"I Am Worth the Investment": What Yui Hashimoto knows that ChatGPT doesn't
Why do people look for career coaches? Long story short: We don’t appear to know. But Yui Hashimoto knows why she looked for one, and her answer is good enough for me.
Why do people look for Career Coaches? I’ve recently started to mull over whether there is a difference between why we say people look for career coaches, and what they themselves say. In doing the research, I found lots of very good articles that explain why someone would want to look for a career coach. For example, here is a list from ChatGPT.
Clarity and Direction
Career Transition
Skill Development (communications, leadership, time management,...)
Job Search and Networking
Work-Life Balance
Confidence and Self-Esteem
Interview Preparation
Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development
Leadership Development
Personal Branding
While this is surely a good list to start with, it didn’t answer the question of why people actually sought a career coach. The answer from ChatGPT is so inscrutable that I cannot tell whether this is a list of what a collection of career coaches market themselves as offering or whether the answer is based on real evidence of what clients are willing to pay get help with.
I was particularly interested in learning what were the top drivers that led a client to seek a coach. I was looking for actual studies that can help us understand x% came seeking work-life balance, y% looking for leadership development. Knowing this would allow me to improve my marketing and better prepare for what clients might actually want.
But ChatGPT could not help me with that:
Me: Are there research papers that show this?
ChatGPT While I don't have direct access to databases or specific research papers, I can guide you on where to find relevant studies on the benefits of career coaching. Academic databases, journals, and publications in fields such as psychology, human resources, and career development often explore the effectiveness of coaching interventions.
ChatGPT went on to say that “my responses are based on a synthesis of general knowledge, industry trends, and common motivations reported in the field of career development.” In other words, ChatGPT could not cite primary sources, and was really unable to answer my question. (Authors Note: I may have been dealing with a limitation in the version of ChatGPT I was using. If I were a better prompt engineer or perhaps using a later version, I may have been able to get ChatGPT to cite some sources.)
Enough dissing ChatGPT, though it really is fun. I searched the general JSTOR research database, and some coaching journals, but my efforts were fruitless. Lots of articles on best practices for coaches, how they help specific groups (college students, underprivileged groups, etc), measuring outcomes, but I found no study on what led individuals to seek a coach in the first place.
—
As part of doing the research, I stumbled onto an excellent piece of writing from Yui Hashimoto called “‘I am worth the investment’: A good career coach changed my life.”
Yui describes herself as a researcher, evaluator, and mentor for social justice. But she started out as an unhappy academic.
In spring 2021, I was utterly lost, burned out, stressed, anxious, and depressed. I was not having any luck finding stable, permanent employment in the profession in which I had spent so long training and working. I was quickly approaching the career cliff edge where I had no idea if I was staying or leaving. I had had a few nibbles at postdocs and tenure track jobs but no full bites. Most importantly, I had had no bites with anything permanent. I was getting desperate, and desperate people often make rash decisions. I wanted to avoid that at all costs.
Yui recognized she needed help from outside her normal circle, and was lucky to have a friend and mentor suggest she get a career coach.
Her article goes on to discuss what a career coach is, how to find one, and what she wanted and needed from a coach. She also links to her interview on her coach’s podcast, during which she goes in depth on what she got from coaching.
The part of career coaching I found most effective was pinpointing my inner critics and myths I believed and grieving the career I thought I wanted. I needed to focus on how I thought about my life and my career, and how they kept me stuck.
The last part of the article discusses cost. Let me just say that I was a little shocked by some of the prices she saw quoted. I’m cheaper. That said, she concludes that a career coach is an investment, not an expense:
Really ask yourself if it’s the actual cost (because the cost is real when you’re making poverty wages) that holds you back or some kind of narrative about feeling undeserving. If it’s your inner critic telling you you don’t deserve a coach or that it’s frivolous, you have your answer right there.
So I still don’t know why people really search for a career coach, but I have an idea of who can benefit from having me as a career coach.
I can divide this into three categories:
Transitional: You’re unhappy in your current job or career. Maybe you are stressed out or seeking better work-life balance.
Fulfillment You are not looking for a complete change, but you are looking to boost your performance or bring more commitment to your current role.
Boost: You are looking to enhance your skills, to be a better leader or manager, to take on new, bigger projects.
I don’t bring resume writing skills to the table. I won’t help you be a better public speaker (well, I will, but not in the way you think!). I won’t suggest you switch from law to working for a climate change non-profit. That’s not what I do.
In Yui’s words, I am a coach who is “more akin to a career therapist, helping you figure out the bigger picture questions like ‘what do you want from your career?’, ‘what’s important to your life?’, and ‘how can I get out of this work rut?’” Though I’d be careful to distinguish myself from an actual therapist, who can help you with real trauma or mental health conditions.
What I actually do, in all cases, is work with clients, and ask them several critical questions:
What do you want to discuss?
What do you want to achieve in our meeting today?
How will we know we've been successful by the end of the session? In other words, what will be our measure(s) of success?
Why is achieving this goal important to you?
What do you believe you need to address or resolve in order to achieve your goal?
That’s called the coaching agreement, and sets the stage for every conversation.
Beyond that, my role is to ask powerful open-ended questions that help the client identify their own inner critics and myths (to use Yui’s words), and help the client figure out how to move beyond these blocks. A good coach is a deep listener, non-judgmental, and follows the client's lead rather than leading the client into their own topics or ideas.
But coming back to why clients seek career coaches in the first place. The specific reason may not matter, except as a marketing ploy. The real key is that the client wants something else or something more, recognizes a coach can help, and understands that they are worth the investment.
—
I myself hired a coach. I originally reached out to Karrie O'Connor because what she was saying on LinkedIn resonated with me. But I wasn’t looking for coaching. Instead, I was looking for a little mentorship on how I could break into coaching.
At the time, I was still bruised from losing a job I really loved, and was struggling to think about what I wanted to do next in technology, my career for nearly 40 years. I woke up one day in June having the realization that I’ve enjoyed mentoring so much that I’d like to go deeper, and work as a coach. Things moved quickly.
Karrie pitched coaching me. I said yes, more because I was interested in seeing what it was like to be coached and because I enjoyed talking to Karrie than because I was looking for coaching. At the time, I didn’t realize I was in a career transition (I was looking for another full-time gig in tech). As Karrie would try to tell me over and over, when you are open to possibilities, the universe rewards you. She had a very particular way of convincing me of this, which I will no doubt use in the future.
Karrie: Think of a time in the past when something really great happened to you.
Craig: (thinking) Something great happened to me?
Karrie (paraphrasing): Don’t be a wise ass.
Craig: Ok, Ok, got one.
Karrie: What bit of serendipity led to that great outcome:
Over and over again, I realized that the great things that happened to me in my life were almost always due to me being open to an unexpected opportunity. Sure, it takes work and preparation to be ready for an opportunity, but in the spirit of “you can’t control outcomes”, being open and ready for that opportunity is the key.
The universe opened up to me again at this time. Without realizing it, I had hired a coach who specialized in career transition.
Karrie’s program lasted about three months. In those three months, I discussed every angle of my fears about the transition to career coach - from work-related to life and identity. As introspective as I am naturally, it was a revelation to see how a coach can open your mind, reveal your self-limiting beliefs, and help you create a plan to progress beyond those beliefs. I created new rules that I live by, and in doing so, profited many times over on my investment in myself.
So thank you Yui, not only for a good read, but for providing the answer that ChatGPT could not:
People search for Career Coaches because they finally decide they are worth the investment.
