What Color Is Your Parachute? Part 26

A Guide to Choosing a Good Career Coach

So, how do you go about this research toward the goal of finding a good career coach or counselor, if you decide you need more help than this book can give you? Well, you start by collecting three names of career coaches or counselors in your geographical area.

How do you find those names? Several ways: First, you can get names from your friends: ask if any of them have ever used a career coach or counselor. And if so, did they like 'em? And if so, what is that coach's or counselor's name? And how do you get in touch with them, so you can ask them some questions before deciding whether you want to sign up with them, or not?

Second, you can get some names from the aforementioned Sampler in Appendix D. See if there are any career coaches or counselors who are near you. They may know how you can find still other names in your community.

Need more names? Try your telephone book's Yellow Pages, under such headings as: Apt.i.tude and Employment Testing, Career and Vocational Counseling, Personnel Consultants, and (if you are a woman) Women's Organizations and Services.

Once you have three names, it's time to go do some comparison shopping. You want to talk with all three of them and decide which of the three (if any) you want to hook up with.

What will this initial interview cost you, with each coach or counselor? The answer to that is easy: when first setting up an appointment, ask. You do have the right to inquire ahead of time how much they are going to have to charge you for the exploratory interview.

Some-a few-will charge you nothing for the initial interview. One of the brightest counselors I know says this: I don't like to charge for the first interview because I want to be free to tell them I can't help them, if for some reason we just don't hit it off.

However, do not expect that most coaches or counselors can afford to give you this exploratory interview for nothing! If they did that, and got a lot of requests like yours, they would never make a living.

If this is not an individual counselor, but a firm trying to sell you a "pay-me-first" package up front, I guarantee they will give you the initial interview for free. They plan to use that "intake" interview (as they call it) to sell you a much more expensive program. They will even ask you to bring your spouse or partner along. (If they can't persuade one of you, maybe they can persuade the other.) The Questions to Ask When you are face to face with the coach or counselor, you ask each of them the same questions, listed on the form below. (Keep a little pad, notebook, or smartphone with you, so you can write down their answers.) After visiting the three places you chose for your comparison shopping, you can go home, sit down, put your feet up, look over your notes that evening, and compare those places. A chart like this, drawn in your notebook, may help: To download a printable PDF of this image, please visit http://rhlink.com/para14029 You need to decide a) whether you want none of the three, or b) one of the three (and if so, which one).

Remember, you don't have to choose any of the three coaches, if you didn't really care for any of them. If that is the case, go choose three new names out of the Yellow Pages or wherever, dust off the notebook, and go out again. It may take a few more hours to find what you want. But the wallet, the purse, the job-hunt, and the life, you save will be your own.

As you look over your notes, you will soon realize there is no definitive way for you to determine a career coach's intentions. It's something you'll have to smell out, as you go along. But here are some clues.

Bad Vibes, on Up to Real Bad Vibes If they give you the feeling that everything will be done for you, by them (including interpretation of tests, and decision making about what this means you should do, or where you should do it)-rather than a.s.serting that you are going to have to do almost all the work, with their basically being your coach, (Give them 15 bad points) You want to learn how to do this for yourself; you're going to be job-hunting again, you know. That's the nature of our world today. Job-hunting is a repet.i.tive activity in human life.

If you don't like the counselor, period!

(Give them 150 bad points) I don't care what their expertise is, if you don't like them, you're going to have a rough time getting what you want. I guarantee it. Rapport is everything.

If you ask how long this particular counselor has been doing this, and they get huffy or give a double-barreled answer, such as: "I've had eighteen years' experience in the business and career counseling world,"

(Give them 20 bad points) What that may mean is: seventeen and a half years as a fertilizer salesman, and one half year doing career counseling. Persist: "How long have you been with this firm, and how long have you been doing formal career coaching or counseling, as you are here?" You don't want someone who's brand new to advising job-hunters. They may call this "their practice," but what they mean is that they are practicing ... on you.

If they try to answer the question of their experience by pointing to their degrees or credentials, (Give them 3 bad points) Degrees or credentials tell you they've pa.s.sed certain tests of their qualifications, but often these tests bear more on their expertise at career a.s.sessment, than on their knowledge of creative job-hunting.

If, when you ask about that firm's success rate, they say they have never had a client who failed to find a job, no matter what, (Give them 500 bad points) They're lying. I have studied career counseling programs for more than forty years, have attended many, have studied records at state and federal offices, and have hardly ever seen a program that placed more than 86% of their clients, tops, in their best years. And it goes downhill from there. A prominent executive counseling firm was reported by the Attorney General's Office of New York State to have placed only 38 out of 550 clients (a 93% failure rate). On the other hand, if they make it clear that they have had a good success rate, but if you fail to work hard at the whole process, then there is no guarantee you are going to find a job, give them three stars.

If any counselor shows you letters from ecstatically happy former clients, but when you ask to talk to some of those clients, you get stonewalled, (Give them 200 bad points) Here is a job-hunter's letter about his experience with an executive counseling firm he was considering: I asked to speak to a former client or clients. You would have thought I asked to speak to Elvis. The counselor stammered and stuttered and gave me a million excuses why I couldn't talk to some of these "satisfied" former clients. None of the excuses sounded legitimate to me. We went back and forth for about thirty minutes. Finally, he excused himself and went to speak to his boss, the owner. The next thing I knew I was called into the owner's office for a more "personal" sales pitch. We spoke for about forty-five minutes as he tried to convince me to use his service. When I told him I was not ready to sign up, he became angry and asked my counselor why I had been put before "the committee" if I wasn't ready to commit? The counselor claimed I had given a verbal commitment at our last meeting. The owner then turned to me and said I seemed to have a problem making a decision and that he did not want to do business with me. I was shocked. They had turned the whole story around to make it look like it was my fault. I felt humiliated. In retrospect, the whole process felt like dealing with a used car salesman. They used pressure tactics and intimidation to try to get what they wanted. As you have probably gathered, more than anything else this experience made me angry.

If you are dealing with a career counseling firm, and you ask what is the cost of their services, and they reply that it is a lump sum that must all be paid "up front" before you start or shortly after you start, all at once or in rapid installments, (Give them 300 bad points) We're talking about firms here, not the average individual counselor or coach. The basic problem with firms is that both "the good guys" and "the crooks" do this. The good guys operate on the theory that if you give them a large sum up front, you will then be really committed to the program. The crooks operate on the theory that if you give them a large sum up front, they don't have to give you anything back, except endless excuses and subterfuge, after a certain date (quickly reached).

And the trouble is that there is absolutely no way for you to distinguish crook from good guy, at first impression; they only reveal their true nature after they've got all your money. And by that time, you have no legal way to get it back, no matter what they verbally promised.1 Let me repeat: with firms that make you sign a contract and pay basically up front, there is no way to distinguish the good guys from the crooks. The only safe counseling is one with no contract, and you just pay for each hour, as you use it.

I have tried for years to think of some way around this dilemma, to be fair to the good guys, but there just is none. So if you decide to pay up front, be sure it is money you can afford to lose.

If Money Is a Problem for You: Hourly Coaching Most career coaches or counselors charge by the hour. You pay only for each hour as you use it, according to their set rate. Each time you keep an appointment, you pay them at the end of that hour for their help, according to that rate. Period. Finis. You never owe them any money (unless you made an appointment, and failed to keep it). You can stop seeing them at any time, if you feel you are not getting the help you wish. The fee will probably range from $40 an hour on up to $200 an hour or more. It varies greatly. Counselors in cities tend to charge more than counselors out in the country.

That fee is for individual time with the career coach or counselor. If you can't afford that fee, ask whether they also run groups. If they do, the fee will be much less. And, in one of those delightful ironies of life, since you get a chance to listen to problems that other job-hunters in your group are having, the group will often give you more help than an individual session with a counselor would have. Not always; but often. It's always ironic when cheaper and more helpful go hand in hand.

If the career counselor in question does offer groups, there should (again) never be a contract. The charge should be payable at the end of each session, and you should be able to drop out at any time, without further cost, if you decide you are not getting the help you want.

There are some career counselors who run free (or almost free) job-hunting workshops through local churches, synagogues, chambers of commerce, community colleges, adult education programs, and the like, as their community service or pro bono work (as it is technically called). I have had reports of workshops from a number of places in the U.S. and Canada. They exist in other parts of the world as well. If money is a problem for you, in getting help with your job-hunt, ask around to see if workshops exist in your community. Your chamber of commerce will know, or your church or synagogue.

As I mentioned earlier, you can find an incredibly useful list of all the job support groups in the U.S. compiled by Susan Joyce, on her site job-hunt.org: http://tinyurl.com/7a9xbb.

If Your Location Is a Problem for You: Distance-Coaching or Telephone-Counseling The a.s.sumption, from the beginning, was that career counseling would always take place face to face. Both of you, counselor and job-hunter, together in the same room. Just like career counseling's close relatives: marriage counseling, or even AA.

Of course, a job-hunter might-on occasion-phone his or her counselor the day before an interview, to get some last-minute tips or to answer some questions that a prospective interviewer might ask, tomorrow.

What is different, today, is that in some cases, career counseling is being conducted exclusively over the phone from start to finish. Some counselors now report that they haven't laid eyes on over 90% of their clients, and wouldn't know them if they b.u.mped into them on a street corner. I call this "distance-coaching" or "telephone-counseling."

With the invention of the Internet, with the invention of Internet telephoning, we are witnessing "the death of distance"-that is to say, the death of distance as an obstacle. The world, as the wonderful New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has famously written, is in effect flat.

An increasing number of counselors or executive coaches are doing this distance-counseling.2 This increasing availability of "distance-counseling" is good news, and bad news.

Why good news? Well, in the old days you might be a job-hunter in some remote village, with a population of only eighty-five, back in the hills somewhere, or you might be living somewhere in France or in China, miles from any career counselor or coach, and so, be totally out of luck. Now, these days you can be anywhere in the world, but as long as you have the Internet on your desk, you can still connect with the best distance-counseling there is.

And the bad news?

Well, just because a counselor or coach does distance-counseling or phone-counseling, doesn't mean they are really good at doing it. Some are superb; but some are not. So, you're still going to have to research any distance-counselor very carefully.

It is altogether too easy for a counselor to get sloppy doing distance-counseling-for example, browsing the newspapers while you are telling some long personal story, etc., to which they are giving only the briefest attention. (Of course, the increasingly wider use of video calling programs such as Skype may cure that!) To avoid any kind of sloppiness, you and the counselor need discipline. Experienced distance-counselors, such as Joel Garfinkle,3 insist on forms being used, both before and after each phone session. With his permission, I have adapted his forms, and print them here. And, P.S., they are equally useful for normal, face-to-face counseling, as well.

Client Coaching Forms

1. Before You Start Prior to beginning the counseling, it helps if your coach or counselor asks you to fill out the following kind of form, for you to give to him or her. They are written by the counselor, addressed to you, the potential counselee. (And if they don't ask for a form like this to be filled out, you might volunteer to give them such a form on your own.) Questions to Understand You Better (Copy this onto another sheet of paper, and leave lots of s.p.a.ce on the form for your answer, after each question below.) 1. Why have you decided to work with me?

2. How can I have the most impact on your life in the next ninety days (three months)?

3. List three key goals you want to accomplish through our work together.

4. What stops you from achieving what you want in question #2 or #3 above?

5. Project ahead one year: As you look back, and things went well, how did you benefit from our coaching relations.h.i.+p?

6. What are your expectations from our work together? How can we exceed these expectations?

7. What else is helpful for me to know about you?

8. Explain your background (use the same format as the examples below).

Examples: 1. After thirty years as a commercial insurance broker, I hit a wall last May, and decided to change careers ...

2. After twelve successful years in the high-tech industry, I found myself unfulfilled in finding a satisfying career. Over the years, I read countless books on the topic of finding one's true purpose in career pursuits, but was still missing a sense of purpose and clarity on what I wanted to do ...

3. After working for twenty years in the investment industry I decided to start my own company ...

4. Etc.

2. Before Each Session, Preparation Form Please fill out this form #2 for each coaching session. It should be filled out and e-mailed to me twenty-four hours before the next coaching session to a.s.sist me in preparing for that session.

(Copy this onto another sheet of paper, and leave lots of s.p.a.ce on the form for your answer, after each question below.) 1. Commitments that I made to myself on the last coaching session and what I accomplished since we had the coaching session: 2. The challenges and opportunities I am facing now: 3. The one action I can take that will most affect my current goals and provide the highest payoff: 4. My agenda for the coaching session is: 3. After Each Session: Reflection Form Immediately after each coaching session e-mail me form #3.

(Copy this onto another sheet of paper, and leave lots of s.p.a.ce on the form for your answer, after each question below.) 1. This week's commitment: 2. My greatest insights during this session were: 3. What you, my coach, said or asked during the session that impacted me most: 4. What I'd like you, as my coach, to do differently/more of/less of: 5. How I feel I am evolving from our work together: What happens in a counseling session is our responsibility, not just the counselor's or coach's.

The forms, above, are one way of our taking responsibility. Another, is that when you first contact prospective coaches for distance-counseling in particular, you have a right to ask them: (1) "What training have you completed, relevant to distance-counseling, such as telephone skills, and supervised counseling?" (2) "How will our distance-counseling be organized and scheduled?" and (3) "What will the two of us do if and when interruptions occur during a session, at either end?"

You must always remember: distance-counseling, attractive as it will be for many, as necessary as it will be for some, definitely has its limits.

To the caveman, the technology that enables all this to happen in this twenty-first century, would be jaw-droppingly awesome. But, good career counseling or coaching is not just about technology. What is really truly awesome, in the end, is simply our power to help each other on this Earth. And how much that power resides, not in techniques or technology-though these things are important-but in each of us just being a good human being. A loving human being.

A Sampler

The following Appendix is exactly what its name implies: a Sampler. Were I to list all the career coaches and counselors there are in the U.S. (never mind the world), we would end up with an encyclopedia. Some states, in fact, have encyclopedic lists of counselors and businesses, in various books or directories, and your local bookstore or library should have these, in their Job-Hunting Section, under such t.i.tles as "How to Get a Job in ..." or "Job-Hunting in ..." Now, let me repeat this:

I did not choose the places listed in this Sampler; rather, they are listed at their own request, and I offer their information to you simply as suggestions of where you can begin your investigation-when you're trying to find decent help.

Do keep in mind that many truly helpful places and coaches are not listed here. If you discover such a coach or place, which is very good at helping people with Parachute and creative job-hunting or career-change, do send us their pertinent information. We will ask them, as we do all the listings here, a few intelligent questions, and if they sound okay, we will add that place as a suggestion in next year's edition.4

What kind of questions? This directory appears nowhere but in this book, so we may presume you are interested in this book's approach, and if you need a little help it is help with the process in this book. We tried being broader in the past-there are obviously excellent counselors out there who have never heard of this book-but it turned out that our readers wanted counselors and places that have some expertise with Parachute, and can help job-hunters or career-changers finish the job-hunt in this book.

So, if they've never even heard of Parachute, we don't list them anymore. But even among those who have, we can't automatically a.s.sume they're good at what they do, no matter how many questions we asked them. So we list them and leave the research to you.

You must do your own sharp questioning before you decide to go with anyone. If you don't take time to research two or three places, before choosing a counselor, you will deserve whatever you get (or, more to the point, don't get). So, please, do some research.

The listings that follow are alphabetical within each state, with counselors listed by their name in alphabetical order, according to their last name.

Some offer group career counseling, some offer testing, some offer access to job-banks, etc. Ask.

One final note: places and counselors listed here have said they counsel anyone; 99% of them can absolutely be trusted, in this. A few, however, may turn out to have restrictions unknown to us ("we counsel only women," or "we only deal with alumni," etc.). If that turns out to be the case, your time isn't wasted. They may be able to help you with a referral. So, ask them, "Who else in the area can you tell me about, who helps with job-searches, and are there any (among them) that you think are particularly effective?" (Also, write us and let us know they only counsel some people, so we can remove them from this Sampler next year.) Area Codes If you call a phone number in the Sampler that is any distance geographically from you, and they tell you "this number cannot be completed as dialed," the most likely explanation is that the area code was changed-maybe some time ago. Throughout the U.S. now, area codes are subdividing constantly, sometimes more than once during a short time span. (We ask counselors listed here to notify us when the area code changes, but some do and some don't.) Anyway, call Information and check, or look up their phone number on the Web.

Of course, if you're calling a local counselor, you won't need the area code (unless you live in one of the metropolitan areas in the U.S. that requires ten-digit dialing).

1. Sometimes the written contract-there is always a written contract, when you are dealing with the bad guys, and they will probably ask your partner to sign it, too-will claim to provide for an almost complete refund, at any time, until you reach a cutoff date in the program, which the contract specifies. Unfortunately, fraudulent firms bend over backward to be extra nice, extra available, and extra helpful to you, from the time you first walk in, until that cutoff point is reached. Therefore, when the cutoff point for getting a refund has pa.s.sed, you let it pa.s.s because you are very satisfied with their past services, and believe there will be many more weeks of the same. Only, there aren't. At fraudulent firms, once the cutoff point is pa.s.sed, the career counselor suddenly becomes virtually impossible for you to get ahold of. Call after call will not be returned. You will say to yourself, "What happened?" Well, what happened, my friend, is that you paid up in full, they have all the money they're ever going to get out of you, and now, they want to move on.

2. Two famous "distance coaches" are Joel Garfinkle in Oakland, California, www.dreamjobcoaching.com; and Marshall Goldsmith of www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com, international coach to the executive elite, and author (with Mark Reiter) of the popular book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There.

3. www.dreamjobcoaching.com/about.

4. Yearly readers of this book will notice that we do remove people from this Sampler, without warning. First of all, there are accidents: we drop places we didn't mean to, but a typographical error was made, somehow (it happens). Oops! Counselor or coach: call this to our attention; we'll put you back in next year.

But accidents aside, we do deliberately remove the following: places that have moved, and don't bother to send us their new address. Coaches and counselors: If you are listed here, we expect you to be a professional at communication. When you move, your first priority should be to let us know, immediately. As one exemplary counselor wrote: "You are the first person I am contacting on my updated letterhead ... hot off the press just today!" So it should always be, if you want to continue to be listed here. A number of places get removed every year, precisely because of their sloppiness in keeping us up-to-date with their phone and other contact information.

Other causes for removal: Places that have disconnected their telephone, or otherwise suggest that they have gone out of business. Places that our readers lodge complaints against with us, as being unhelpful or even obnoxious. The complaints may be falsified, but we can't take that chance. Places that change their personnel, and the new person has never even heard of Parachute, or "creative job-search techniques." College services that we discover (belatedly) serve only "Their Own." Counseling firms that employ salespeople as the initial "intake" person that a job-hunter meets. If you discover that any of the places listed in this Sampler fall into any of the above categories, you would be doing a great service to our other readers by dropping us a line and telling us so (10 Stirling Drive, Danville, CA 94526-2921).

Appendix D

Sampler List of Coaches * Throughout this Sampler, an asterisk before their name, in red, means they offer religious counseling as well as secular-"religious" means they're not afraid to have you talk about G.o.d, if you're looking for some help in finding your Mission in life through faith.

UNITED STATES.