Are you looking for a new job or looking to advance in your career?
There are commonly three professional services surrounding one’s career change and development: recruitment, mentoring and coaching. All three services are crucial and solve different needs. Using the user story framework, we’ll go through the needs of different professionals, and how each one of these services might benefit you in your path towards career fulfilment.
SheSharp currently runs two programs targeting recruitment (Meet with a Recruiter) and mentorship (Mentorship Program). Today, we’ll provide a broad overview of what will be coming next: coaching, and how it relates to the first two pillars.
User Story 1: Find the right job opportunity
As a job seeker, I want to find a new job so that I can work in a place that pays the bills, has a good work environment, challenges me, and allows me to do work that I enjoy and care about.
Solution:
Recruitment is the process of finding, interviewing and hiring individuals for a particular role. It involves working with the hiring manager to identify job requirements, source candidates, screen applicants and select the most suitable candidate for the job.
Recruiters are responsible for assessing a candidate's skills and experience and ensuring that they are a good fit for the role.
There are typically internal recruiters who are employed by an organization and responsible for filling roles within a company. They work directly with hiring managers in terms of understanding their needs and the skills and requirements needed for each position and support in the screening and selection process, initial interviews and typically negotiations and eventually signing the contract with the candidate.
External recruiters are typically agencies hired by organizations to support internal teams to hire the right candidates. These agencies also support sourcing potential candidates and direct them to the organizations. They are typically either held on a retainer or paid on commission.
In order to be successful in your job search, it is key to reach out to both types of recruiters in your own niche and build these relationships. Building ties with recruiters early on, even when you’re not actively looking for a job, allows you to learn about opportunities even before they are public or announced on job boards.
Depending on the recruiter and their goals, they might support you by giving you feedback on your CV, cover letter, and interview tips. However, if the recruiter is extremely busy and the role is competitive, the candidate might not get as much feedback from the recruiter and might need to reach out to a friend, mentor or coach for more active and actionable support.
Interested in talking with a recruiter? Check out SheSharp’s Meet with a Recruiter program!
User Story 2: Learn what I need for the job hunt
As a job seeker, I want some guidance on specific aspects of the job hunt, so that I can stand out and land a job that satisfies me.
Solution:
Mentoring is a supportive relationship between an individual who has more experience in a specific field and another individual wishing to develop within this specific set of skills or knowledge. It is typically with anyone who has “been there, done that”, within your area of development.
Seeking out mentors is beneficial at any point in someone’s career, whether they’re just starting out or are experts. Typically, there are formal mentorship programs that have a start and end date, and often match mentors and mentees based on specific needs or areas of expertise. There is also informal mentoring which is typically developed more naturally through one’s professional network. For example, it could be an ex-manager, or a leader within your company who you develop a good relationship with, or a colleague, friend or family member that you trust.
Do you think that having a mentor would help you grow? Check out SheSharp’s annual Mentorship Program!
User Story 3: Find the right career path
As a job seeker, I want to be in a place where I am growing and contributing in my career so that I can feel fulfilled and satisfied overall.
Solution:
Coaching is a professional relationship between a coach and a coachee that fosters a thought-provoking and creative partnership enabling the coachee to maximize their personal and professional potential. Coaches are available to increase self-awareness, discovery and alignment to enable results-oriented behaviours leading to goal attainment.
In terms of coaching for job hunting or career growth, coaching can support individuals in self-introspection, less in a philosophical way, but in a more action-oriented way that leads to concrete change. Coaches can work with coachees to identify values, purpose, and develop a path to pursuing their goals. The role of the coach is to ask questions, provide time to think and trust that the coachee holds the answers from within.
Coaching has a growing evidence-based approach where most clients report improved work performance, business management, time management, team effectiveness and allowed for more growth opportunities, according to the International Coaching Federation.
SheSharp is about to launch a special coaching series in collaboration with the coaching agency Major Confusions. Applications open on January 10 for our February 2023 cohort. You can find more information here: https://www.shesharp.co/career-coaching-with-dina
Wrapping up:
Recruiters support organizations in finding the right candidates. Throughout this work, they often provide applicants with feedback on their CV with the incentive of hiring them to specific roles.
Mentors often have more experience or knowledge in a specific set of areas where they share their knowledge and tips and tactics with their mentees.
Coaches develop professional relationships with the coachees in order to increase awareness and support individuals to maximize their personal and professional potential.
Overall, recruiters, career mentors and coaches all collaborate on supporting individuals in their career development journey, and remember to lean into the support you need at each point in time!
Learn more about how SheSharp can help with…
Recruitment: https://www.shesharp.co/meet-with-a-recruiter
Mentorship: https://www.shesharp.co/mentorship-program