Nick Roud has been helping professions in their careers since 2006.
Like hiring a Dentist, Accountant, Lawyer, Mechanic the final decision sits with you. From my side of the table it comes down to fit with each other, abilities, and performance results. I would never dream of heading to a dentist to remove a painful tooth if he/she had no experience, was doing it as a side hustle, could not show their credentials, was not able to give me references and basically who I couldn’t trust. I expect my money to be well spent and hopefully the pain in my tooth would go away. Just as we sometimes need to head to our mechanic because the car isn’t sounding how it normally does you expect the car to come back sounding a little bit better.
Any qualified Career Coach would never promise that they will get you a job or help you achieve a certain salary because they hold the vital ingredient to your success. That to me is fraudulent. If you are contemplating hiring a career coach I’d suggest looking at 3/4 coaches before making your formed decision. Below I outline some things to consider when you are meeting a Career Coach.
Career Coaches help clients come to formed decisions that will impact them professionally. There are some very important standards which I work to and these are highlighted at the bottom of our How To Hire A Career Coach article. If we dumb down to simplest forms a qualified career coach helps maximise your professional potential.
A great career coach will be able to support you through change, they will be experienced across all levels of an organisation from Board to Graduate and be up to date on legal requirements. Let’s not mix ‘mentoring’ and ‘coaching’ together now as they are very much different and you can find another article/blog on Mentoring in our Blog section. A coach helps you find real answers to your needs where as a mentor tells you what he/she would do.
As a caveat if you are trying to address something beyond your career then I would strongly advise as I have done on a few occasions that you might want to engage a qualified ‘therapist’ who can support you explore any past or current trauma and how this is impacting on you. I have encouraged clients to do that work first before we work together on his/her career and it has really helped those professionals. I would never cross into a ‘therapist’ as I am not certified or trained to do such work.
STARTING POINT = Personal Referrals/Recommendations.
For many engaging with a coach might be scary, you may not have ever had a professional coach before. Don’t worry, do your dudilligence and checks and you will be find, just like hiring that dentist, lawyer and or mechanic etc.
As you start to look at which Career Coach to hire and who best serves you situation, a good starting place might be to speak with others who might be able to refer you onto a Career Coach. Over 96% of my clients come to me here at Roud Career Coaching through word of mouth and I am honoured that this is such a high stat (thank you).
You might want to check in with your internal HR team to see what services they offer. Here at Roud Career Coaching we regularly get approached by organisations to help with career development.
KNOW WHAT SERVICES YOU NEED – AND – SERVICES YOU DON’T KNOW YOU NEED!
Millions of professionals around the world engage coaches with the goal of creating a CV, thinking that will unlock their career dreams. But slow down a little bit, no matter how well presented your CV is, how powerful you have articulated your achievements are you clear on your career direction? Explore where the process and conversations lead you!
As a career coach I’d encourage any client or potential client to go into this partnership with an ‘open mind’. As humans we don’t know what we don’t know, a great career coach will get you thinking differently and help you. I have had many professionals show up here in our Global Headquarters aka the 20ft shipping container to work on ‘interviews’ only to find out from our coaching sessions that the job they are interviewing for isn’t really the job they want to be doing! Go into your coaching relationship with an idea and then let the process take care of itself, you might be amazed with what you find!
CONSIDER YOUR BUDGET, CONTACT AND PERIOD OF ENGAGEMENT.
Like the great dentist, lawyer and or mechanic each professional will charge according. A fly by night – side hustling – doggy dentist might charge you $100 to rip out that tooth only to leave you with lasting chronic pain! A seasoned, qualified lawyer who specialises in a certain area may well charge $850 per hour for a consult. There is a saying in life and it’s a saying that is very true – you get what you pay for. My fees here at Roud Career Coaching are $550 (NZD) per hour for career coaching, charges range from $5 when someone is starting out as a career coach to $1,000 per session. As mentioned early you get what you pay for. Session again range according to the coach could be 30mins to one hour. Some coaches I know charge extra for evening sessions and or weekends whereas others may include that in the overall session price. Also understand how often you’ll meet either in person (not in a coffee shop please….) or via phone and or technology and see if the coach will answer questions outside of scheduled sessions. With the coaches see if it’s just a one off session you need or the time plan. I have a client who checks in with me once a year and she has done that know for 10 years. She calls it her annual Career WOF! With all my clients we use a coaching log and each session has a purpose and action focused. Make sure the coaches engagement has terms of business and a formal contract.
WHAT IS THE FORMAT OF THE COACHING SESSION?
As mentioned above each Career Coach will operate differently, I myself only work one-on-one with a professional. It’s important to understand how your potential coach operates, just like visiting a dentist I want personal care, love and attention I don’t want to be in a room full of others where the dentist jumps from one person to the next and before you know it your time is up and you are out the door. I encourage my career coaching clients to meet with me in person here in my office. If they are located in other parts of the world we use Webex for our formal meetings.
One final aspect to consider is confidentiality. Here at Roud Career Coaching every single client signed a contract which includes a non-disclosure part meaning all information shared with Roud Career Coaching is kept here and never shared with anyone or any other organisation. If you are coming to us via your organisation we never feedback anything we have discussed in our confidential coaching sessions.
Once you’ve gathered all your information, you can now determine if career coaching and a particle coach is right for you. But, like all decisions make sure you are committed and ready to put in the hard work, self reflection because only those who do will reap the rewards.
For a copy of Roud Career Coaching – Code Of Conduct please email nick and a copy will be sent directly to you.
Find our a bit more about Nick Roud’s background.
Nick Roud is a Certified Coach and has been helping professionals in their careers since 2006. He lives and works in Auckland New Zealand and is a sort after coach for professionals who want to professional develop. His work has won numerous awards and he has a prestigious client base. He is author of CV Workbook
Nick writes daily a leadership / career blog.
You can also follow him on social media (only LinkedIn) or email his office nick@roudcareers.co.nz or call him directly on +6421375630.