No! You get to keep those 5 things…and add in the 5 you want. I believe in taking a Yes, and… approach to your career.
Are you thinking that leaving corporate to start a business means three years of not making any money? That’s just not true.
A career transition coach is going to help you see those shades of gray, so you can get alllll the things that are important to you using a strategy that works for you.
4. Taking the Right Steps
When it comes to career change, people focus on short-term tactics like obsessing over their resumé or applying to a bunch of jobs that may not be the right fit.
A good career transition coach is going to help you think much more strategically:
What are the habits you need to build now to sustain you through the transition and help you thrive once you get there?
How can you leverage and build out your network to get better opportunities?
How to tell a really compelling story that connects the dots and makes it clear why you’re uniquely qualified?
I like to get my clients into strategic, empowered action immediately, so they can start building confidence and momentum way before they’ve figured out the full picture of where they want to go.
I also help them do less.
Here’s where it’s important to understand the mindset that’s driving our actions.
Often people feel pressure to leave a bad situation or get into something new, which results in urgency and scarcity, which leads to poor decisions.
I had a client come into coaching thinking she needed an advanced degree.
After digging in to what she really wanted in her career and what was making her think she needed a degree to get it, she “realized that an advanced degree was more about ego rather than a true goal.”
And she ended up pursuing a very different path. (And has founded two start-ups).
This is why it can be so helpful to work with a coach.
Our decisions have huge implications, so we want to make them from a place of intention and alignment rather than all the fear and scarcity that seeps in.
In many cases it will save you a ton of time, money, and energy.
Please…before you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and 2 years or more of precious time on a degree you may not need, work with someone to get clarity about whether it’s actually going to get you what you truly want—and whether there are better ways to get there.
How Do You Know If a Career Transition Coach Is Right For You?
If you’re still on the fence, you might enjoy these related posts: What To Expect From a Career Coach, When To Hire a Career Coach, and Should I Invest In a Career Coach?
If you’ve decided that working with a career transition coach is the right move for you, it’s time to find the right coach. Check out 4 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Hiring a Career Coach.
Whether or not you decide to work with a coach, the career and life you want is possible.
You just need to clear the physical and mental clutter, get clarity on what you truly want, define your career roadmap, and take the right steps.
If you’re looking for concrete steps and a path forward, grab your free 4-step roadmap.
Author Bio:
Before becoming a coach, Caroline worked in management consulting and financial services. She's made it her mission to help people grow, contribute, and get wherever they want to go.
She’s also a tennis fanatic, aspiring Minimalist, FIRE (Financial Independence and Retire Early) enthusiast, and Aloha Spirit seeker 🤙. She loves to share stories from her unconventional life and career focused on freedom, creativity, fun, health, family, and community. If she can do it, you can, too.
The life and career you want is possible once you have the roadmap. Take the first step by downloading your free career roadmap.
