Why you profit from working with a career coach!
The corresponding video can be found on YouTube.
Have you ever asked yourself:
Am I still on the right career path?
How can I earn more—or do work that is more meaningful?
And what will happen to my job as AI and technology change the world of work?
If you have, you are not alone. Some answer these questions for themselves, and others get support from a career coach.
My name is Günther Singer, and I am a career coach and Professor!
Link to YouTube video: https://youtu.be/PTPGkaFoOyk
“Here are some challenges you may face when trying to answer the questions we started with.”
Challenge 1 – The Blind Spot
How well do you know yourself? How objective are you towards yourself?
Honestly, we don't have perfect knowledge of ourselves. Self-reflection to gain more clarity is a skill that has to be learned and practiced over years. Personality assessments, as well as other tools and the expert eye of another person who has no stake in your career, are helpful in bringing enough light into your blind spot so you make decisions that you won't regret a few years down the road.
Challenge 2 – Limited knowledge about specific requirements for a specific job or career path
Limited knowledge of the specific requirements of a job or career path is a major challenge for younger people with limited work experience. Persons who have had a couple of jobs and have been in an industry for ten years or longer have a better understanding of what it takes to do a specific job well.
More experienced people, let's assume they are 40-plus and have had a corporate career, have their challenges too: they don't understand what it takes to be successful in being self-employed or starting one's own company. And not everybody is cut out to be an entrepreneur. If somebody makes the wrong decision here, this is typically very, very costly. It might be rich in experience, but the price of it might be steep. And yes, there are ways to find out, with a career coach, whether someone is cut out to be an entrepreneur.
Challenge 3 – Understanding future career context
Career decisions typically have a medium- to long-term impact. In other words, you will only know in the future if the decisions you made were the right ones or at least not substantially wrong.
And we all do not know the future. But there are certain topics that cast a long shadow. For example. About ten years ago, I started to mention the coming change in the German Automobile Industry in my coaching and lectures. The transformation from combustion engines to electric vehicles was appearing on the horizon. It was clear that fewer people would be employed in the sector, and those who would work there would require different qualifications and skill sets. For a person considering studying "Mechanical Engineering specializing in diesel engine technology," it was most obviously not the best future-oriented choice.
10 years later (today), the German and Austrian automobile industries are eliminating jobs that require those qualifications. The market for these qualifications is drastically shrinking. And if a graduate leaves a university majoring in this topic, yes, these programs are still around, he will have to compete with engineers who have 20-plus years of experience for the remaining jobs. This was quite a drastic example.
Jobs in Transition: Graphic created with ChatGPT 5.6
Here is a tricky topic linked to Artificial Intelligence. In 2024, two years ago, I was teaching at a technical university in Shenzhen, China.
Name of the lecture: Career Management.
Students: Bachelor's students who had just started their undergraduate program.
As part of their studies, they learned how to code. ChatGPT and other AI software were already writing code. What is the motivation for a student to learn coding when AI will do the job? In any case, an engaging topic to discuss in class. The answer I gave to the students may be worth another video.
To make good future-oriented decisions together with a career coach, the coach should be well-versed in topics such as the impact of AI on jobs and careers.
To summarize.
So, can you profit from working with a career coach?
Yes—but not because the coach magically creates a better career for you.
He has no secret wand!
You create your career.
The coach can help you see yourself more clearly, make better decisions in a complex, future-oriented context, and support you in taking action.
In a second article, we will explore: How to select the right career coach!
Thank you for reading. Be meaningful and curious!
