Is Career Coaching worth the cost?
The voice on the phone wants me to draw a picture of Where I’m At. I’m baffled. Where I’m at, at that moment, is in the kitchen trying to extract a tissue that’s just been through a hot cycle with the children’s school uniforms. “No, where you’re at in life,” explains the voice. “In your life Right Now.”
That’s the point when I begin, briefly, to panic. I’d volunteered to submit myself to one of the UK’s leading career advisers, Corinne Mills of Personal Career Management, partly because the idea of talking lengthily about oneself to a captive stranger is always agreeable, and partly because jobs in newsprint are looking increasingly precarious. Flexible work that permits you to appear twice a day at the school gate is elusive, and recently I’ve found myself assuming my professional future will be bound up with a Tesco checkout.
This is surprising because a large part of her clientele are lawyers and financiers who are weary of wealth without the leisure to spend it in. But even they, it seems, are vulnerable to self-doubt when it comes to leaving the familiar and marketing their assets elsewhere. “People don’t come to us because they want any job, but because they want the right job,” says Mills. “What we offer is a confidence-building process.”
The gift of self-confidence is a pricey one. A full face-to-face course, which identifies desires and options, details job search strategies and hand-holds through the process of applying and interviewing, costs up to £4,500, although Skype sessions and a programme for new graduates are cheaper alternatives. The investment seems sound, since PCM’s statistics show that 83% of clients find jobs that appeal to them and 11% set up their own businesses. “A lot of career advice companies look at your CV,” says Mills, “but don’t analyse who you are as a person, your needs and aspirations.”
Who I am as a person remains nebulous, for my career has never required a written CV and I have left the sheets on Identifying Your Achievements largely blank. A memory surfaces about saving a couple’s wedding day through my consumer help column, but mostly my 20 years in journalism have melded into a pleasant blur. It’s now that Mills’ skills are unleashed. She asks me to recount my job history and pounces when I start with leaving university. “Which university?” “Cambridge”. “So why didn’t you say so?”
With more time she would have helped build these skills into a seductive CV and schooled me in self-marketing. As it is, she instructs me to establish a website to showcase my newly identified wares and to nibble cocktail sausages with influential people. I explain that the latter is impossible. I’m no good at networking. How then, she asks, have I managed a seamless succession of media jobs? I confess that my secret lies in tea bags. I’ve always kept colleagues well irrigated and they remember my efficient waitressing when I’m needy.
Heading home I feel freshly invented and equipped to embrace the adventures of middle age. The session might, or might not, secure me a fulfilling professional future, but it’s made me evaluate the past in an encouragingly different light. I’m even tempted to pay a few grand to hear more. But, right now, I’m off to a mirror to see if my newly translated self is visible to the naked eye.
How to Get Your Job Application Shortlisted
Have you ever applied for a job which you thought you were perfect for, only to find you’ve not been called for an interview? Perhaps you dealt with your disappointment by rationalising that the competition was simply too great, or by fuming at the employer’s failure to recognise your capabilities.
It’s certainly true that it’s an exceptionally tough recruitment market and that recruitment processes are rarely faultless. However, when I talk to individuals in this situation, I usually find that there are two other reasons which explain why they have been rejected.
Either their application simply failed to demonstrate sufficiently why they were such a great candidate. Or they misunderstood the job, and they weren’t as good a fit as they thought they were.
Here are some tips on how to avoid this by uncovering what an employer is really looking for when they post that vacancy — and how to prove you are their ideal candidate.
Matching the job requirements
First, print off the advert and use a highlighter pen to underline all the candidate selection criteria. This forces you to consider whether you meet every requirement rather than ignoring any gaps.
Once you are sure you meet the main criteria, drill down into the detail of the job. Most employers will supply a job description and a list of essential skills and competences for the role. Go through each selection criteria to check if you have good examples to show how you match their requirements. For instance, if they are looking for someone with people management experience, you will need to be able to show how many staff you have line-managed in different roles, the different teams you have worked with, performance management activities, and other issues.
Your examples should detail not simply that you did these things, but that as a result of doing them there were benefits for the organisation. It’s not enough to assume that just because your job title has the word manager in it that this will be considered sufficient evidence of your people management skills.
Uncovering the hidden requirements
Occasionally, employers offer a named contact you can talk to in order to find out more about the job before you apply. Always take this opportunity if it is offered. If it’s not, try to find someone you know who works in your target organisation, or is one of their suppliers or competitors. You need to find out more about what it is like to work there and how it operates.
Look closely at any information you have been sent by the company as well as their website and marketing material. How does the organisation talk about itself? Does it see itself as traditional, creative, entrepreneurial, ethical or as a centre of excellence? Is the language it uses very formal, relaxed or full of jargon?
If you can pick up clues about the culture and self-perception of the organisation, then you can use language that is reflective of this within your application, making you seem more of a natural fit. For instance, if the organisation seems very dynamic and fast-paced, then describing achievements that talk about multi-tasking against tight deadlines or which showcase your initiative and energy may be particularly helpful.