career coaching a waste of money - Margaret Buj - Interview Coach

Is interview/career coaching a waste of money A few months ago I was speaking at a Stepstone career event organized by college students in London. There were 3 other presenters including someone talking about working with recruitment agencies and personal branding. I was talking about successful interviewing and after my presentation I’ve also reviewed several CVs and gave career/interview advice to several participants. During one of my conversations, I was asked this question: There are so many career coaches out there, how do I know which one to hire? Is it even worth it? Your Job Search is Like Running a Business I know you’ve heard this before. But let’s get real with it. When a business hires a consultant, it is viewed as an investment not a cost. ROI is determined. Need is greater than cost. And a decision is made. (plus consultants are tax deductable) I find it very alarming that job seekers don’t see their career coaches as a similar investment. Instead most people make the mistake of only looking at the price tag. And that is bad business. After all, your career or interview coach may be able to shave months off of your job search. Determining Your Investment First, think about how much you used to earn. Let’s say that is £3,000 per month. Therefore, the opportunity cost of not having a job is £3,000 per month minus unemployment benefits (if you have any). You lose £3,000 every month. A good interview/career coach or some kind of job search program will cost you between £200 and £1500 in total. An interview coaching session will cost you £150- £250. I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve seen who have been out of work for months (in one case 2 years!) and who got a job within several weeks (sometimes within a week!) of working with me. The same clients who thought spending £200 on getting some support was ‘too expensive’ ended up losing out on £10k, £20, £50k by not getting the support they needed and wasting months on unsuccessful interviewing. What Questions Should I Ask? When deciding on a career/interview coach or job seeking program, you only really need to know if they can help you get a result. So ask them: • What is the average number of months your clients take to get a job? • How many job interviews do you think you can help me get per week? • What is your success rate? • What is your recruitment/interviewing experience? (There are a lot of consultants out there who’ve never worked in recruitment, they probably can’t find jobs themselves and so they pretend to help others find employment) Where to Start If you don’t know what you want to do or want a complete career change, you really need to see a career change expert. Someone who can help you with self-assessments and personality matching. I don’t specialize in career change myself but I could recommend someone if you were interested. If you happen to like my advice and think that I can shave some months off of your job search, you might be interested in my Job Search Programmes. And if you’ve not seen my ‘You’re HIRED!’ FREE video course yet, you can get access here: http://www.YouAreHiredVideoCourse.com Remember, never think of a consultant, coach or training program as a cost. Think of it as an investment. Calculate the benefits of that investment intelligently. And you could be back to work or in a new, great job sooner that you think.