How To Become a Successful Career Coach | Start Your Business

The career coaching industry was worth about $2.5 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow to $6.8 billion by 2032. That’s an annual growth rate of 11.2%!

Yet, how do you become a successful career coach? To answer your question, we gathered insights from professional coaches on how they started their own journey. And to help you get a better outlook on how you can monetize your career coaching skills from a business perspective, we included examples of professional career coaches you can get inspired from. 

In this article, you are about to find out:

• Who are career coaches, and what do they do?
• Does career coaching enjoy high demand?
• What are the main steps you can take to become a career coach?
• How much can you potentially earn?
• What are successful examples of career coaching businesses?

Let’s get all your questions and doubts answered step-by-step. 

Who is a career coach? 

First, let’s understand what coaching is. 

In his book “Coaching for Performance” John Whitmore, one of the pioneers of the executive coaching industry, mentions:

“Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them”.

- John Whitmore

Career coaching is a process of guidance and support from the coach to the individual to help them grow professionally or change career paths. For example, career coaches help clients prepare for interviews, get a promotion, become more self-aware, and negotiate job offers. 

If someone is feeling stuck or uncertain about their career path, you'll guide them through exploration and decision-making processes, providing encouragement and support along the way. Essentially, you will also act as a counselor.  

Your clients may be at different stages of their careers. Some may want to land their first job, while others may want to get better results at the job they are currently pursuing. How do you help them as a career coach? What are your responsibilities?

What do I do as a career coach? 

As a career coach, your main responsibility is to help individuals identify their career goals and develop strategies to achieve them. You guide them through exploring career options, assessing their skills and interests, and making informed decisions about their career paths.

Depending on what you want to specialize in as a career coach, your responsibilities will differ, including:

• Helping people navigate career transitions
• Advise which career path will be better to take and which one to avoid
• Help with creating CVs, bios, setting up a LinkedIn profile
• Practice skills, such as interview skills
• Create an action plan for them to get where they want
• Assist them in finding a suitable job
• Encourage them to take control of their career 

And the list goes on! 

What kind of jobs you can do as a career coach? 

As a career coach, you have so many opportunities to monetize your expertise or grow your business. 

One way to earn money is through one-on-one coaching. This is the most direct way to help people. You work with clients, listen to their struggles, and guide them toward better jobs, higher salaries, or more fulfilling careers. Some coaches charge per session, while others create coaching packages. For example, you could offer a three-month coaching program where clients pay for a full career transformation.

If working with one client at a time feels slow, you can coach in groups. You get several people in a Zoom call or a room and teach them career strategies together. 

Maybe you love writing. In that case, you can create digital products. This could be an ebook on how to land a six-figure job. It could be a resume template pack. It could be a video course that walks people through salary negotiations. You make the product once, put it online, and sell it over and over. This means you can make money while you sleep.

Another option is to get hired by a company as an in-house career coach. Big companies want their employees to grow. They want people to stay motivated. You can work for them and help their teams develop career plans. Some companies hire career coaches full-time. Others bring them in for workshops or short-term contracts.

If you enjoy speaking, you can get paid to do workshops or talks. Universities, business conferences, and networking events love to bring in experts. You can teach job seekers how to improve their LinkedIn profiles. You can help new graduates prepare for job interviews. If you become known for your advice, you can charge high fees to speak at these events.

If you love helping people but do not want to coach full-time, you can offer resume writing and LinkedIn profile optimization. Many people do not know how to sell themselves. You can fix their resumes, write their cover letters, and make their LinkedIn profiles look professional. Some career coaches make great money just by helping people look good on paper.

You can start with one-on-one coaching and later build passive income streams. You can decide what fits your personality and lifestyle.

Are career coaches in demand? 

Yes, career coaches are in demand. Overall, career coaching is a $15.4 billion industry. People are constantly looking for new opportunities; they always want to get better at their jobs. Let’s just take a look at the search volume of keywords, such as

• Career Coaching 
• Online career coaching
• Career coach

The search volume of all three extends 10K. 

If we are looking at the demand for career coaching, the statistics show the following:

• 22% of employees are actively involved in career coaching programs
• 82% of employees think that career coaching benefits their career
• Most Americans and 68% of HR professionals believe that getting a job is more and more difficult. So, there are more people who need career guidance.

But how do you become a career coach? That is what we will look at next. 

How do I become a career coach? 

Here is what you need to do to become a career coach. First, get official training on it. Then, clarify your niche, figure out what your program is going to be like, market your services, and find your first paying clients. 

Sounds like a lot of work! Let’s get deeper into each of these steps. 

Step 1: Get official training 

“If you want to be a coach, if you want to use coaching skills, and definitely if you want to help people with their mindset and habit change, having some kind of formal qualification and training will really make you stand out.” 

Ruth Kudzi,

CEO of Optimus Coach Academy

One of the most common questions asked is “Do I need a certification to start career coaching?”. The short answer to this is NO. Yet, should you get a certification or run an official training program? YES! 

If you are all set on becoming a professional career coach, obtaining a subsequent certification would be a good idea. The requirements or degrees you need to become a career coach vary from country to country. 

You may be required to complete a training program and pass the examination. Your program can take from days to months to complete. If you already have a degree in psychology, human resources, or business administration, that will definitely play to your advantage. 

Here are some popular training programs for career coaches you want to consider. Before picking one, make sure it is recognizable in your country or at least accredited by the International Coaching Federation (ICF). 

• Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC) courses start from 12 weeks, and pricing starts at $1195. 
• Certification program offered by the University of Columbia, tuition starts at $8500. 
• Global Career Development Facilitator, (GCDF),with course length of 120 hours and pricing starting at $1400. 

You should note that getting a certification does not make you instantly successful. The training program teaches you how to coach. Yet, you also need to know how to run a coaching business, which is a completely different story. 

Step2: Improve your career coaching skills 

As a career coach, you will be required to hone your coaching skills regularly. Even if you have completed a one-year immersive career coaching program, working on your skills constantly is still necessary.  

First, let’s see what soft skills you should start working on:

• Holding a coaching presence. What a professional career coach does in the first place is to listen. To help your clients achieve their goals you will need to understand what their problems are. And the best way to do that is by listening. 
• Being patient yet responsive. As a career coach, you are not required to offer instant advice right on the spot. You should rather take everything into consideration before offering an action plan. This point is totally related to the previous one. 
• Asking questions. Questions are a powerful tool that helps you to discover more about your client, their wants, goals and expectations. The exact questions you are going to ask usually differ from client to client. 
• Empathy. Do you find yourself an empathetic person? It is definitely going to help you on your way to becoming a great career coach. 

Besides the soft skills, there are some other skills specific to career coaches. For example, you should have a great understanding of the following:

• Career ladder
• Career trajectories
• Modern day careers
• Finding and preparing for the job
• Developing and sharpening skills

Step 3: Niche down 

The reason you want to niche down is to figure out:

• Who do you serve? 
• What transformation will you help them achieve? 

Finding your specific niche is the first step of Cindy Makita-Dodd’s C.A.R.E.S. framework. Here C stands for Clarifying your niche. Cindy has built her 6-figure career coaching business, and here is what she recommends:

“Ask yourself, who am I better equipped to serve? Maybe you climbed the corporate ladder fast, and you want to help others in your industry do the same. Maybe you have conducted thousands of interviews in the HR space, and you want to help career professionals sharpen their interview skills and land jobs faster.”

- Cindy Dodd,

Career coach, Co-founder at PEMA

So, your goal at this stage is to understand what pain point you are solving for your client and when they can address you. The most common niches in career coaching you might want to specialize in include the following:

• Career transition coaching
• Job search coaching
• Leadership development coaching
• Performance Coaching
• Career development coaching
• Student and graduate coaching
• Entrepreneurial coaching 
• Personal branding coaching, etc. 

Take your time to find out what you are better at and what your clients may be needing the most. And now, we are moving to the next step. 

Step 4: Develop your career coaching program and set the price 

Now, it is time to develop coaching materials. As a coaching program, it must remain flexible. 

However, you must still have a certain structure, session plan, and of course, materials and assessments to utilize throughout the program. 

So, write down an approximate plan for the program and also create goals for each session. Make sure that the program you developed at the end contributes and allows participants to achieve the mentioned learning outcomes and goals. 

And how long should your coaching program last? We recommend you start with a 3-month program package. 

There are certain career assessments you can include in your program. 

• MAPP career assessment. It provides a unique assessment profile to find a suitable career, in case your client is not aware of what field they want to start/change their careers. 
• Career resources questionnaire. This questionnaire will help individuals (e.g., those who want to grow professionally in their career) identify their strengths, shortcomings, and challenges that stand in the way or promote their chances of professional growth. 

There are many other assessments, and you may also create your own. Keep in mind to keep track of clients’ progress to be able to provide them with constructive feedback, which will essentially allow them to grow further. 

Now, the most important question comes in: how do I price my career coaching program in a way that doesn’t price the fine line between charging too much and charging too little? 

There are three main ways to set up a price for your program:

• Hourly rate, where your clients pay by the hour
• Monthly rate, where a client is paying you a fixed amount of money every month
• Package-based, meaning where the clients pay for the whole program 

One of the most recommended ways to price is by charging for the package. The reason for this is that your clients will perceive it as an exchange of their money for the result and not just your working time. 

And if you are thinking about what can be the perfect price for your program, we will disappoint you by saying the perfect pricing doesn’t exist. What Mick Rutjes, a life and spiritual coach, recommends you do is just pick a price you feel most comfortable with. 

As a beginner career coach with no prior experience or any certification you might even start with charging nothing for your services. To give you a better idea, you can offer hourly sessions ranging from $65 up to $250. And if you are charging for the whole package, the prices can start at $1000. 

Step 5: Make your services stand out

The next step is to do market research to find your target audience. 

In order to complete proper market research, you can:

• Complete surveys & interviews
• Focus groups
• Customer observation. 

Market research will help you to

• Understand who is your target market 
• Segment your target market and create buyer personas based on it
• Understand who your competitors are, their strengths and weaknesses
• Come up with your USP 
• Create appropriate marketing strategy and tactics 
• Avoid business-related failures and set your strategy up for success.

So, make sure to dedicate appropriate time and resources for proper research. 

Also, do not forget to complete a careful competitive analysis. 

Throughout the market research strategy, identify who your competitors are. Then, start analyzing data gathered on them. That data will help you to understand competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. It will also help you to see where your competitor’s strategy worked and failed. 

With proper competitor analysis, you will also gain valuable insights into your target market. 

Step 6: Get your first clients 

To answer the question “How can I get my first clients?” you should first answer “How will my clients learn about me and how great I am?”.

This means you will need to establish a strong online presence. As you set up your profiles on different social media platforms, you can:

• Share with your network that you started a career coaching program.
• Attract coaching clients through platforms like LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or any other app by posting helpful content and updates regularly.
• Attend online and offline networking events, join other coaches, and expand your network of professionals. 

You can share a simple message, saying:

I started a new career coaching program with a focus on (what you promise). 

I would like to help people who are looking to:

• Results or solutions your clients want 1
• Results and solution your clients want 2
• Results and solutions your clients want 3

If you know someone who is interested, I would be happy to offer a 20-minute free consultation. 

Also, do not forget to share your calendar link, so that they can book a meeting with you. As your potential clients join the consultation, ask them how they liked the experience. Finally, offer them to continue the collaboration with your 3-month coaching program. 

Pro Tip: At this stage, you do not want to focus on the number of your social media following list or your email subscribing list. What matters most is the engagement. Quality over quantity, that’s it! 

Once you get your first clients, start collecting their testimonials. As your clients achieve the transformation, present their case studies on your coaching website and social media. 

“There is nothing more powerful than social proof, testimonials, and reviews. So, for those people who are involved in your program, you want to collect their success stories, demonstrate the transformation you helped them achieve, and use these testimonials in your branding material.”

Cindy Dodd,

Career coach, Co-founder at PEMA

Here are examples of her testimonials. 

In the same way, you can include testimonials from your emails or other social app messages. 

Career coaching business examples to get inspired from 

As you can see, starting your career coaching business is completely worth it. Let’s look at some examples that will give you a better outlook on the industry and help you on the way to becoming a career coach. 

Eliana Goldstein 

Eliana Goldstein is a career coach who focuses on helping millennials pivot in their career and take their careers to the next level. Her motivation to help people comes from her own story. Eliana claims that she went up the corporate ladder right after graduating. Yet, she was constantly questioning her ability to succeed.

When she started coaching, her goal became helping other millennials who have the same problems she had. 

Eliana runs her coaching business around:

• Coaching
• Courses
• Speaking 

Her coaching program includes 1:1 sessions with weekly assignments and practical steps toward career optimization. Yet, she offers a different program for those who are looking to get a new job and a new role. 

Key takeaways for your career coaching business

• Have a mini-course. A mini-course on a specific topic will help you validate your program idea and test the market before you can grow your career coaching business. For example, Eliana has a course on creating resumes and optimizing LinkedIn. 
• If you went through a similar path you now want to help the clients with, include your story. This way, people can relate to you and trust you as their career coach. 
• Within each program, focus only on one key problem. For example, you cannot help people upgrade their careers, get clear on what they want in their careers, and help them earn more all at the same time. Because all these are different problems, you would need different programs to address them. 
• Be very specific about who you help and how you help them. For example, Eliana’s target audience is people in their 30s. And she made a checklist of who exactly her programs are for. 

Rachel Hill 

Rachel Hill is a certified career coach who focuses on a very specific niche. She helps people at work who often feel stressed and have burn-outs. Achieving work-life balance is something most of us struggle with. And Rachel has a well-defined approach to helping people enjoy their work more. 

She uses self-leadership coaching practices, like neuro-axiology and NLP. On her website, she clearly explains how her approach works and who will benefit from her coaching program. 

Key takeaways for your career coaching business

• Offer a free consultation. This would be an excellent opportunity to get new leads easily. Plus, you would have a wonderful chance to get to know your clients on a deeper level and understand their problems better. 
• Include all your qualifications on your website to help build trust with new clients. You can also highlight successful stories from past clients. 
• Communicate what makes you unique and why your clients shall choose you. For example, Rachel has a defined approach to coaching and a very specific group of people she helps. 
• Start a newsletter. If you want to increase your client base, a free newsletter is an excellent way to do so. On the one hand, you guide people and offer a free value. On the other hand, they start trusting you over time and will be ready to enroll in one of your programs as they need it. 

Laura Berman Fortgang 

Laura Berman is a famous author, career reinvention coach, and life coach. She helps people who see a change in their lives, pursue a different path, and try something new yet do not know where to start. 

The main transformation she promises people in career and life is change. She shares her approach when it comes to change and why she knows how change feels like on her website. What she currently offers includes

• A self-study course
• Mentoring program
• Free resources on career and business

Key takeaways for your career coaching business

• Include free resources on your website. It can be your blog articles, or helpful and downloadable guides your potential clients can download and get something valuable from you. 
• Don’t be afraid to go out there and speak about what you do and who you help. For example, Laura is also famous for her Tedx Talks. She often gives speeches, appears on famous media shows, and helps people figure out what to do with their lives. 
• Mention the shows and collaborations you get. For example, if you work with some organizations and coach their employees, you can talk about them as your partners and foster trust. 
• Include contact forms where people and potential clients can reach out to you and mention all the ways you would prefer them to connect with you. 

Kathy Caprino

Kathy Caprino is a global career and leadership coach and consultant. She helps people who feel stuck in life and in their careers. Kathy offers programs in two fields, including professional development and improving executive skills. 

She has been featured in many world-famous journals and blogs. Her main promise is the breakthrough, where people can become more successful in their careers, discover their real potential, and leverage it to their advantage. 

Key takeaways for your career coaching business

• Create lead magnets and place them on your career coaching program website. For example, Kathy offers an eGuide for those who want to figure out what they want in life and how they can become happier with their career decisions.
• Include client testimonials. We have discussed several ways you can start building trust as a career coach, and testimonials are one of the greatest ways to do so. 
• Run a blog. At the beginning, you may not have hundreds of clients booking meetings with you. To achieve that, we first need to establish ourselves as a leader in our field, and blog articles are excellent for that. 
• Use AI to automate some of your processes or generate leads as your career coaching business grows. In Kathy’s case, she uses AI as a consulting tool, and people can chat with AI to get tips. This is a truly unique way to stand out, help your potential clients, and generate leads all at the same time. 

FAQ about career coaching

Throughout this section, we will answer the most common questions beginner coaches have related to career coaching. 

What challenges do career coaches face? 

Some of the challenges career coaches and consultants face include:

• The job market is evolving really fast. You will need to always stay updated on the changes to be able to provide relevant guidance to your clients.
• Addressing the emotional challenges from the clients’ side. You should not only provide practical guidance on resume writing, networking, and interview skills but also offer emotional support and encouragement to help clients overcome psychological barriers.
• Adapting your program for clients with different needs.  Clients may have diverse learning styles, personalities, and preferences. So, it is essential to always stay flexible in your approaches.

How to become a certified career coach? 

Becoming a certified career coach involves several steps. 

First, research different certification programs to find one that fits your needs and is accredited by the International Coaching Federation. Next, enroll in the chosen program and complete all required coursework. This may include learning about career development theories, coaching techniques, and ethics. After finishing the program, you will need to pass an exam to earn your certification. Once you've completed these steps and obtained your certification, you can start offering career coaching services to help others reach their professional goals. Remember, it's important to continuously update your skills and knowledge to provide the best support to your clients.

Do I need certification to become a career coach?

Yes and no at the same time. As with other coaching niches, you may consider getting a certification. Technically, you do not need one. However, the certification will allow you to increase your trust factor toward you. Also, to get a certification, you must complete a program that will make you a better and more efficient coach. 

How much can I earn as a career coach?

As a career coach, you can earn anywhere near $65K-110K  a year. 

You can offer hourly sessions ranging from $65 up to $250 (beginner coach). Also, you can offer wholesome programs consisting of 4, 8, 15, and 20 sessions. The typical price range for that program varies between $400 to $4000. 

As a beginner coach, you can price a program consisting of 8 sessions for $1500. If you find the first five clients, you will make $7500 during the first month. 

Also, you can consider long-term B2B collaborations where you work with teams. 

How to measure career coaching effectiveness?

There are a variety of methods and ways that will help you to measure the overall effectiveness of career coaching. Let’s take a look at some:

• Ask for feedback 
• Keep track of coachees' progress over time 
• Measure speed and the overall rate of goal attainment established during the first session of the program 
• Ask participants for self-reflections 
• Provide feedback that will allow participants to grow more 

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