🚀 What is Career Coaching? 📈
(Updated article that now includes ICF’s revised Core Competencies.)
The term “coaching” traditionally refers to sports, where athletes who want to reach excellence in their chosen sport engage the services of a coach to help them take action and move forward.
The International Coaching Federation defines coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential”.
What exactly is career coaching? It’s a process designed to assist individuals in determining their career aspirations and devising strategies to reach them.
Through personalized guidance, a career coach helps you explore your VIPS (Values, Interests, Personality and Strengths), pinpoint your true desires, and collaborate with you to formulate actionable plans to attain your objectives.
By ensuring you have a well-defined roadmap and encouraging you to take decisive steps, a career coach empowers you to achieve your professional goals.
Career coaches are guided by the ethical guidelines of their respective professional associations. ICF members adhere to eight core competencies that enable them to serve clients in ways that get the best from the clients. A summary of these competencies are:
➡ Demonstrates Ethical Practice: ⬅ Understands and consistently applies coaching ethics and standards of coaching.
➡ Embodies a Coaching Mindset: ⬅ Develops and maintains a mindset that is open, curious, flexible and client-centered.
➡ Establishes and Maintains Agreements: ⬅ Partners with the client and relevant stakeholders to create clear agreements about the coaching relationship, process, plans and goals. Establishes agreements for the overall coaching engagement as well as those for each coaching session.
➡ Cultivates Trust and Safety ⬅: Partners with the client to create a safe, supportive environment that allows the client to share freely. Maintains a relationship of mutual respect and trust.
➡ Maintains Presence: ⬅ Is fully conscious and present with the client, employing a style that is open, flexible, grounded and confident.
➡ Listens Actively: ⬅ Focuses on what the client is and is not saying to fully understand what is being communicated in the context of the client systems and to support client self-expression.
➡ Evokes Awareness: ⬅ Facilitates client insight and learning by using tools and techniques such as powerful questioning, silence, metaphor or analogy.
➡ Facilitates Client Growth: ⬅ Partners with the client to transform learning and insight into action. Promotes client autonomy in the coaching process.
When you hire a career coach, you should feel confident you are in good hands!
