What Color Is Your Parachute? (59 page)

Click
here
to view a PDF version of My Search for a Good Career Counselor.

You need to decide a) whether you want none of the three, or b) one of the three (and if so, which one). Remember, you don’t have to choose
any
of the three coaches, if you didn’t really care for any of them.

If that is the case, then go choose three new counselors out of the Yellow Pages or wherever, dust off the notebook, and go out again. It may take a few more hours to find what you want. But
the wallet, the purse, the job-hunt, the life, you save will be your own.

As you look over your notes, you will soon realize there is no definitive way for you to determine a career coach’s intentions. It’s something you’ll have to
smell out
, as you go along. But here are some clues.

These are primarily clues about large
firms,
most particularly
executive counseling firms,
and
rarely apply to individual coaches or counselors
, but read these anyway, for your own education.

If they give you the feeling that everything will be done for you, by them
(including interpretation of tests, and decision making about what this means you should do, or where you should do it)—
rather than asserting that you are going to have to do almost all the work, with their basically being your coach,

(Give them 15 bad points)

You want to learn how to do this for yourself; you’re going to be job-hunting again, you know.

If they say they are not the person who will be doing the program with you, but deny you any chance to meet the coach or counselor you would be working with,

(Give them 75 bad points)

You’re talking to a salesperson. My advice after talking to job-hunters for more than thirty-five years, is: avoid any firm that has a salesperson.

If you do get a chance to meet the counselor, but you don’t like the counselor, period!,

(Give them 150 bad points)

I don’t care what their expertise is, if you don’t like them, you’re going to have a rough time getting what you want. I guarantee it. Rapport is everything.

If you ask how long the counselor has been doing this, and they get huffy or give a double-barreled answer, such as: “I’ve had eighteen years’ experience in the business and career counseling world,”

(Give them 20 bad points)

What that may mean is: seventeen and a half years as a fertilizer salesman, and one half year doing career counseling. Persist. “How long have you been with this firm, and how long have you been doing formal career coaching or counseling, as you are here?” You might be interested to know that some executive or career counseling firms hire yesterday’s clients as today’s new staff. Such new staff are sometimes given training only after they’re “on-the-job.” They are practicing…on you.

If they try to answer the question of their experience by pointing to their degrees or credentials,

(Give them 3 bad points)

Degrees or credentials tell you they’ve passed certain tests of their qualifications, but often these tests bear more on their expertise at career
assessment,
than on their knowledge of creative job-hunting techniques.

If, when you ask about that firm’s success rate, they say they have never had a client who failed to find a job, no matter what,

(Give them 500 bad points)

They’re lying. I have studied career counseling programs for more than thirty years, have attended many, have studied records at state and federal offices, and have hardly ever seen a program that placed more than 86 percent of their clients, tops, in their best years. And it goes downhill from there. A prominent executive counseling firm was reported by the Attorney General’s Office of New York State to have placed only 38 out of 550 clients(a 93 percent failure rate). On the other hand, if they make it clear that they have had a good success rate, but if you fail to work hard at the whole process, then there is no guarantee you are going to find a job, give them three stars.

If a firm shows you letters from ecstatically happy former clients, but when you ask to talk to some of those clients, you get stonewalled,

(Give them 200 bad points)

Man, these guys can be slick! No, no, not honest career coaches; I’m referring to the crooks in this field. Here is a job-hunter’s letter about his experience with one of those firms:

If you ask the firm what is the cost of their services, and they reply that it is a lump sum that must all be paid “up front” before you start or shortly after you start, all at once or in rapid installments,

(Give them 300 bad points)

We’re talking about firms here, not the average individual counselor or coach. The basic problem is that both “the good guys” and “the crooks” do this. The good guys operate on the theory that if you give them a large sum up front, you will then be really committed to the program. The crooks operate on the theory that if you give them a large sum up front, they don’t have to give you anything back, except endless excuses and subterfuge, after a certain date (quickly reached). And the trouble is that, going in, there is absolutely no way for you to distinguish crook from good guy; they only reveal their true nature after they’ve got all your money. And by that time, you have no legal way to get it back, no matter what they verbally promised.
¹

You may think I am exaggerating: I mean, can there possibly be such mean men and women, who would prey on job-hunters, especially executive job-hunters, when they’re down and out? Yes, ma’am, and yes, sir, there sure are. That’s why you have to do your own preliminary research so thoroughly.

Trust me on this. There is no way to distinguish the good guys from the crooks. I have tried for years to think of some way around this dilemma, but there just is none. So if you decide to pay up front, make sure it is money you can afford to lose.

There are career coaches or counselors who charge by the hour. In fact, they are in the majority. With them, there is no written contract. You sign nothing. You pay only for each hour as you use it, according to their set rate. Each time you keep an appointment, you pay them at the end of that hour for their help, according to that rate. Period. Finis. You never owe them any money (unless you made an appointment, and failed to keep it). You can stop seeing them at any time, if you feel you are not getting the help you wish.

What will they charge? You will find, these days, that the best career coaches or counselors
(plus some of the worst)
will charge you whatever a good therapist or marriage counselor charges per hour, in your geographical area. Currently, in major metropolitan areas, that runs around $150 an hour, sometimes more. In suburbia or rural areas, it may be much less—$40 an hour, or so.

That fee is for
individual time
with the career coach or counselor. If you can’t afford that fee, ask whether they also run groups. If they do, the fee will be much less. And, in one of those delightful ironies of life, since you get a chance to listen to problems that other job-hunters in your group are having, the group will often give you more help than an individual session with a counselor would have. Not always, but often. It’s always ironic when
cheaper
and
more helpful
go hand in hand.

If the career counselor in question does offer groups, there should (again) never be a contract. The charge should be payable at the end of each session, and you should be able to drop out at any time, without further cost, if you decide you are not getting the help you want.

There are some career counselors who run free (or almost free) job-hunting workshops through local churches, synagogues, chambers of commerce, community colleges, adult education programs, and the like, as their community service, or
pro bono
work (as it is technically called). I have had reports of workshops from a number of places in the U.S. and Canada. They exist in other parts of the world as well. If money is a problem for you, in getting help with your job-hunt, ask around your community to see if workshops exist in your area. Your chamber of commerce will know, or your church or synagogue.

You can find an incredibly useful list of all the job clubs in the U.S. compiled by my friend Susan Joyce, on her site:
www.job-hunt.org
(
www.job-hunt.org/job-search-networking/job-search-networking.shtml
)
.

The assumption, from the beginning, was that career counseling would always take place face to face. Both of you, counselor and job-hunter, together in the same room. Just like career counseling’s close relatives: marriage counseling, or even AA.

Of course, a job-hunter might—on occasion—phone his or her counselor the day before an interview, to get some last-minute tips or to answer some questions that a prospective interviewer might ask,
tomorrow
.

What is different, today, is that in some cases, career counseling is being conducted exclusively over the phone from start to finish. Some counselors now report that they haven’t laid eyes on more than 90 percent of their clients, and wouldn’t know them if they bumped into them on a street corner. I call this “distance-coaching” or “telephone-counseling.”

With the invention of the Internet, with the invention of Internet
telephoning
, we are witnessing “the death of distance”—that is to say, the death of distance as an obstacle. The world, as Thomas Friedman has famously written, is in effect
flat.

An increasing number of counselors or executive coaches are doing this
distance-counseling
. For the job-hunter, it’s not all that expensive. True, counselors who offer this, charge between $80 per hour and “sky-high” (usually, in that case, paid by the company).
²
But you can shop around, and ask questions to find the best price for your budget.