avigating a career pathway is complex and constant. It begins around Preschool or Kindergarten with the age-old question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” From that point, it is shaped by socio-economic conditions, primary and secondary school educational offerings, occupational interest, formal or informal training and skill development, access to employment, and countless other variables.
A career pathway is not often linear or clearly defined, and it weaves in and around life experiences forcefully enough to move a person in unexpected directions. For many, opportunities are happenstance and decisions may be based on the advice of friends, family members, teachers, mentors, therapists, faith advisors, or others. This process may result in some level of success but is by no means consistent, equitable, or fact-based. For the nearly 70% of adults without a bachelor’s degree, many of them people of color, access to key employment opportunities is only half the battle, as their career pathways are hindered by systemic barriers that limit growth and economic mobility. These include discrimination based on gender, race, cultural background, and physical ability, as well as access to finances, childcare, primary language, location, transportation, housing and food, and much more. The impact of COVID-19 has exacerbated existing challenges and led to widespread economic upheaval. Many of the recent job losses will be permanent and those unemployed will be driven to seek out new opportunities, possibly in unfamiliar occupations or industries—all while having to find the money for food, bills, rent, and other urgent needs.
We cannot overcome these barriers or circumstances overnight, yet we can better navigate them with access to career coaching services, which provide the support needed to make informed decisions. A career coach is a professional who provides strategic guidance to a client—pinpointing moments along a career pathway and identifying key opportunities, successful points of transition, and supportive services to aid a client in persisting and persevering through employment, education, and life experiences. A career coach provides insight into industry and labor market information and draws on that knowledge as well as an understanding of an individual’s skill sets to determine next steps. The best career coaches quell the overwhelming feelings of discouragement and frustration with the process of navigating careers or training and motivate clients to take requisite action. The pandemic has upended many industries, making these services especially relevant now as those who are un/underemployed need to understand career options in a rapidly changing labor market, decide if they need to pursue training, determine what training makes sense, and ultimately seek out help in reconnecting to the labor market. Research has shown that coaching interventions help unemployed individuals get back to work faster and at higher wages.
The good news is that there are many places that offer career coaching services, including federally funded workforce centers (e.g. WorkOne Centers, America’s Job Centers, etc.), community-based organizations, and community colleges. Many of these facilities have transitioned to virtual coaching in order to better assist job seekers during the pandemic. The challenge? It is nearly impossible to get long-term, consistent advice throughout the career path journey. Here are a few reasons why:
- Many of these organizations operate in siloed environments, offer different incentive structures, and possess varying access to tools and resources, which has created inconsistent and sub-optimal outcomes for the workers they support.
- There is little clarity on the educational and skill requirements for career coaches. The role has evolved over time in part by absorbing some of the same essential functions of case managers, student support service providers, job developers, and career navigators. For some it may be unclear what career coaches do and what specifically they need to best succeed in their capacity.
- Career coaching often serves the purpose of immediate connection to employment or training. It is a transactional, shorter-term experience that solves for immediate barriers addressing an immediate need for work. This can lead to job seekers taking the first available opportunity and not fully considering future upskilling and career opportunities to move from “any job” to a “good or promising job.” This emphasis on immediate employment can lead to job seekers re-entering the unemployment system due to a variety of factors such as skills mismatch, lack of interest, or a changing job landscape.
At Skillful, an initiative of the Markle Foundation focused on helping the nearly 70% of Americans without college degrees get good jobs based on the skills they have or the skills they can learn, we have been working with career coaches to help them better serve their clients. Now more than ever before, we see the valuable role coaches play in the labor market. Career coaches provide a critical human element in a job searching process that can be dehumanizing and difficult to navigate for many individuals. We want to shift the coaching experience so that a short-term transactional process becomes a connected and human-centered one, encouraging a life-long appreciation of the value career coaching relationships bring. Instead of coaches working alone in siloed environments, we aim to create coaching communities with networking, shared access to training, labor market data and insights, and mapping of supportive services. Baseline core competencies are established for the role of a career coach.
To fully support career coaches and enable this shift, we need to develop a cross-organization and sustainable model for life-long career coaching services and long-term relationship building with clients, and advocate for policies that expand access to career coaching.
Activities that could support this include:
- Improved training and support for coaches:
- Skillful is developing a virtual and accessible training program that establishes core competencies for coaches to become more skills-based, human-centered, and equity-driven.
- Organizations that employ or programs that support coaches provide one-to-one or group career coaching support to allow for growth in their profession and enhancement of their own skill sets.
- Increased access to coaching:
- Markle is raising the need for policies that result in hiring more coaches and providing funding to train coaches so that everyone who needs coaching services can have access to them. This is essential for quality, personalized interactions as demand for coaching services increases and capacity decreases due to the continuing impact of the pandemic.
- Creative application of technology to support life-long access to career coaching:
- Organizations that employ coaches utilize systems that automate basic information collection and/or the provision of self-guided activities. This enhances in-person guidance because automation creates more time for coaches to provide meaningful support to their clients rather than filling out paperwork or doing administrative tasks.
- Digital mapping of wraparound supportive services is essential because it allows workforce services platforms to identify all options available to meet that person’s needs. Taken a step further, a company can automate referrals to services provided by an outside organization.
- The development of AI-enabled coaching—to support, not replace, in-person coaching—as a function of the Learning and Employment Record is crucial. This technology is customized with check-in points and questions at various intervals of a person’s career pathway, providing 24/7 virtual coaching support and connection to in-person coaching services when needed.
- Improvement of performance systems and metrics:
- Organizations that employ coaches and federal and state systems that fund coaches should encourage performance systems and metrics that focus on long-term support rather than short-term placement, and require coaches to serve populations at rates proportional to the un/underemployed populations that are eligible for services in their community.
Targeted, meaningful support for career coaches and improved access to their services will help provide the foundation to build the more equitable, informed, and resilient workforce that our present and future deserve.
a global affairs media network
Lifelong Access to Coaching for a Resilient Workforce
August 14, 2020
Navigating a career pathway has always been complex and problematic, shaped by socioeconomic conditions, education, interest, access, discrimination, and countless other variables. COVID-19 has exacerbated these challenges, but a robust coaching system could help meet them.
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avigating a career pathway is complex and constant. It begins around Preschool or Kindergarten with the age-old question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” From that point, it is shaped by socio-economic conditions, primary and secondary school educational offerings, occupational interest, formal or informal training and skill development, access to employment, and countless other variables.
A career pathway is not often linear or clearly defined, and it weaves in and around life experiences forcefully enough to move a person in unexpected directions. For many, opportunities are happenstance and decisions may be based on the advice of friends, family members, teachers, mentors, therapists, faith advisors, or others. This process may result in some level of success but is by no means consistent, equitable, or fact-based. For the nearly 70% of adults without a bachelor’s degree, many of them people of color, access to key employment opportunities is only half the battle, as their career pathways are hindered by systemic barriers that limit growth and economic mobility. These include discrimination based on gender, race, cultural background, and physical ability, as well as access to finances, childcare, primary language, location, transportation, housing and food, and much more. The impact of COVID-19 has exacerbated existing challenges and led to widespread economic upheaval. Many of the recent job losses will be permanent and those unemployed will be driven to seek out new opportunities, possibly in unfamiliar occupations or industries—all while having to find the money for food, bills, rent, and other urgent needs.
We cannot overcome these barriers or circumstances overnight, yet we can better navigate them with access to career coaching services, which provide the support needed to make informed decisions. A career coach is a professional who provides strategic guidance to a client—pinpointing moments along a career pathway and identifying key opportunities, successful points of transition, and supportive services to aid a client in persisting and persevering through employment, education, and life experiences. A career coach provides insight into industry and labor market information and draws on that knowledge as well as an understanding of an individual’s skill sets to determine next steps. The best career coaches quell the overwhelming feelings of discouragement and frustration with the process of navigating careers or training and motivate clients to take requisite action. The pandemic has upended many industries, making these services especially relevant now as those who are un/underemployed need to understand career options in a rapidly changing labor market, decide if they need to pursue training, determine what training makes sense, and ultimately seek out help in reconnecting to the labor market. Research has shown that coaching interventions help unemployed individuals get back to work faster and at higher wages.
The good news is that there are many places that offer career coaching services, including federally funded workforce centers (e.g. WorkOne Centers, America’s Job Centers, etc.), community-based organizations, and community colleges. Many of these facilities have transitioned to virtual coaching in order to better assist job seekers during the pandemic. The challenge? It is nearly impossible to get long-term, consistent advice throughout the career path journey. Here are a few reasons why:
- Many of these organizations operate in siloed environments, offer different incentive structures, and possess varying access to tools and resources, which has created inconsistent and sub-optimal outcomes for the workers they support.
- There is little clarity on the educational and skill requirements for career coaches. The role has evolved over time in part by absorbing some of the same essential functions of case managers, student support service providers, job developers, and career navigators. For some it may be unclear what career coaches do and what specifically they need to best succeed in their capacity.
- Career coaching often serves the purpose of immediate connection to employment or training. It is a transactional, shorter-term experience that solves for immediate barriers addressing an immediate need for work. This can lead to job seekers taking the first available opportunity and not fully considering future upskilling and career opportunities to move from “any job” to a “good or promising job.” This emphasis on immediate employment can lead to job seekers re-entering the unemployment system due to a variety of factors such as skills mismatch, lack of interest, or a changing job landscape.
At Skillful, an initiative of the Markle Foundation focused on helping the nearly 70% of Americans without college degrees get good jobs based on the skills they have or the skills they can learn, we have been working with career coaches to help them better serve their clients. Now more than ever before, we see the valuable role coaches play in the labor market. Career coaches provide a critical human element in a job searching process that can be dehumanizing and difficult to navigate for many individuals. We want to shift the coaching experience so that a short-term transactional process becomes a connected and human-centered one, encouraging a life-long appreciation of the value career coaching relationships bring. Instead of coaches working alone in siloed environments, we aim to create coaching communities with networking, shared access to training, labor market data and insights, and mapping of supportive services. Baseline core competencies are established for the role of a career coach.
To fully support career coaches and enable this shift, we need to develop a cross-organization and sustainable model for life-long career coaching services and long-term relationship building with clients, and advocate for policies that expand access to career coaching.
Activities that could support this include:
- Improved training and support for coaches:
- Skillful is developing a virtual and accessible training program that establishes core competencies for coaches to become more skills-based, human-centered, and equity-driven.
- Organizations that employ or programs that support coaches provide one-to-one or group career coaching support to allow for growth in their profession and enhancement of their own skill sets.
- Increased access to coaching:
- Markle is raising the need for policies that result in hiring more coaches and providing funding to train coaches so that everyone who needs coaching services can have access to them. This is essential for quality, personalized interactions as demand for coaching services increases and capacity decreases due to the continuing impact of the pandemic.
- Creative application of technology to support life-long access to career coaching:
- Organizations that employ coaches utilize systems that automate basic information collection and/or the provision of self-guided activities. This enhances in-person guidance because automation creates more time for coaches to provide meaningful support to their clients rather than filling out paperwork or doing administrative tasks.
- Digital mapping of wraparound supportive services is essential because it allows workforce services platforms to identify all options available to meet that person’s needs. Taken a step further, a company can automate referrals to services provided by an outside organization.
- The development of AI-enabled coaching—to support, not replace, in-person coaching—as a function of the Learning and Employment Record is crucial. This technology is customized with check-in points and questions at various intervals of a person’s career pathway, providing 24/7 virtual coaching support and connection to in-person coaching services when needed.
- Improvement of performance systems and metrics:
- Organizations that employ coaches and federal and state systems that fund coaches should encourage performance systems and metrics that focus on long-term support rather than short-term placement, and require coaches to serve populations at rates proportional to the un/underemployed populations that are eligible for services in their community.
Targeted, meaningful support for career coaches and improved access to their services will help provide the foundation to build the more equitable, informed, and resilient workforce that our present and future deserve.
