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Exploring career mentoring and coaching
Exploring career mentoring and coaching

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1.3 Defining career coaching

Dr Julia Yates, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at City, University of London, defines career coaching as:

…one or a series of collaborative conversations with a trained professional who operates within an ethical code. The process is grounded in evidence-based coaching approaches, incorporating theories and tools, and career theory and aims to lead to a positive outcome for the client regarding their career decision, work and/or personal fulfilment.

(Yates, 2014, p. 2)

Watch this video to see her explain the differences and similarities between coaching and career coaching.

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Activity 2 How could career coaching help me?

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes

Now watch the next video in which Dr Yates talks about what career coaches can do.

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Reflecting on what you’ve just heard from Dr Yates, consider how career coaching could help you. Use the box below to make a list of the issues you might discuss with a career coach.

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Discussion

There are many ways in which career coaching can help you, whether you are making career decisions, looking for greater fulfilment in your current role or planning a significant change. Throughout this course, you’ll learn more about the impact that coaching, from the right individual at the right time, can have. You’ll be able to refer to this list later, when you start to look in more detail at what coaching can do.

From these definitions of mentoring and coaching, you can already see that there isn’t always a clear distinction between them. In the next section, you’ll explore the differences and similarities in more detail.