Welcome!
We’re so glad that you’ve decided to work with us through our Individual Coaching Program, and we’re looking forward to getting started on our work together soon.
This page will give you an overview of the information you’ll need for our work together, including what to expect during the program, how to communicate with us, and resources that we’ll be using.
Program overview
During our six meetings, we’ll cover a range of topics to ensure you have the tools you need to achieve your career goals. While we’ll tailor our work to your specific needs, here is an overview of what we typically cover during the three month program.
We will meet every two weeks over video via the Zoom meeting platform. In between meetings, we will be asking you to complete various exercises and activities and share them back with us. We will discuss your specific homework at the end of each meeting and will also send you an email after each meeting confirming the next steps we have agreed to.
While your assignments will be customized, here is an overview of the assignments that we typically ask clients to complete after each meeting.
Zoom meeting logistics
Zoom is a very convenient platform for video conferencing. If you haven’t tried it before, it’s very easy to use! You will receive a meeting invite from your coach with the link to use for your meetings.
Plan to join meetings from a location where you can use your video camera and where there is not too much background noise. Zoom is typically very reliable as long as you have a strong internet connection, however if we experience technical difficulties at any point we can switch to a phone call.
Here is more information about using Zoom, including several tutorials you can watch if you are interested.
Preparing for our first meeting
There are several things you should do to prepare for our first meeting:
Onboarding steps
- Complete your intake form and review our coaching policies.
- Submit your payment via the link provided in your onboarding email.
- Upload your resume and any other job search materials you’d like to review with your coach (job descriptions, application materials, assessments you’ve taken in the past, etc.) to the shared folder that has been created for you. This will also be a place for us to store and share documents we work on together.
- Join our private client groups on Slack and LinkedIn to connect with other members of our client community and access job postings, events, and other information we share exclusively with clients.
Content to review (optional, but encouraged)
While there is nothing else you *need* to do before your first meeting, often our clients ask what else they can be doing to prepare. Here are some resources you can review in advance of getting started:
- Read through our blog, in particular these posts:
- Read these optional pre-reading articles and consider the reflection questions:
- You Don’t Find Your Purpose, You Build It: Do you feel like you’re clear on your purpose? If so, how has it shifted during your career?
- How to Restructure Your Job Hunt: What have you been doing that’s similar/different to what’s outlined here? What’s generally been working for you in your search and what hasn’t been?
- If you are looking for further reading, check out some of our favorite job search books.
- Consider journaling for a week or two, to start capturing themes and ideas about what’s working well / not as well in your current role or job search. Try to capture: (1) what was energizing for you about the day; (2) what was draining for you; and (3) overall, how did you feel about the day and why? Think about your personal time as well as work time, as these are both important elements as you consider what’s next.
Communication and policies
Your coach will provide you with their contact information and will generally be available during standard business hours. Within 24 hours of each meeting, we will send you a summary email recapping next steps and things we want you to work on.
We know that questions often come up between our meetings, and email support is included in the program. We aim to respond to all client emails within 24 hours. If for some reason you haven’t received a response from us in that timeframe, feel free to send a follow up. If your email is time sensitive and you need a response by a certain time, please note that in the subject line.
Accessing templates and guides
All of our coaching resources and materials are housed within our online course platform, which you will receive access to after your first meeting. You will have ongoing access to these materials, even after our program ends, and we update them several times a year with new content. These materials are for our clients only, so please do not share them with anyone who is not a client of Careers for Social Impact.
Sharing your work and getting feedback
We will ask you to return any exercises to your coach at least 24 hours before our next meeting to give us time to review them. This timeframe is extended to at least 72 hours for any documents that require our edits (resume, cover letter, etc.).
You can either send completed documents to your coach via email, or save them to your shared Google Drive folder. We prefer to work on resume edits in Word for version control, so please share your resume in that format. For other documents, MS Office or Google Doc formats are both fine.
The program includes coach review of your LinkedIn profile summary, resume, and cover letter, if needed.
Rescheduling meetings
We know that things come up, and we require at least 24 hours notice (ideally more) if you need to reschedule a meeting. Please notify your coach as soon as you know you need to reschedule and so that you can work to find an alternate time to meet.
While we are understanding of rescheduling requests within reason, last minute requests or repeated requests to reschedule will not be accommodated. If you cancel with less than 24 hours notice, your session may be forfeited.