Job Seekers: Self-Proclaimed Career Coaches Are Not Among the People You

Image Credit: Hans van Woerkom

Regular readers of The Art of Finding Work are familiar with my stance that self-proclaimed career coaches and resume writers, especially those claiming they can bypass an employer’s ATS, are nothing more than hustlers selling recycled common-sense job search advice to desperate job seekers.

My critical perspective on the career coaching industry arises from the following:

• Lack of Regulation: The career coaching industry is almost entirely unregulated; therefore, anyone can call themselves a “career coach” without requiring certification, licensing, or providing a guarantee.
• Absence of Corporate Experience: When I examine the background of a self-proclaimed career coach, I often notice a lack of significant corporate experience; most career coaches have never worked in the corporate trenches or advanced up the corporate ladder for a substantial period. (If they haven’t done it, then what makes them think they’re in a position to offer advice on how to do it?) Additionally, I’ve yet to meet a career coach with unique insights into the job market.
• Marketing Focus: Career coaches who’ve been around for several years have mainly survived by excelling at marketing themselves with buzzwords, promoting the simplicity of their job-search strategies and portraying the ATS as the enemy they claim they can circumvent; they sell “the dream,” not reality.
• Common Sense Advice: Career coaches and resume writers only provide common-sense advice that job seekers likely already know, can easily find for free, or access without cost, such as through government agencies or the YMCA.

To state the obvious, career coaches are in business to make money. Their ‘I want to help job seekers’ is a distant, if not entirely absent, motivator. Spend some time on LinkedIn and you’ll quickly see that the ultimate goal of self-proclaimed career coaches and resume writers is to profit from job seekers who are frustrated and desperate in a tough job market.

Job seekers, eager to speed up their job search, seek magic-bullet advice they believe will help them land their dream job. Because job seekers, especially at the beginning of their job search, tend to be optimistic, many get lured into paying career coaches and resume writers who can talk the talk, despite having never actually walked the walk. The belief that there are shortcuts to finding a job is what fuels the multi-billion-dollar career coaching industry today.

So, if not self-proclaimed career coaches and resume writers, who should you turn to for job search advice? Based on my own experiences, I’ve found that there are four types of people you should seek advice from, whether it’s about your job search or any other aspect of your life.

1. The Example, someone who’s currently where you want to eventually be. Those who have lived through it are the ones to take advice from, not those who merely hold opinions.
2. The Public Failure. Someone who’s failed publicly but persevered. Often, success hides in the lessons; thereby, failure frequently teaches valuable lessons. Listen to people who’ve been punched in the face by life and still got back up. Such a person actually wants to win. In addition to motivating and inspiring you, their story reinforces that failure is rarely permanent.
3. The Truthteller. Someone who makes you uncomfortable because they tell you the truth, not what you want to hear. Growth doesn’t come from being coddled. If someone challenges you, pushes you, or calls you out, keep them close; that’s friendship and love in disguise.
4. The Unbiased. Someone who doesn’t benefit from your success. When you win, it doesn’t matter to them. When you lose, it doesn’t matter to them. They point out your bald spots when nobody else does. Whether you like them or not, listen to what they say.

As for everyone else, smile, nod, be polite, and move on. Whose advice you follow is a choice, and like all choices, it comes with consequences, in the case of self-proclaimed career coaches and resume writers, at a significant cost.

People tend to believe that luck is random; you either have it or you don’t. Much of what is called “luck” is actually the result of taking the right actions. Therefore, the question becomes: What are the right actions you need to take to achieve your job search goal(s)?

Taking advice from people who are already where you want to be, who have no financial stake in your success, and who want to pay it forward is the best life and job search hack I know. Like anything in life, success depends on taking the right actions. The most effective way to identify which actions you should take to reach your job search goals is to listen to the right people, which doesn’t include those who make a living selling their unguaranteed service(s) to job seekers.

Speaking from experience, advice and guidance from the right people (read: being selective) is invaluable. Investing time in the right people is far more beneficial and less expensive than spending money on someone who hasn’t been there or done that.

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Nick Kossovan, a well-seasoned corporate veteran, offers “unsweetened” job search advice. Send Nick your job search questions to artoffindingwork@gmail.com.