How Can Career Coaching Help Me if I’m Not Currently Looking For a Job?

The other day I heard from a previous potential client. We had originally spoken last fall about his desire to look for another job, but then he decided to stay with his current company to try to make it work. Now he’s reaching back out because this approach hasn’t turned out as he’d hoped, and he’s now reconsidering career coaching.

Did you catch that? He wanted to try to make his current career situation better, yet originally declined career coaching. Does this make sense to you? Probably, if you’re like most people who think career coaching is only beneficial when conducting a job search. But it’s not.

In fact, career coaching is helpful for all aspects of your career, such as improving your current work situation so it’s less miserable, getting promoted or changing roles within your company, starting your own business, considering retirement or semi-retirement, and much more.

Trying to do any of this without the help of an expert is a lot to put on yourself. Why go it alone?

How career coaching can work

To illustrate this point, let me tell you about a client of mine. I’ll call her Kate. Kate first came to me because she was unhappy with the department she was in at her current company. She didn’t mesh well with her co-workers in this department, and she wasn’t getting to do the type of work she enjoyed most. But she also wasn’t ready to start a job search yet.

Over the course of Kate’s coaching package, we looked at various options for her. This included exploring whether she should consider a new job search or not. We also explored the feasibility of starting her own business.

But first, I helped Kate brainstorm ways to have conversations with her supervisor about the option of carving out a role more in line with her skills and passions. We worked on this throughout her coaching package.

While doing so, we also focused on how Kate could start her own business doing what she loves, first as a side hustle, then eventually as a full-time gig if nothing panned out or things didn’t improve at her current company.

Kate began taking the steps to start her own side gig, and then COVID hit. As a result, she had to table her business idea.

In this time, the conversations she’d been having with her supervisor, along with taking the initiatives I suggested she should take at her job, led to the ideal role for her in a different department at her current organization.

When I last saw Kate, she was much happier in this new capacity at her current company. She was thriving because she was working within her skill set, and with a new group of people who appreciated those skills.

Are you running from something, or running to something?

Kate still plans to grow her own business idea slowly in the form of a side hustle, in case she ever decides to go full-time with it. But she feels less pressure now to do so. This is because she started with career coaching prior to considering a job search, before she knew exactly what her next step should be.

Kate told me she’s glad she didn’t wait until she was so fed up at her current company that she decided to start a job search. She knew if she had, she’d be running away from something instead of running to something.

Don’t wait to get started with career coaching

Don’t wait until you’re desperately running away from something to talk with a career coach. If you do, you’ll probably find yourself running in all different directions, with no real direction at all.

Let paNASH help you find the direction of your next turn in your career path. Click here to get started and schedule a complimentary initial consultation.

Or, help yourself to some of paNASH’s online video tutorials. These will help you get your footing in your current situation and properly pace yourself for the next step.