After getting laid off, I hired a career coach. That experience changed my life.
Why you should work with a career coach at least once in your life
We live in an era of job instability and mass layoffs, so it was only a matter of time before I too was laid off from my tech startup job in 2023. As a young product manager, it was devastating getting dumped by a company whose mission I deeply aligned with and where I had given so much of my time and energy. However, looking back, getting laid off was the best thing that could have happened to me for my career. Keep reading to learn why.
What is a career coach?
My severance package included six sessions with a career coach. I had never worked with a career coach before, and didn’t know what career coaches did, so I looked it up.
A career coach is an experienced professional mentor who helps people navigate their careers by providing guidance and support.
At any stage in your career, whether you are just getting started, recently lost a job, looking to switch careers, or want to become a leader in your field, a career coach is someone who can help you reach your goals.
What did I learn from my career coach?
These are my top 3 takeaways from my career coach, Ed:
#1: LinkedIn Optimization Tips
Ed reviewed my LinkedIn headline, summary, and career highlights and gave me feedback. He gave me tips for improving my searchability for hiring managers and building my personal brand. He also recommended I click a hidden LinkedIn feature on company pages that allows you to notify companies you are interested in working for them. I learned a lot about the LinkedIn algorithm, how to improve my searchability, and what types of skills and experiences recruiters look for.
#2: Interviewing and Negotiating Strategies
Ed and I did mock interviews that mirrored real interviews with employers, and Ed gave me candid feedback on my strengths and areas of opportunities. He helped me craft my narrative on how to string together the different roles in my career and gave me advice on how to enhance my attractiveness as a candidate. Ed also gave advice on different negotiation tactics when advocating for yourself.
#3: Understanding How Hiring Managers Operate
Ed gave me an overview of what hiring managers typically look for in candidates and what the purpose of the screening, hiring manager, and team interviews are. He gave recommendations on how to strengthen my resume by incorporating more quantitative results and catering my resume to the exact words and descriptions used in job postings. I appreciated his feedback, and I still keep in mind the lessons he taught me about hiring and the job market.
Overall, I am extremely grateful to Ed. I felt like I had received a crash course on successfully marketing myself, and I retained everything he taught me.
However, Ed didn’t address topics that would have been extremely helpful for me to learn as a woman in the modern workforce.
Where did he miss the mark?
🎯 Here’s what I wished he taught me that I taught myself:
Learn how to network your way into a job
Ed gave great advice on how to apply to jobs in online job postings, but what I learned in my job search was that the best way to secure your next job is by connecting with recruiters or hiring managers who already work at the company you want to work at. I felt very self conscious introducing myself to strangers, but I learned how to feel comfortable cold messaging and reaching out to people I had mutual connections with. As a woman, I found that I had a higher engagement rate reaching out to female managers than male managers, especially those who were from the same college or hometown as me.
Determine whether you are career-oriented or lifestyle oriented
In my 4 months searching for a new job, I began to become discouraged at the amount of rejection I was facing. I was securing interviews and making it to the final round, but would always fall short of getting an offer. Ed kept encouraging me to keep applying and using the same strategies he gave me, but I started to wonder if I needed to try something new. I was applying to product manager roles at health tech startups because it had always been my dream to become a product manager at a health tech startup. But for the first time in my life, instead of running to this finish line I had created for myself, I stopped running. I asked myself, is this really what I want?
My career break gave me the chance to slow down my pace of life. Instead of days chock full of back to back meetings, rushing to make tight deadlines, and messaging 20 different team members over Slack, I was able to pick up embroidery as a new hobby, vacation to Hawaii with my family, and eat lunch specials on weekdays with my fiancé. Slowing down allowed me to recalibrate on what I really wanted out of life and what I wanted my ideal lifestyle to be.
I had always considered myself to be career-oriented — someone who prioritizes their career and future earnings and treats their career as a big part of their identity.
But during my career break, I realized that there was so much more to life than just working and making money, and although I still wanted to grow my career and contribute meaningfully to the world, I wanted to be more lifestyle-oriented — someone who uses their career to achieve their personal goals and sustain their lifestyle.
The concept of a career in my life fundamentally changed.
As a result, I became more open to roles that were not in product management or in startups. I ended up joining a wonderful team at UnitedHealth Group as a tech consultant, and since then, I have been so incredibly joyful and grateful to be where I am today. I have work life balance, a supportive female manager, a fully remote work environment, and colleagues who continually push me to learn and grow.
I wouldn’t be where I am if it weren’t for the experience of getting laid off, working with a career coach, and taking time for myself to really decide what I wanted.
Paying it forward with my own coaching services
My firsthand experience hiring a career coach was what inspired me to become a career coach! Plus, with so few female minority career coaches in the world, I want to help pave the path forward by being one of the few female minority career coaches writing tailored content and providing hyper-personalized individual support.
With my deep expertise in product, tech, and consulting, as well as my experiences searching and securing work that fits my ideal lifestyle, I bring a plethora of knowledge for supporting others. Learn more about my services here.
Here are some topics I can support you with:
Is tech consulting for me? Identifying your ideal lifestyle, current skillsets, and the steps to get you to your dream tech consulting role
How do I grow my career in consulting? Discussing pathways to leadership, your ideal rich life, your relationship with your manager, networking strategies within and outside your organization, how to ask for a raise or promotion
How do I break into tech consulting? Analyzing your current skillsets, where you want to go, and roadmapping a career action plan to get you to your dream role
How do I find a tech consulting job? Reviewing your digital personal brand, LinkedIn optimization tactics, online networking techniques, resume and interview preparation
Should I go to graduate school for my tech consulting career? Discussing your career goals, the best graduate degree for you, and full graduate application essay support
Want to grow a tech consulting side hustle or solo business? Reviewing your value proposition, revenue model, and digital personal brand to identify opportunities for successfully building, launching, and scaling your business