5 Myths About Career Coaching

In this blog post, I share the 5 myths about career coaching that can negatively impact your experience and results.

Whether you’re job searching, looking for a promotion, wanting to ask for a raise, or generally need help with career advancement general, working with an expert can get you results fast while also saving you a lot of wasted time, energy, and frustration.

Career coaches or experts can help you reach most of your career goals. But if you approach the career coaching relationship with the wrong mentality or expectations, it can quickly turn the coaching relationship sour.

5 Myths About Career Coaching

Myth #1: You Expect Your Career Coach to Always Tell You What To Do

Now, I might be speaking for myself when I say this, and other career coaches might have a different approach, but generally, the goal of any career coach, in addition to helping you get your results, should also be to empower you; to learn how to get those results for yourself.

This means that if they are always spoon-feeding you information and always telling you what to do, you’ll quickly become too reliant on them. This could result in you never achieving or gaining progress in your career without their help.

So most career coaches, at least the ones worth their salt, in my opinion, will guide and provide you with strategy, give you tools that will then help you figure out what you want to do. They’ll be there holding your hand and walking you through the process. You’ll never be on your own, and you’ll be developing your confidence and your belief in yourself and your abilities.

Unfortunately, a lot of people go into coaching relationships expecting their career coach to tell them exactly what to do and get frustrated when they don’t.

This can sour the coaching experience – going in with the right expectations is key.

Myth #2: You Think Your Career Coach Will Magically Find You a Job

If you’re job searching, a career coach will give you the skills, tools, resources, and strategy to figure out how to find a job. But you will rarely find a career coach who is actually online, looking for employment for you unless maybe you pay them to do that specifically. Although, I personally haven’t seen any career coach do that.  

In my experience, many people have the mindset of: “Oh! This expert is going just to give me a job that just came out of nowhere, and I’m going to be happy forever,” but that’s not how it works.

Like I said earlier, you’ll get guidance and resources, and strategies for where to look and how to do the search. But for the most part, you should be engaged in the job search by yourself, with your coach acting as your guide.  They will help you reflect and think thoroughly about your career choices. But remember, most of that work should be happening on your end because ultimately, you’re the one who needs to be able to determine if a job is a good fit for you or not.

Myth #3: You Expect Your Career Coach to Tell You What Job To Pick

In my opinion, no coach worth their salt is going to do that. So, my day (full-time) job is as a professor, where I train people how to be counselors. And I often tell my students that if you tell a client exactly what to do and things don’t go right for them, they can come back and blame you for that. That alone could negatively impact a relationship.

Not to mention, it robs the client of the chance to develop confidence in their decision-making abilities.

Take that same mentality and put it into coaching where if a career coach tells you exactly what job to pick, but you end up hating the choice or regretting the choice, now you have someone to blame. 

Ideally, a career coach will help you think through your options, help you process the pros and the cons, and the life factors you need to consider. But in the end, the decision should be up to you.

Myth #4: You Believe That You Can Get Results After Just One Coaching Session

Research has shown that it takes several sessions of counseling for you actually to start seeing results. And so, if you’re looking for a one-time session with a coach, where you pay for an hour’s session, and you think that’s going to solve all your career issues, you are in for a rude awakening.

Maybe if you are looking for help with potentially a resume revamp, one session might work. Then again, most coaches who rework resumes will have you fill out some surveys to assess you. So, they’ll do the resume for you. Then, you’ll get feedback. After that, you’ll be working on it again. With just that situation, that’s technically four sessions at the very least. The point is you can’t expect to get results from just one hour of coaching.

For you to see the long-term results where you notice changes in your career outcomes, mindset, and beliefs, you’re going to want to work with someone long-term. This is why most coaches tend to offer session packages because they know that for them to be effective in helping you, they will have to work with you more than once.

Myth #5: You Think Your Coach Is Going to Do the Work for You

Do you think that your career coach will:

• Do your resume for you?
• Think of the interview questions for you?
• Pick and look for a job for you?
• Tell you how to negotiate?

Here’s a surprise: no coach is going to do ALL of that for you. Why? Because if you have someone who does all the work for you, you will become super dependent on that person. Your confidence will never develop. Even worse, you’re going to have a hard time getting into those career leadership positions that requires you to be confident and believe in yourself.

Although yes, a career coach can assist in strategizing how you want to approach a situation like what to say and questions to ask, but as I mentioned before, it all comes down to you doing the actual work.

Instead of expecting a career coach to do all the work, why don’t you:

• Think about what you want to do
• Ask your career coach specific questions
• Take action based on your findings
• Come back to the situation and reflect  

I can’t emphasize this enough: no competent coach will do all the work for you. Because in the long run, that will not benefit you.

Are you someone who believed one or more of these myths? Comment below and let’s talk about how you can switch that mindset and approach, career coaching with the right expectations.