Career Coaching Programme Overview

Step 1: Understanding Yourself

You are the most important factor in your career.

Reflecting where you are now will help you focus on where you wish to be in the future, and plan how to get there. You can complete coaching exercises to find answers to the following questions:

1. What do I value?

2. When am I at my best?

3. What are my top strengths and skills?

4. How proactive am I at managing my career?

Step 2: Consider where you want to be

**Do you have a clear career direction with milestones?**

Or are you following a vague direction and keeping your options open? Or maybe you're somewhere in between?

Whatever your approach to your career, there are times when you'll need to make decisions about your next career move.You can do coaching exercises to draw out your thoughts on the kind of role you would like and what is important to you. These exercises will explore:

1. What do I want from a role?

2. What are my short term goals?

3. What are my long term goals?

Step 3: Research the possibilities

Once you've got a better understanding of yourself and what you want from your career, it's time to start researching what's possible.

Whether you're thinking about what career you should choose, or trying to decide between options to move you along your career path, it's a good idea to do as much research as you can so that you make an informed decision.You can then put an action plan together for researching your career possibilities and the outcomes from your research. The plan will cover:

- Key research actions

- When will I achieve this by?

- Outcomes

Step 4: Clarify your options

You know yourself, you are clear on your short and long-term aims, and you have done research on areas of interest. Now is the time to narrow down your options and think seriously about which you are most keen on. How realistic are they and what do you need to do to move them forwards?

You'll capture your reflections during coaching sessions on the following questions:

1. Which options appear to meet most of my criteria?

2. Which options meet most of my important criteria?

3. What could I do to improve the score in my current/last role if staying in this industry/role were a desirable option?

Step 5: Taking Action - How can you get to where you want to be?

Once you've made your decision, it's time to put it into action.

Your career plan will help you do this. You'll explore:

1. What are my learning needs?

2. What is my personal brand?

3. What is my elevator pitch?

Once you've reflected on where you want to get to, it's time to create some milestones and put an action plan in place. This plan can cover 1 month, 3 month, 6 month and 1 year milestones dependent on your desired personal timeframe.

The plan will describe:

1. The milestone

2. How will I achieve it?

3. What support/new knowledge will I need?

4. Whose support will I need?

5. What will success look like?