FAQ's

I don’t know what I can do, or what I want to do. Can career coaching help?
Yes – that’s really what career coaching is all about.

Sometimes we are so busy being busy that we never pause to examine the things that make us tick. Career coaching gives you that time and, through structured exercises and individual coaching, gives you the tools you need to succeed.

By working through a structured career development process you’ll gain greater clarity about:

• The things that give you the most satisfaction
• Your strengths and areas for development
• Transferable skills (and strenghs you've forgotten!)
• The special qualities that will give you an edge
• The things you need from your career

Your career coach will be both an inspirer – challenging you to believe more in yourself than you currently do, but also a pragmatist – gently challenging you to “market-test” your options. All of these things will give you greater awareness of what you really want to do, and a strategy to achieve your career goals.

Knowing what you want to do can be broken down into several areas:

• What are you passionate about?
• What are your strengths and weaknesses?
• What are your motivated, transferable skills?
• What do you value or need from your career?
• What interests you?
• What are your goals, both short and long term?

Answering all those questions will help you to determine your criteria for job satisfaction and clarify career options that are a good fit. By increasing your self- awareness in this way, not only will you gain more clarity and confidence but you will also discover and be better able to communicate the source of your competitive edge to prospective employers and customers. Unfortunately this self-reflection is a step many job seekers never take. Instead they launch into the act of “ doing” by sending their CV out to any job they think they may have a chance at.

What Is a Career Coach?
A career coach is simply someone who guides others through job and career changes, helps individuals experience fulfillment in their work, and facilitates the match between employee and job function within a company to optimise his/her contribution and satisfaction.

The career coach's primary role is to serve as a catalyst for transformation and change in the client's work life. Whether the client is at a crossroads of identity and purpose, or just seeking to enrich his/her current work experience, career coaches serve as a guide to the next step in the individual's professional development.

Using a respectful, compassionate, yet results-oriented approach, the coach helps his/her clients identify what they most love to do. The next step is to facilitate the client's process in creating that job, career or business. The coach's toolbox includes probing questions, testing of assumptions, standardised assessments, feedback, and other tools as appropriate to the client's unique needs.

How can a Worklife Solutions career coaching programme help me?
The main aim of all our programmes is to assist you in getting what you want in terms of a next career step, as efficiently as possible. Our coaches are inspirational and pragmatic, and are not only skilled in helping you think laterally, but also have the ability to help you identify practical ways to achieve your career goals.

Our unique “Passion Driven Work” coaching programmes are unique in the career management field and quickly help people find and communicate their career niche.

A Worklife Solutions career coaching programme will provide you with:

• An opportunity to access tools to help you review and assess your options
• A chance to make some choices regarding your career or other aspects of your life
• A sounding board for ideas and to review your experiences
• Objective, independent advise and counsel
• The structure and techniques to make yours a “smart” rather than hard job search
• Professional support and advise through each stage of the programme
• An environment where you are encouraged to take active control in seeking the right next role for you
• Substantial experience of what works in the job market
• Confidentiality
• A proven structured and personalised service

How do career, life and executive coaching differ?
Career coaching focuses more narrowly on your career and work specific goals, whereas life coaching is broader and more holistic in its focus. Anyone at any stage of their career can benefit from either of these approaches. Executive coaching is suitable for professionals and those in senior management who are wanting to target and be coached in specific competencies that will enable them to improve their performance or to fast track their career.

Why does coaching work?
Coaching works for a number of reasons. As you have probably discovered yourself, creating goals is the easy part ... but sticking to them is harder! Being accountable to someone else can make a profound impact on how much we achieve. We are very often our own worst critics, so being encouraged to stay focused and do what matters most is a key ingredient to success. Sometimes we're so deep in what we are doing that we lose perspective.

Having an unbiased, objective, observer on the 'side-lines', giving honest and open feedback, can really help individuals to see the bigger picture. It is therefore a combination of a number of different roles, which makes coaching work. When coaching you will find that your work synthesises a number of different roles together. A mentor who helps set bigger goals ... A manager to break down the goals into smaller chunks ... A personal trainer to keep up motivation and ensure constant movement towards the goals and a sports coach to provide specific feedback to your employees that will help them improve their performance.