29 February 2024 Career Coach and Consultant: two career professionals
Career Coach and Career Consultant: Who to Trust?
As a career coach and career consultant I often hear this question from people who are looking for a job or want to change the one they have and do not know where to start.
Career coaches and career consultants are both professionals who support in matters concerning career choices and career paths.
Career Coach and Career Advisor: the similarities
Both professionals can support people by, for instance, helping them to draw up a development plan, set their career development goals or their job change strategies, and in doing so, they use different approaches.
Sometimes the two professions are practiced together, whereas in my case I practice both, synergistically but separately.
So what are the differences?
Career Coach and Career Advisor: differences in approach
Career coaches and career consultants are distinguished in their approach to the activities that a person seeking employment or a professional change has to undertake.
The difference lies in the way in which the activities take place and their focus.
Career Coach approach
As a career Coach I collaborate with those who want to get personally involved in their professional development and I help them to expand the awareness problems that arise, to gain clarity on what one wants to achieve in one's vision of the future, to identify obstacles and to create a strategy to overcome them.
As a career coach I facilitate the proactive approach of those seeking or wanting to change jobs, and who want to express their potential.
Expressing one's potential means making the most of one's abilities and, with these, achieving one's own goals, meaningful to oneself.
The potential for personal development, while varying from person to person, needs the right stimulation in order to be realised.
Coaching stimulates personal strings and facilitates the implementation of the individual action plan.
In my experience, people who make the initial effort to create their own specific visions and identify viable strategies for themselves are much more likely to implement and sustain them and achieve the desired results in the medium term.
In my role as a coach I do not say what to do or express opinions, but rather I ask questions that allow people to develop their path.
Career Consultant Approach
In my role as career consultant I advise on different aspects by contributing with my experience and knowledge.
For example I say what needs to be done to solve a specific problem on how to search for information or explain the characteristics of job roles and positions.
These are suggestions to help broaden the view on the different aspects of work, but these leave out an important aspect of the job search, which is the specific individual experience and what the person, as a unique and unrepeatable person, wants to achieve.
The limitation of consultancy is that it does not always represent the uniqueness and specific, personal conclusions of the individual.
Consultancy certainly has a practical purpose but it is not always the best solution for fully understanding one's particular career direction.
The synergy between Career Coach and Career Consultant
These two professions dealing with career and personal development can be integrated synergistically.
When I am asked for support, even though I work in both professions of a career coach and career consultant, I make it clear that my two professions, although in synergy, will take place in separate modalities and phases.
Certainly, at an early stage, it is useful to provide my support as a career coach for:
- reasoning together about the potential and identifying strengths
- explore personal reference values and clarify passions and interests
- recognise and overcome any limiting thoughts that hold back action
- bring out different ideas of professional hypotheses, enhancing all capacities
- create a customised action plan with specific deadlines and tasks.
Subsequently, the Career Consultant will take over for:
- make a skills assessment with specific tools to identify and work on areas for improvement
- advise on how to approach different options and job opportunities
- accelerate the job search process also through personal branding
- finalise CV writing (form and content)
- prepare for interviews.
Career Coach and Career Advisor: Conclusions
Investing in career coaching and career consultancy is an important step in order to start or change a career, speed up some of its steps, and also to support career evolution.
One thing is certain: nowadays, constant changes require thinking not of one, but of several careers over a lifetime, and therefore the support of a career coach and consultant may be even more necessary.
Do you want to change jobs, resume work after a break, increase your chances of embracing different careers, and don't know where to start?
I can help you and, if needed, I can also support you by speaking English.
For information on my professional transformation read also
How to deal with a professional change
For my career path