Career Coach: Is It Worth the Cost?

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If you have doubts about your current career or want to make a job transition, hiring a career coach can come in handy. Career coaches are certified specialists in areas such as job search strategy, resume writing, salary negotiation, and interviews. They know how to identify the most valuable parts of your professional expertise and sell them to prospective employers in the most appealing way possible. While a career coach can offer assistance in many aspects, counseling to one may not be suitable for everyone.

Career Coach at a Glance

Career coaches are typically former HR executives of top companies, so they have the capacity of giving professional career advice. They help ensure jobseeker stays on track and make progress in their career. Having a career coach is essentially the same as having a brand awareness team for your own career journey. The majority of career coaching clients are job seekers with limited business experience wanting to progress in their professions. However, corporate and executives rely on career coaches to make strategic, long-term adjustments in their career and personal life too. Some independent career coaches are available to contact directly through social platforms like LinkedIn. There are also dedicated groups of career coaches under one platform that are available to choose from according to their field of expertise and working experience. 

Pros of Having a Career Coach

Other than the previously explained job duties of a career coach, there is more to tell about the advantages of having a career coach.

• Better Plan and Strategy

Coming up with a career plan and strategy is one thing, but making sure they are viable to pursue is quite another. Career coaches are there to professionally help you in crafting doable plans and strategies that can land you in a better position. They have the expertise to guide you in answering questions such as, "Do you know what your worth is to a prospective employer or client?" or "Do you know how to effectively explain and sell yourself?". They can also assist you in determining which job opportunities are the best fit by using the answers to those questions. 

• Extra Motivation

If you are job seeking on your own, the only person you owe to is yourself and you feel that you spend nothing but time. Believing you have nothing to lose can lead to a habit of procrastinating or putting off job seeking. Meanwhile, career coaching is not free and once you decide to get one, you can get that extra kick of motivation, considering you have invested some money on it. Besides that, career coaches are going to give you not only professional tactics but also the needed encouragement for you to ace your career.

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Cons of Having a Career Coach

As mentioned earlier, hiring a career coach may not be the best option for some people, here’s why:

• Expensive

Professional services do not come for free, including career coaching. Career coaches charge between $75 and $150 per hour, although many services charge less under specific multiple sessions packages. This may be quite expensive, especially if you are a fresh graduate who does not have much money, to begin with. Expense is one of the major cons of having a career coach since their service is not cheap for many people. However, the rate is actually quite fair for people in top-level management who need expert advice on their career, since it will most likely be a huge career decision that can lead to increasing more revenue. 

• Difficult to Find the Right One

It is not very difficult to find career coaches available, although finding one you can actually trust may require more effort. Although there are many competent coaches that can assist you with a job transition, interview preparation, resume revamping, and other activities, career coaching may be flawed with scammers. Many career coaches have little or no experience in the fields in which they claim to be professionals. Before you pay a so-called career coach, research their background and make sure the testimonies given by former clients can be vouched. You can ask for recommendations from your colleagues who have ever used the service of career coaching. 

The Ultimate Question: Is It Worth the Cost?

The answer is yes and no. It actually depends heavily on your budget and your current state of employment. There is no doubt that the major hassle in having a career coach is that they can be costly. The bad news is that if you think paying for one is costly, then maybe you are not supposed to seek one. 

Career coaches aim at either professional who prioritizes precision in career paths no matter how much it costs, or at individuals who do not mind paying to prepare the best. For example, if you are a top-level manager who has spent years working in your current company, but think of moving to another company, you may not be able to talk this out to your workmates. Thus, it can be wise to seek a career coach since they are not biased and can give professional advice about the big decision. 

On the other hand, if you are an unemployed fresh graduate with no stable income yet, focus on seeking a job instead of seeking a career coach. This is because you may need to prioritize using your remaining savings for your daily life before finally landing a job with a stable income. Moreover, there is no loss in just trying every possible chance, since there is no big risk to take and nothing to lose anyway. Not having a career coach means you need to encourage yourself to stay motivated, strategize to treasure potential within yourself, and keep yourself updated with the latest career insights. 

Having a career coach can be helpful if you need professional guidance before making huge decisions such as applying for a certain job or resigning from one. Since this is a luxury that not everyone can afford to have, then why not become your own career coach? The easiest way is to start reading more insights from reports and articles, as what you can find weekly in Talentvis. Even better, you can also find some interesting job vacancies on this platform. Help yourself out and good luck with your career journey ahead!

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