Working with a career coach has many benefits, such as better confidence, a powerful and relevant resume, and a clearer roadmap to your career destination. However, how well you work with them dictates how many of these advantages you experience in your career development.

In comes the call with your career coach. How should you prepare for what might be the most critical phone call in your career? Here are a few tips.

Why You Need A Call with A Career Coach

A career coach is a partner working with you to take your career to the next level. Their job is to help you with specific job-search issues such as practicing for an interview, prepping your resume, and rehearsing a salary negotiation.

A phone call with a career coach, therefore, provides a one-on-one opportunity to ask all the relevant questions about your career and career development. Consequently, it would help if you prepared the right mindset and questions for the call.

Five Ways to Prepare

Preparing for your first call with your career coach involves asking yourself questions and reviewing a few vital things. Here are five ways you can get ready.

Be Prepared with Your Story

Sharing your story is a great skill to help you succeed in interviews. Narrating your story to your career coach is a great way to practice delivering it clearly and compellingly.

While sharing your story with your career coach, they’ll be able to get a picture of your expertise and background and then share tips about how you can share the story better during interviews. Also, be prepared with your elevator pitch.

Have the Right Expectations

Despite having a phone call with a career coach, do not expect to land your dream job right after the first call. Career development takes time, and the most a career coach can do is offer actionable tips and inside information on how you can eventually land your dream job.

Have Another Look at Your Professional Portfolio

During the phone call, you’ll talk about your past professional experiences, challenges, wins, weaknesses, strengths, and goals. Take some time and go over your resume, LinkedIn profile, past performance reviews, and any other information that might come in handy.

You don’t have to edit anything. Just have this information at the top of your mind when your career coach asks for it.

Think About Other Links to Your Personal Career Development

Look at how your interests, work values, and skills relate to your personal career development. The best way to make wise career decisions is by knowing yourself first. With this personal snapshot, it will become easier for your career coach to offer guidance during the call and afterward.

Your coach may also ask you to complete an interest, skills, work values, and confidence assessment to help them better understand you.

Consider Your Strengths, Weaknesses, and Barriers to Employability

You might have weaknesses and barriers to employability that make it challenging to land your dream job. Be ready to communicate these with your career coach. Thus, before the call, take some time and perform a personal assessment to discover these barriers or commitments.

Connect with the Right Coach

For the best results, get in touch with a qualified career coach who’ll also offer excellent job search solutions.