Comments on: Do you need a career coach or a shrink?

By: Diana Maus

Diana Maus — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 23:17:38 +0000

@Penelope, you are GOOD at opening cans of worms!

@Steven "It requires that I listen with a third ear and watch with a third eye." That's exactly what a good analyst does, sees you from angles you can't see yourself and despite some arguments to the otherwise, analysts serve us well in understanding the damage done to us by parents and education. Only then are we free to take what we need and leave the rest, whether it be mentoring (mine was bad but I didn't know it yet), coaching (mine was ok but formulaic) or making it up as we go along (a high-risk proposition for all but those who had a well-tended childhood).

@Rambler "Do you really think that matters in corporate? Does it also matter in technical jobs?" Unfortunately, yes. As a professional technical artist, my evaluations were 5 pages of scale of 1-5 rated questions about just how well I "fit in" and played the game their way. Ugh.

By: Shefaly

Shefaly — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 07:19:34 +0000

Penelope, I think sometimes people need neither. They need a third type of person – a mentor. A very different animal from both a coach and a psychologist, but immensely more personally focused on one and tuned both to the person and the environment. Mentors are usually unpaid which sharpens the mind greatly for them and for the protégé ("mentee" as many insist on calling this person).

I have had and continue to have a few mentors with whom I bounce ideas and whose critique, feedback, suggestions and advice all help me tremendously. That said a pre-requisite to all these is a great degree of self-awareness, so that one can evaluate all advice critically.

By: Rita Ashley

Rita Ashley — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 19:08:37 +0000

Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Not all coaches are superficial, not all shrinks are career-attuned. I am a job search coach and I have rarely worked with an executive who knew what questions to ask of me or where they needed support on their work persona. It requires that I listen with a third ear and watch with a third eye. We use the focus of a job search to discover the "real" issues. Are they passive aggressive? Are they an appeaser, too negative or do they talk too much? These things are revealed by behavior. And if the challenges don't disolve with a a change in behavors, then a shrink is recommended. And by the way, the feelings you describe are not the soul property of woman; many men feel the same way for the same reasons.

By: Steven

Steven — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 17:52:05 +0000

While I'm still low on the totem here at my current place of employment (i.e. not management) I may be in left field here with what follows.

Shouldn't respect be something learned and earned? I've read enough to know you are a well thought out and capable person, respect that. It's always good to be introspective to a degree, but changing your cadence while walking? Get out of here.

Aside from a Career Coach, couldn't you associate a lack of respect to:
1. maybe classic sexism in the work place
2. potentially age-ism
3. self confidence (the world is what you think it is)

Frankly, I don't think I'd respect you more because you walk ungrounded. I'd certainly like you more if you went to bat for me over a work place problem or if you helped me become a better employee.

Anyway, thanks for the insight into the other half. (management/employee relations)

By: acesullivan1

acesullivan1 — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:43:10 +0000

This is better than most of your columns.
I'm glad the psychologist helped you but that so-called career coach should have to refund their pay for not having gotten to the same point. Talking about body language and image is important, but again it comes down to real leadership and management skills. Things they don't teach formally in college but maybe should.

By: jess

jess — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 05:23:47 +0000

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post and could relate to much of what you felt. It is nice of you to open up and share, I felt like it was very candid and helpful.

By: M. Mazri

M. Mazri — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 00:30:59 +0000

Good grief! Like, just anyone is going to hire a psychologist to help them with their career. What salary level are we talking about here? CEO's making a $1 million a year? What kinds of jobs require the creation of such an "image"? How many employees really want to develop "images"? Has anyone other than this writer ever known a psychologist to be good for anything? Look at the research data? There is practically no evidence that a psychologist has ever done anything useful. To find out for sure, as I have done, you have to search for and be able to interpret data from rigorously controlled scientific studies. Apparently, this is a skill few writers have. The writer of this article has her head in the sand, or somewhere.

By: Wendy Perkins

Wendy Perkins — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 15:24:42 +0000

I have had neither career coach nor shrink, but find that changing jobs has been my norm over the past two decades. To thine own self be true. Keep changing along with the changing world around us. Meditate, pray, and stay true to your desires and goals. I have enjoyed work overseas to destinations I wanted to go to as a child, learned new skills such as authoring and publishing a book which took me into the airwaves of 350 talkradio and TV shows and feature stories in major newspapers, professional speaking, creating workshops, and finally, meeting a variety of people worldwide in non traditional fields.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 18:57:37 +0000

Good reading. There's an online service that combines the best of both worlds – http://www.careerdna.net – based on the work of Dr. Brian Schwartz, a long-time career coach and psychologist.

By discovering your type and then matching skils to jobs, he's got a good track record of helping folks find the career that's right for them.

By: Lea

Lea — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 17:53:18 +0000

I've been lucky enough to have the same mentor since I was 19. (I'm now 33.) Problem is, my mentor couldn't help me change careers, because her experience is in the field I wanted to leave. That's where a career coach can really help.

* * * * * *
This is also a good example of why we each need more than one mentor. Way more. We each need a little team of mentors.