Career coaches can add great value to your life, the amount of value depends on your personal situation and the amount of help you believe is needed. Prices range from anywhere from £50 to £500+ an hour. There are important factors to consider to get the most value from your coach; what are they?

What do they do and is the price worth it?

The purpose of a career coach is to help you choose a career pathway. They will do this via various and advice to help you get on the route which will support your ambitions. These tactics vary from coach to coach so ultimately the only person able to decide on the value they are able to add is you, however, there are some important factors and questions you can ask and take into consideration when deciding on how and where the value can be added. One important factor, and this apply to any professional, is not to use up the time of the coach pre-purchase of the service on unnecessary detail, if you are seen as overly hard work then this may drive up the price offered!

Has the coach had similar experiences to you?

A career coaches value is best summed up by looking at their history, this can be in the form of their CV, LinkedIn, website portfolio. Asking them directly is also a suitable step, likely with better results, as by you sharing your issues and history the career coach will try to relate their experiences to showcase their knowledge and potential value. A career coaches ability to help you will be linked from them understanding your past experiences while also taking into account accepted knowledge from the industry and their own experiences on what can best help you.

Is the coach ahead of you in their career stage

A career coach often draws on their own experiences, it stands to reason that the further on in your career path the further on they need be to provide specific advice. This of course will typically dictate the price; if you are beginning your career the value of the career advice will require a less experienced coach, however, if you are a person looking for senior leadership coaching you will require a specialised, much more experienced, professional to get the added value required. This may seem intuitive however a common occurrence in people new to searching for a career coach is that paying more will always yield better results, this only tends to be the case in complex situations.

Has the coach had success in the past?

A long history of success is a good measure of coach value, a portfolio of stories that can solidify the potential value to be had. The cost of a coach is often linked to the size of their portfolio and number of success stories. This value "scale" should be evaluated as part of your process, high experience and high cost vs low experience and low cost. Often for the majority of situations a "happy medium" is ideal, not only are you gaining cost effective value from the process but also the career coach, who is looking to improve their portfolio, is motivated to offer you the best service (and they have enough experience to justify the decision to use them).

Do you need a career coach?

At the end of the day a simple calculation is possible, sometimes it's in the difference between the value added to your daily salary and the cost of the service, other times it might be the improvements in your lifestyle or mental health. It is important to notice that career coaches will often use tooling which you can purchase online and get the benefit from - sometimes people see this as a cost effective alternative. A career coaches value is the 3rd party perspective they can give, being able to draw out the information you provide to them in personal meetings and match with other information you provide, providing tips and insight which will help solve your issue. Sometimes it is advisable to find a happy medium, which is what the tools on Weavee are designed to help you do. Only you will know the true path however a simple sum is possible, if the cost of the service is half the potential value add (either money, health, relations etc), then why not use a career coach?