Dear Readers:

I am often asked by those not very familiar with the coaching profession, just what do you do as a Career Coach? Some mistakenly believe that I tell my clients exactly what they should do. While certainly I may look to influence them toward methods that have proven to have been successful for many job searchers, I will never directly tell them to pursue a particular tactic. Others believe I “find jobs” for my clients. That is not true also. I am not a recruiter. I do not either work for a company to find talent, nor do I work independently looking to place my clients in particular companies with openings. (I may if I know someone the client may want to speak to, set up an introduction if I feel their skill set aligns well with my contact, but that is not primarily what I do).  

My primary function is to be a facilitator, a sounding board, and a strategist for my clients. What are the type of job roles which they are targeting? Where are they able to find companies that need those type of professionals? How are their communication vehicles, (resume, Linked In profile, verbal introduction), set up to deliver those messages with those whom they are looking to connect? Where may the need to modify their strategy steps.

One of the other roles that I often take on is the role of instructor and presenter. This comes in the form of doing presentations on job search skills topics to audiences of small groups of job searching professionals.  When I really began focusing on Career Coaching as my vocation in 2011, one of my early exposures was in my local library. There was a group that met there on a regular basis called Northern New Jersey Professionals in Transition. I went to check out one of their meetings. It quickly became apparent that they were a job search support group, with job searchers helping share with each other different search techniques and strategies that had worked for them. Some of what was shared was based on anecdotal experience. Others items were shared from articles or presentations that members had read.

As I continued to be part of the group, I was happy to share some of my lessons learned during my career coaching studies with the Five O’Clock Club in New York. While certainly my intent was to help individuals as their private coach in one-to-one strategy sessions, I was more than open to sharing in a group setting where I was not being compensated monetarily for my time. Some may ask why I would do so? There are a variety of reasons.

As a budding entrepreneur, it had been made apparent to me that one way to gain exposure was to present to groups. Another reason was it helped reinforce for me that which I had learned in my coaching studies to share it with others. Ultimately, I also had always loved providing guidance and instruction to others. This gave me an opportunity to do so. It turns out, it also provided me so much more.

Soon I learned of other such groups around my local area that were like the group in our local library in my town. They too were often facilitated by career coaches such as myself. Many of them became networking partners to me. While it would seem strange to “partner” with the competition, the opposite was true. We each may have had specialties in how we ran our practices. Maybe one coach’s focus was on interviewing, another on resumes, another on a certain job search demographic, etc. We became kindred spirits for each other. Initially all these groups met in person, so we would travel to different locations around my home state to assist each other with programs and presenting. Once the pandemic became prevalent in 2020, just about all these groups became virtual/online in nature and remain such to this day. It cut down on the travel for the participants and the presenters. It opened the groups up to job searchers in other states that would have never been able to attend our groups before.

I was thinking about this as I recently looked at my upcoming calendar for the months of July and August. While I still facilitate my local group (which is virtual, but still called Northern New Jersey Professionals in Transition), I am scheduled to present to about 6 to 10 other groups in the upcoming two months. I have a catalogue of presentations that I do, and many are appealing to audiences that have not heard them. In some instances, I am the only one doing such a presentation or taking a slant on career search topic.

This month our focus will be on the importance of job searchers continuing to build their knowledge of the job search process, and their skill set in general as part of their career development. As usual, if you have any questions or items you would like to discuss with me, please feel free and reach out to me at [email protected] or call me at (201) 306-9811. I look forward to hearing from you.

Tony Calabrese

www.absolutetransitions.com
[email protected]
(201) 306-9811