How to Get the Right Help at the Right Time in Your Career!

Rev-1: June 21, 2010

Recently, I wrote an article about the seven points of inflection through one’s career lifecycle (my May 20th Blog).  As a career coach I often get asked if I also mentor my clients. When I ask them to explain what that means, the most common answer I get is a bit curious: “I have been told and I read often that for one to advance their career they must have a mentor. I never had one, so would you be my mentor, please?”

This article is about my perspective on the various resources that are available as one navigates through different phases of their career and what role a mentor can play in one’s career. This article is also about other types of help available and what their roles are in different parts of one’s career.

So, when someone approaches me to be their mentor, in response, I ask them what particular challenge they are facing in their career. What I get, in turn, is typically their immediate challenge to overcome a particular career obstacle, such as getting that next promotion or getting that assignment that will make their résumé bloom. What they fail to realize is that although a mentor can provide that guidance, a career coach can be much more effective in providing that immediate answer that is actionable. A mentor may be able to provide some guidance, but is not always expected to give them an action plan that will take them there. Although I provide both sets of expertise, I want my clients to be clear about the kind of help that is appropriate for their specific needs.

One factor that is critical to a better understanding of a mutual relationship is that a mentor-mentee bond must be built over time with their interactions typically less transactional than they would be with their career coach. Mentors have the knowledge and the wisdom to understand and to deal with their mentee’s situation, but they often lack the delivery skill and the process that make their knowledge and wisdom actionable in ways that the mentee can benefit. Without that express skill and the mentee’s savvy to internalize that guidance in a specific situation, the advice, applied in a misguided way can backfire; mentees often lack the skills to translate the inputs they get from the mentor to make them usable in an effective way. They need more hand holding than that is available in a typical mentor-mentee relationship. So, if you have a burning career issue and you need quick guidance, a career coach, not a mentor, is your best option.

As I reflect on my initial conversations with my prospects and my clients, I am compelled to ponder the basic question: How many people really know the difference between the various resources that are available to career professionals in advancing their career and in getting the right guidance?

There are five different resources that can guide a person through their life/career needs: therapist, career counselor, career coach, life coach, and mentor. Although there can be considerable overlap in different resources, their mainstay function is what is relevant in seeking the right help. So, each one has a unique role in how they can help:

Therapist: A therapist is a licensed professional, who is most effective when one is stuck in their past. If we are looking at two categories of people, one dysfunctional and the other, functional, then a therapist can help a dysfunctional person become whole with therapy. Sometimes, the dysfunction does not always come from unresolved issues, but it is a dysfunction stemming from lack of basic skills. In such a case some basic training and education can be a good start. Therapy has mostly to do with unresolved issues that a person is not able to get past and move ahead as a fully functional being. So, if what happened in your past life remains unresolved and you must move past that, a therapist can be the right person. Seeing a career coach without seeing a therapist in some cases can be counterproductive, even harmful. So, to summarize, a therapist can help you with your Yesterday!

Career counselor: A career counselor is a degreed professional (a degree in career counseling, often followed by a license or a state certificate) who helps their clients in career selection. Typically, high-school or college students meet a career counselor, where they go through a battery of standard tests to help the counselor understand their aptitudes and learning preferences in how they can apply their knowledge and skills in a given profession. This is, of course, not an exact science, so a counselor’s assessment cannot be taken as a definitive guidance in choosing a lifelong career. You must insert your own judgment into the process to make this useful. Career counselors deal with the “here and now.” They usually cannot predict how a given profession is going to continue over a person’s life span, nor can they predict how economic forces will morph the need for that profession.

The US Department of Labor publishes its Occupational Outlook Handbook that compiles projections of different job categories and their future landscape and their earning potential, including demand/supply projections over time. Working with a career counselor, reading the OOH, and then talking to a few professionals engaged in the career of your interest can be a good combination for gathering useful information for you to decide how to move forward. The final choice must be yours and not anyone else’s, including those of your parents and relatives!

In other countries resources available to understand similar projections are unknown to me, so if any of my international readers are willing to share what they know I’d be happy to include that in the blog. Please use the Comments section to provide that input.

Career Coach: In general coaching refers to the activity of a coach in developing the abilities of their clients. Metaphorically, a coach takes their client from where they are now to their desired destination (a carriage or a horse-drawn coach is just that!), including a short jaunt. Coaching tends to focus on the achievement by clients of a goal or a specific skill. Methodologies for coaching are positioned away from the directive or the facilitative and rest on accompanying clients within a dialog that will allow emerging patterns and solutions to surface. If the coach also has the expertise needed to analyze the different possibilities the client uncovers as they dialog, the coaching process can be even more effective in guiding the client to a specific course of action by their avoiding trial and error. Coaching belongs on the scale between mentoring and training on the one end, and psychotherapy and counseling on the other.

There are many applications of coaching ranging from sport, to business, to niches such as divorce or motivational speaking. Sessions may be either one-on-one or in a group setting, in-person, or over the telephone, or by electronic means.

Today, coaching is a recognized discipline used by many professionals engaged in human development focused on achieving results. Although there are certifications in specific areas of coaching by accredited institutions, most coaching professionals operate in an unregulated environment.

Career coaching is one aspect of this profession to be discussed in this article.

A career coach is an experienced professional, who has the pulse of the current job market and who understands how to work with a client and translate what they need to change to move in the right direction with minimum trial and error. A career coach can provide valuable guidance during a career transition (as from a job loss), navigating through one’s career challenges (stuck career, dealing with a bad boss, etc), and selecting a right course of action when there are alternate choices that are confusing. Although some career coaches provide assessments and show clients what their options might be in moving forward, sessions that result from using such tools are usually not valuable to the client in decisively moving forward. They are also often a waste of time and money! A good career coach is quickly able to grasp your immediate career challenge and to provide help to move ahead with confidence. In summary, a career coach helps you with your Today!

Mentor: A mentor is an accomplished professional who has interest in sharing their wisdom gained from their years of experience in dealing with situations in both their personal and professional lives. Good mentors also have a broad view of how to deal with personal and professional challenges and can guide their mentees (although mentee is the preferred term, an alternate term is protégé) in navigating through some of these challenges. Mentors often lack the detailed knowledge of how their mentees can use what they are recommending or suggesting so that the mentees can utilize their wisdom in advancing their career or in solving a particular problem they are dealing with. One reason for this limitation is that a typical mentor has just one or two mentees that they are helping at any time.

A career coach, on the other hand, has a much richer experience with different clients (often, thousands) to know what specific action plans can work in each situation. Because a career coach’s effectiveness lies in how they codify their varied experience with many clients in formulating an action plan for their clients and then delivering it in a customized way, they often spend much time and effort in making their knowledge and practice principles easy to understand and implement for their clients. A mentor does not always share this obligation.

So, although a mentor brings rich knowledge in the mentor-mentee relationship, it is up to the mentee to translate that exchange into terms that become actionable and useful in the mentee’s context. This is not always easy because mentees lack the experience that the mentors have in making the advice practicable. In most cases, a mentee is operating in their state of “unconscious incompetence,”(they do not know what they don’t  know) so, when their mentor suggests a course of action that is obvious, for the mentee making that workable can be a challenge.   Yet, despite this ostensible limitation mentors are good at showing long-term vision to their mentees and in giving guidance about how to deal with some of the challenges that they are likely to encounter in the future. In summary, a mentor helps with your Tomorrow!

It is important to appreciate the differences between instructing, coaching, and mentoring. Instructing deals largely with the dissemination of knowledge. While coaching deals primarily with skill building, a mentor is one who helps shape the outlook or attitude of the individual for a better tomorrow! A mentor often inspires with new possibilities, whereas a career coach can show you how to seize the ones that appeal to you the most. If you carry the previous metaphor of the coach as a physical carriage, then the mentor illuminates the path that you are using to go where the coach is taking you! Mentoring is thus providing a lighted path to the mentee for their future success. A coach would help out with work and career related issues, providing specific tools and guidance to help their client navigate through today’s challenges. A mentor, on the other hand, would focus on issues pertaining to career and life, mostly helping their mentee avoid some of the obstacles that the mentor has conquered or has recognized as their own learning evolved. Mentoring can also potentially promote spiritual development, without injecting their personal religious beliefs.

There are two main mentoring relationships: formal and informal. Informal relationships develop on their own between partners. Formal mentoring, on the other hand, refers to a structured process supported by the organization and addressed to target audiences. Youth mentoring programs assist at-risk children or youth who lack role models and sponsors. In business, formal mentoring is part of talent management addressed to populations such as key employees, newly hired graduates, high potentials, and future leaders (this is where the appropriate noun is protégé). In formal mentoring, matching of mentor and mentee is done by each choosing the partner in order to avoid creating a forced and inauthentic relationship.

There are formal mentoring programs that are values-oriented, while social mentoring and other types can also focus specifically on career development. Some mentorship programs provide both social and vocational support. In well-designed formal mentoring programs, there are program goals, schedules, training (for both mentors and mentees), and evaluation.

There are many kinds of mentoring relationships from school or community-based relationships to e-mentoring relationships. These mentoring relationships vary and can be influenced by the type of mentoring relationship that is in effect. Mentoring relationships can develop under a cloning model, nurturing model, friendship model, and apprenticeship model. The cloning model is about the mentor trying to “produce their duplicate copy.” The nurturing model takes more of a parent figure, creating a safe, open environment in which mentee can both learn and try things for on their own. The friendship model is more based on a peer relationship rather than being involved in a hierarchical relationship. Lastly, the apprenticeship model is about less personal or social aspects and the professional relationship is the sole focus (here, again, the correct usage is protégé).

It is not unusual for one professional to have several mentors at any given time. Each relationship provides specific guidance (career advancement, professional expertise, general counsel, and just wisdom from having lived a varied and rich life!). It is, however, rare for one to have more than one career coach at the same time.

Life Coach: Life coaching is a practice with the aim of helping clients determine and achieve personal goals (these may not include career or professional goals). Life coaches select from among several methods to help clients set and reach personal goals. Life coaches are neither therapists nor consultants; psychological intervention and business analysis are outside the scope of their engagement. Life coaching has its roots in executive coaching, which drew on techniques developed in leadership training. Often, a Life Coach is a cheerleader, inspiring their clients with frequent doses of motivation to keep their spirits up and to keep their focus on the goal at hand. The coach may apply mentoring, values assessment, behavior modification, behavior modeling, goal setting, and other techniques, including the use of their own tools that they have developed as a repertoire in their profession, in helping their clients. Since life coaching can be viewed as an intervention sought to improve quality of life and for increasing the effectiveness of available resources to the client, it is also seen as something that helps their client in their today for a better tomorrow! More importantly, a good life-coaching intervention can take a person to higher levels of personal actualization than is possible on their own.

Good help, as one needs it in different phases of their life and career, is difficult to get. But, having the clarity on the type of help one most needs can be a good start in avoiding the ones that are less likely to be useful and a waste of time and money!