Working for an organization can provide a very real benefits including interesting work, support for professional development, opportunities to advance, and long-lasting relationships. However, it can also be a "psychic prison" for people who are confused about their career direction and are working in jobs - or organizations - for which they are a poor fit.
Leap Advocates offers one-on-one career coaching to help currently employed individuals identify longer-term career goals, define job targets in and outside their current organization, develop and implement a transition plan, manage their energy while working in a job they dislike and successfully navigating into a new role.
Challenges
Employed people who are in jobs they dislike often experience a number of challenges:
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Feeling unmotivated, hopeless and cynical about their career and other parts of their lives.
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Damaging relationships with friends and family as a result of feeling so unfulfilled professionally.
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Increasingly negative relationships with their boss and negative impacts on perceptions of their performance.
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Lack of clarity about career options and a lack of energy to identify these options.
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Fear and lack of confidence in building relationships and networking.
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Trapped in a cycle of wishing for a change but not taking actions to move forward
Our Approach
Our approach to coaching people who crave a career change includes the following
unique components:
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Accountability, support and challenge where we hold our clients accountable for their commitments and support them as they find new work.
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Assessment activities and tools that help individuals gain clarity about their strengths, development needs and core values that guide the identification of job targets.
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Targeting to identify suitable organizations, industries, and companies that would be a great fit based on an individual's passions and skills.
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Envisioning to help identify potential short-term career options within their organization to create immediate short-term change.
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Strategizing to identify supporters, advocates and mentors to help accelerate the transition process.
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Long-term career envisioning to identify deeper purpose and mission to guide ones' entire career.
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Sessions conducted in-person or via telelphone.
Benefits and Outcomes
While the results of each coaching engagement differs, there are some consistencies in the results that our clients achieve. These include:
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Knowledge of the career management process and strategies that will support them throughout their career.
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Awareness and clarity about their strengths, developmental needs and actions they can take to build their skills.
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Clarity about their short and long-term career options, including ways to sculpt their current role to make it a better fit.
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A broader and deeper professional network, helping to reduce feelings of isolation.
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Improved skills at interviewing and salary negotiation.
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Enhanced ability to make smart career choices that reflect the importance of
other aspects of ones' life.
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Accelerated time to finding a new role that is a good fit
Illustrative Client Vignette*
Background
Nick is currently employed as a help desk technician at a high-tech organization. While he has enjoyed his work somewhat, Nick is feeling depressed, unmotivated and low energy since his organization is in transition and he is not able to do work he loves. His real passion is writing, having studied journalism in college.
Approach
I began the coaching process with Nick by assessing his skills, interests, personality, and core values. We also explored self-care activities he needed to engage in on regular basis including more sleep, exercise, more fun and an improved diet.
In one session, we captured on a flipchart a vision for what his life looked like when he fulfilled his dream of being a journalist and well-known author. We also envisioned other goals for his life and identified ways to integrate these goals with his professional interests. Further, I also challenged Nick to find ways to either adapt his current role to incorporate more of his interests, as well as identifying short-term career options where he could move to a more stable work environment in his company - and thus free up some energy to be able to do some writing toward his passion in the evenings.
Finally, I had Nick develop some strategies for building his skills as a journalist as well as find other writers to network with.
Results
Nick's attitude has shifted dramatically since he now has a transition plan and is actively develop writing skills he loves to use. As a result, people at work are responding to him more positively and supportively.
* The facts of this case have been generalized from several clients in order to maintain confidentiality.
Relevant Qualifications
Our coaches bring a variety of educational and
organizational coaching experience that make us
well suited to coach people in career transition. In particular, Kevin
Nourse brings the following qualifications
to his work as a coach:
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Life experience navigating through 8 career changes.
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Experienced as a human resource director at PricewaterhouseCoopers
Consulting.
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MA degree in Human Resource Development; MA degree in Human and Organization Systems.
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Currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program
at the Fielding Graduate Institute in Human
and Organization Development.
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Certification by the International Coach Federation as a Professional Certified Coach (PCC).
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Training with the Coaches Training Institute
and Coach University.
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Experience helping nearly 250 individuals downsized from Marriott find new career options and jobs.
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Experience working with dozens of employed and unhappy clients who have craved a career change.
Read more about how Kevin Nourse worked with client in career transition.
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