Career Coaching

Diane had enjoyed a successful career spanning over 15 years in the Pharmaceutical Industry.  After the birth of her third child, after weighing up the cost of childcare as well as the often demanding hours of her job she left her role to stay at home full time.  After six years at home, she was ready to return to the workforce and began job searching.

When Diane came to coaching, she had been job searching for over a year and was feeling both overwhelmed and deflated by the experiences she had as a job seeker.  On the rare occasion she was shortlisted for an interview she struggled with confidently articulating her skills and competence and was contemplating applying for lower-level roles as she felt she was “not at the races” when it came to the jobs she had been targeting.

Through our coaching sessions, we looked at:

Identifying her ideal role

Diane had been trying to jump back on where she had left off six years ago when it came to her career, but when she reflected on her ideal role, it transpired that whilst she had enjoyed a successful well-paid career , she had before leaving begun to experience career stagnation and burnout and had been contemplating the option of a different type of role.  We explored in our sessions the types of roles she could readily transfer her skills to and began to look at options.

Aligning potential roles with her values, working style, and work-life balance needs

Once Diane had narrowed down some future roles and options we looked at how these options aligned with her values, working style, and work-life balance needs. Diane realised she still needed some flexibility with the demands of her home life and didn’t want to find herself back in the “rat race” She also understood better what type of work culture and environment she thrived in through reviewing her preferred working style.

Identifying personal and professional development needs

Diane identified a part-time post-graduate program as part of her professional development needs and engaged in future coaching sessions to work on her confidence, interview skills, executive presence, and networking options. We also reviewed her CV and LinkedIn profile to better reflect her skills and value.

Diane was initially successful at an interview for a part-time role which met her work-life balance requirements and values and allowed her to engage with her post-graduate studies.  At the end of her studies, she progressed into a role that met her ideal working environment and aligned with her values which gave her both the job satisfaction and flexibility she had identified at the outset of our coaching.

Executive Coaching

Marie had been working as an IT specialist for ten years.  She had made many career moves during this period and whilst she had managed financial resources and procurement processes, these roles did not require her to manage people.

When Marie signed up for Executive Coaching, she had  been promoted to a Project Manager role the previous year and was experiencing some challenges with the people aspect of her role.  She had experienced a number of interpersonal challenges with one member of the project team and had been struggling to manage  underperformance of two other team members.  As a result the project was behind schedule and she worried that the business would not provide continued project funding if the timeline had to be extended.

The Coaching sessions with Marie focused on:

Developing self-awareness

Through this aspect of coaching Marie gained insight into her current style of communication and developed her understanding of how she presented  herself to others and managed herself during difficult conversations. With this awareness we were able to identify and action ways Marie could improve her communication style to present a better executive presence.

Developing her team leadership skills

One of Maries team members had also applied for the Project Manager role and this staff member regularly challenged Marie’s decisions and approach.  Marie felt  out of her depth in managing these challenges and undermined by the behaviour particularly in team meetings.  Through our coaching sessions Marie explored her approach to managing conflict and explored how she would develop a more effective approach to decision making, leadership capability, giving and receiving feedback and managing performance.

Finding balance between work and home life

Marie had been finding it difficult to switch off and regularly took work home with her, often putting in 15 hour days.  This was causing difficulties in her home life and she found it hard to make time for to switch off or engage in previously held hobbies.

We looked at boundaries and roles as part of coaching  and found that as Marie had been a team member and peer to her current team, she had a tendency to hold onto some of the tasks she had been engaged in before becoming the manager which should now sit with team members.  Some of the assessments she took as part of coaching helped her to identify her dominant working styles that were contributing to these challenges.  With this awareness Marie was able to identify ways to draw on her other strengths which provided her with the tools to manage her boundaries and find the ideal balance for her in both work and life.

Through the awareness and actions Marie identified through our coaching sessions she :

• Developed her leadership ability and stepped up to manage the interpersonal and underperformance issues on the team
• Learned how to become more comfortable with setting boundaries and delegating more effectively
• With the performance issues addressed, Marie got the project back on track and meet all project timelines
• As a result of the above actions Marie was able to maintain more manageable work hours and found time to re-engage with her hobbies.

Marie has had her contract extended as a project manager and has been recently chosen to project manage a multi-million euro budget.