I might be a little bit biased because I happen to be a coach who does this work, but I also think it’s worth stepping back and asking a more useful question: What are you actually hoping to get out of coaching?
If all you want is an updated resume, I’m probably not your guy. And frankly, you can use AI tools pretty effectively for this. If you’re looking for interview tips, there are thousands of YouTube videos available, including plenty of content I’ve created myself.
Neither of those are particularly personal, so I get it.
But if you’re trying to become the kind of person who can build an extraordinary and intentional career, that’s the work I love doing with people.
And there’s a significant difference between getting a piece of career advice and actually changing the way you approach your career and leadership.
What Can Coaching Actually Help You Do?
I’ve worked with people who have gotten some pretty extraordinary results through coaching.
I’ve helped people move into entirely new roles and environments, including work in sustainability that they genuinely wanted to pursue, along with a $30,000 bonus. I’ve helped people negotiate more than $40,000 per year in additional compensation. I’ve had people DOUBLE their compensation compared to where they were before.
I’ve also worked with people who have reinvigorated their careers in areas they never thought possible, found more happiness and joy in their work, and gone on to do amazing things. Some have eventually become entrepreneurs and thrived in that environment.
I’m extremely pleased when those outcomes happen, and they can be meaningful measures of progress. But the interesting thing is that none of those results happened because we simply rewrote a resume.
They happened because people changed who they were and how they were showing up.
That’s where I believe great coaching can create significant value.
Career coaching can help you accelerate change and transformation by giving you space to step back from the day-to-day demands of your work, gain perspective, become more aware of what’s happening internally, and make decisions with greater clarity and intention.
The Work Beneath the Career Decision
A lot of career questions appear to be practical questions on the surface.
- Should I take this job?
- Should I ask for a promotion?
- Should I leave my company?
- Should I become a manager?
- Should I change industries?
- Should I start a business?
Those are important questions, but there’s often much more underneath them. Sometimes the real challenge is that you don’t have clarity about what you actually want. Sometimes you know what you want but don’t believe you’re capable of getting there. Sometimes fear is keeping you from taking an action you already know you need to take.
That’s where coaching can be particularly useful.
I love helping people gain perspective and awareness, see things inside themselves that they didn’t recognize before, and develop the accountability to take intentional action. We can work toward clarity and focus around something they genuinely care about, while also building the courage to move forward when fear or uncertainty is present.
Sometimes that means helping someone recognize a limiting belief that has been shaping their decisions for years. Sometimes it means giving them a framework for evaluating a complicated career decision. Sometimes it means helping them take the first step when they’ve been thinking about making a change for months or even years.
There are practical tools and frameworks involved, but the deeper work often involves changing how someone sees themselves and what they believe is possible.
Coaching Can Create an Identity Shift
One of the things I find most interesting about this work is the identity component.
You might come into coaching thinking you need help figuring out your next job. As you work through the process, you may discover that the bigger question is, “What kind of person do I want to become?”
That question can change the way you evaluate almost everything else.
- What kind of work do you want to be doing?
- What kind of leader do you want to become?
- What strengths do you want to develop?
- What kinds of problems do you want to solve?
- What kind of life do you want your career to support?
- What would you do if fear wasn’t making the decision for you?
These questions can lead to very different answers than simply asking what job you should apply for next.
And this is where I think people can be thoughtful about the tools they use.
Can AI help you think through some of these questions? Absolutely. AI can be incredibly useful for brainstorming, researching options, creating frameworks, practicing conversations, and getting another perspective.
But whether AI can replace the deeper process of transformation is a different question.
Sometimes what you need is another tool. Sometimes what you need is another person who can see something you can’t see, challenge your assumptions, ask a question you weren’t expecting, and hold you accountable to the commitments you’ve made.
That’s one area a good coach can be extremely valuable.
How Can You Measure Success?
I don’t measure the success of coaching simply by how quickly someone lands a job.
If landing a job quickly is important to you, then we can absolutely work on that. There are times when speed matters, and there are practical things we can do to improve your positioning, networking, interviewing, negotiation, and job search.
But I prefer to look at a bigger question: Is this person becoming someone who can intentionally build an aligned life/career again and again?
A career is a long journey. You may find yourself in a great role today and face an entirely different decision a few years from now. Your interests can change. Your priorities can change. Your industry can change. Your family circumstances can change. Opportunities can appear that you never anticipated.
If coaching simply helps you land one job, that can be useful.
If it helps you develop the clarity, courage, awareness, and decision-making ability to navigate your career intentionally over and over again, that can have a much longer-lasting impact.
The goal is to help you develop the capacity to keep growing and make choices that align with the kind of career and life you actually want.
So, Is Coaching Worth It?
The answer depends heavily on what you’re looking for.
If you simply need a better resume, there are plenty of resources that can help. If you need basic interview advice, you can find an enormous amount of information online. If you need help with a specific tactical problem, you may not need a coach at all.
But if you feel stuck, uncertain, fearful, disengaged, or unclear about where your career is going, coaching can provide something different. It can give you a structured and supported space to step back, understand yourself better, make intentional decisions, and follow through on the actions that will move you forward.
And if you want to become the kind of leader who creates opportunities instead of waiting for them, that requires a deeper level of growth.
Ultimately, the question I would encourage you to ask is:
What kind of person do I want to become, and what kind of career and life will help me get there?
The right career doesn’t happen by accident. Building one intentionally takes clarity, action, and a willingness to grow into the person capable of creating it.
Watch more in the video below:
