How I will work with you

People are endlessly fascinating and different - and I see people from an equally fascinating and varied range of sectors and roles, and with many different career challenges - including executive coaching, job change, redundancy, sudden departure and compromise agreement, returning to work after a gap, seeking promotion, managing one’s career, getting onto the career ladder, finding a job, confidence issues, keeping motivated, or CV help and making the right impression in interviews.

My approach is to turn the process into easily-digestible into bite-sized chunks. This stops things from being overwhelming and ultimately, off-putting. But it’s better to have tried than to regret it later. We only have one life. Remember: “Career time ticks away faster than you might think but remember it’s never too late to reset the clock.”

A career and executive coach can provide insights into a person and their career that they may not otherwise realise. They make connections between people’s abilities and other occupations. They are a neutral person to talk to about jobs and career – something most people never do and yet most of us would agree, would find very beneficial. This might be coaching around dealing with a challenging and demanding boss, a missed promotion or new responsibilities. And of course help with your CV and self marketing.

Yes confidence-building is a large part my coaching offer where I used certified exercises and self-assessment tools to build self esteem as well as coaching to help clients reconnect with who they are and what they have achieved- things that can get lost when unhappy or under pressure. If a client has a significant issue with lack of self esteem, which maybe very deep-rooted , I would recommend they seek extra help such as going on a course or seeing a specialist to address this.

Yes. In my experience there are two types of people in this situation. The first type is at a complete loss because they have little idea about the options open to them. They could also do with re-establishing who they are, what they value, what they are interested in and what transferable skills they have and get a clearer picture of who they are and what they have to offer. They often need some wholesale confidence boosting too, which I can help with.

The other type are unhappy because of other problems that are not necessarily connected to work but are making them sad and unable to function. This could be a bereavement or a relationship that isn’t working or some deep-seated assumptions about themselves that have been in place since childhood (eg: “My parents said I was the serious one, therefore I can’t give up everything and become an artist” … “I am the baby of the family and therefore still expect everything to be done for me”). I do work with this type of situation from a strictly career angle - but I always recommend seeing a specialist to help with any underlying issues.

Career change coaching can:

• Build your self-awareness through understanding what makes you tick, what does and does not work for you anymore

• Focus on the positive

• Provide suggestions for future careers and places to research and people to contact

• Create a comprehensive action plan

• Encourage testing out the new career before committing, using your network

• Help market the new you via CV, interview and Linkedin profile

• Reassure you along the way

It depends on what kind of support you are looking for and what you are hoping to achieve. Typically four to eight one-hour sessions should be sufficient to put a person on the right track. But many clients return for ‘top-up’ sessions or further coaching as their plans evolve.

It depends on your goal. Some people are looking for wholesale change - such as giving up corporate life to be a full time artist. However, it needn’t involve an earth-shattering life-changing experience. Some people simply visit me to check they are on the right track, others to discuss work life balance. The best results are where the client is willing to go away and research the career options we have identified in our sessions and not expect the coach to do everything for them. It’s a two-way relationship, a partnership.

To a certain extent yes, although one of the key areas I stress is that each person should use their own personal network of contacts as it will be bigger and more diverse than they really think. This can be anyone from family, friends, friends or friends, business associates, people connected through your child’s school, sports clubs etc.