Career coaches help guide your job search by sharing industry knowledge and making sure you feel confident every step of the way.
But in order to make the most of those sessions, you need to know these key things. 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">What Is Career Coaching?</h2>
First up...what even is career coaching?
Career coaching is when a professional career coach and jobseeker/employee work together to help the jobseeker reach their goals. Career coaches can help you uncover what you&rsquo;re interested in doing when it comes to your career and can provide resources to help you map out how to upskill or reskill depending on your goals, feel more confident in your career, and more.
Most often career coaches have formal work experience guiding people through their career journeys, like a recruiter or HR professional.
When it comes to selecting a career coach, it&rsquo;s important to find someone who has experience and success in your chosen career path. Some coaches specialize in helping people set goals, which is helpful if you're unsure about your journey. 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Is Career Coaching Worth It?</h2>
While it will be different for every person, career coaching can be perfect if you&rsquo;re looking for:
<ul>
<li>Personalized career advice based on your past experience and future goals</li>
<li>Guidance on how your values and goals align with a new career path</li>
<li>Advice about upskilling in your current role</li>
<li>Resume editing and portfolio auditing</li>
<li>And more!</li>
</ul>
One of the most important things to remember is that<a href="https://www.betterup.com/blog/benefits-of-coaching" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank"> career coaching is not about being interviewed for a role</a>. Many people think that by working with a career coach you&rsquo;re guaranteed a role, but career coaching sessions are an advice session for your career.
Some career coaches may have a networking aspect of their work that allows you to connect with people who may be hiring. But ultimately, they are there to help coach you on your journey, not provide a job.
If you&rsquo;re on the fence about working with a career coach but still want to seek out an expert, consider reaching out to a mentor. A mentor is someone who has had a similar career path that you&rsquo;d like and is open to sharing more about their story and providing advice based on their experience with you.
If you&rsquo;re working with a mentor, you can prepare for your meetings the same way that you&rsquo;d prepare for a career coaching session! 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">4 Things to Do Before a Career Coaching Session</h2>
<h3> Reflect on Your Experience and Consider Your Goals</h3>
When you&rsquo;re going into a career coaching session, it&rsquo;s valuable to<a href="https://www.themuse.com/advice/how-to-ensure-you-get-the-most-out-of-your-first-session-with-a-career-coach-aka-your-moneys-worth" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank"> reflect on your past work experience and what sort of goals you have for your future</a>.
Ask yourself questions like:
<ul>
<li>What are your values when it comes to your work?&nbsp;</li>
<li>How do your goals align with your values?</li>
<li>What do you want to do for a living and why?</li>
<li>How do you want your career to fit into your life?</li>
<li>What skills and experience do you have that can map to those goals?</li>
</ul>
If you have particular goals in mind, the career coaching session can be better geared towards what you&rsquo;re trying to achieve, but if you are unsure what sort of role you want, never fear! Career coaches can help you discover a good career path by using your skills and understanding your preferences from past jobs.
<h3> Prepare Questions To Ask</h3>
So long as it has to do with your career, there really isn&rsquo;t a limit to what questions you can ask.&nbsp;
Since career coaches often have experience working as a recruiter or HR professional, they&rsquo;ve often worked on hiring teams before which means they can share that expertise with you. You can check in on how a particular career may align with your values or the correct way to format a resume.
Remember to keep your questions limited to the time you have allotted for your session. If you&rsquo;ve only got 15 minutes, it may not be the best time to try to uncover what your lifelong career goals are, but that&rsquo;s a great amount of time to learn how to format a bullet point on your resume so that it highlights your accomplishments.
<h3> Have Your Resume at the Ready</h3>
You should always have your most current resume and contact information available to the career coach when you schedule the session. That will allow them to do their research so they can provide a more catered experience.
Your <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/resume-builder" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">resume</a> should include your contact information, work experience, any certificates or training that&rsquo;s pertinent to your goals, and your technical/hard skills like software programs or coding languages you know. If you need help building your resume, <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/blog/post/the-5-resume-tips-recruiters-want-you-to-know" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">check out this blog post</a>.
You should also ensure that your LinkedIn and CareerCircle profiles are up to date with<a href="https://www.careercircle.com/blog/post/how-to-verify-your-google-career-certificate-in-careercircle" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank"> all certificates listed and verified</a>.
<h3> Mentally Prepare for Feedback</h3>
In your career coaching session, you will likely get feedback about what you&rsquo;re doing well as well as suggestions for what you can do differently. Hearing criticism, no matter how constructive and helpful it is, can be hard so mentally prepare yourself.
Remind yourself that career coaches are there to help you reach all of your goals and that often means doing things differently. If you didn&rsquo;t need to change things up, you probably wouldn&rsquo;t have reached out to a professional so be willing to hear and take on their advice.
 Taking a bit of extra time to prepare for a career coaching session will make sure that you get the most out of it and can take the next step in your career confidently.
For more resources about job searching, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/careercircle/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">check out our LinkedIn</a> where we share daily job search tips!

Prep before career coaching to get the most out of it and take your next step with confidence.

4 Things to Do Before a Career Coaching Session

Taking a bit of extra time to prepare for a career coaching session will make sure that you get the most out of it and can take the next step in your career confidently.

4 Things To Do Before a Career Coaching Session

Inclusive language is about more than not offending people. It&rsquo;s about taking an active role in making people feel welcome and included in the workplace.
Transitioning to a more inclusive way of speaking may feel daunting, but with a few changes you can make an impact. 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">What Is Inclusive Language?</h2>
<a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/inclusive-language#:~:text=Inclusive%20language%20is%20the%20words,%2C%20socioeconomic%20status%2C%20and%20ability." rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Inclusive language</a> is using words that aim to include people in a statement, rather than exclude them. It is used to avoid bias and discrimination against people based on their sex, gender, race, ability, etc.
For example, if you&rsquo;re writing a job posting that reads, &ldquo;The best candidate for this role is a proficient Microsoft Word user and he or she should feel comfortable training others,&rdquo; that is an example of non-inclusive language. &ldquo;He or she&rdquo; doesn&rsquo;t capture the full breadth of human pronouns.&nbsp;
In order to write inclusively, you would update the sentence to &ldquo;The best candidate for this role is a proficient Microsoft Word user and they should feel comfortable training others.&rdquo;
Creating a culture of inclusive language also often moves beyond protected identities, like gender and race. It can mean avoiding things like jargon or slang that may not be known by everyone on the team to avoid making anyone feel excluded. 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">How To Embrace Inclusive Language in the Workplace</h2>
<h3> Understand the Difference Between Intent and Impact</h3>
When it comes to inclusive language, it&rsquo;s important to understand that intent and impact are two different things.&nbsp;
While it may not have been your intent to hurt someone by saying that you&rsquo;re &ldquo;just so OCD&rdquo; about the order of company files, the impact is that the person on your team who recently got diagnosed with OCD is feeling uncomfortable.
When we&rsquo;re learning a new skill it can feel uncomfortable when you get told that something you said hurt someone. Understanding that many language mistakes come from an unintended impact, not from malicious intent, can help you understand and correct those mistakes with the right attitude.
<h3> Create a Company Acronym and Inclusive Language Guide</h3>
Have you ever considered the acronyms that you use everyday as an exclusive language?&nbsp;
Using acronyms like CTA, YTD, EOD, or jargon and terms like &ldquo;boil the ocean,&rdquo; &ldquo;over the wall,&rdquo; or &ldquo;low-hanging fruit&rdquo; can feel like a whole different language to someone who isn&rsquo;t familiar with them.
As part of your onboarding process, consider putting together <a href="https://hbr.org/2022/03/how-to-make-your-organizations-language-more-inclusive" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">a guide to the acronyms and jargon most commonly used at your organization</a>. It&rsquo;s an easy way to make your language more inclusive and ensure that no one walks away from a meeting more confused.
For some companies, having a list of non-inclusive terms and their more inclusive alternatives can help make inclusive language even easier to embrace. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7051604968671203328/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Here are a few common ones</a>, and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/careercircle/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">follow us on LinkedIn</a> as we share more diversity tips!
<h3> Remove Gendered Terminology From Job Postings</h3>
Most companies have shifted to using the gender-neutral &ldquo;they&rdquo; pronoun in their job postings which is an incredible first step. If your team hasn&rsquo;t yet, now is the time. It&rsquo;s one of the simplest changes to make and it has a huge impact on the people applying.
To take it a step further <a href="https://www.allegisglobalsolutions.com/en/workforce-insights/podcasts/unconscious-bias-in-hiring" rel="follow">consider how the terms you use may have a gendered bias</a>.
While individual words in English may not have a gender,&nbsp;they can have a gendered tone to them. <a href="https://go.careercircle.com/skills-centric-job-descriptions-download" rel="follow">Consider how terms</a> like ruthless and aggressive feel versus collaborative or dependable and how using each could affect who applies to your roles.
<h3> Acknowledge the Need for Nuance</h3>
Inclusivity relies on a balance of equality and equity. As an organization, you need to be able to give people what they need to feel welcomed and successful, while still creating an equal expectation amongst your company.
Take people-first language for example.
While <a href="https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/science-health-public-trust/perspectives/writing-respectfully-person-first-identity-first-language" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">people-first language (terms like &ldquo;person with autism&rdquo;) was written into law in the Americans with Disabilities Act</a>, in recent years, some in the disability community have voiced their preference for <a href="https://autisticadvocacy.org/about-asan/identity-first-language/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">identity-first language</a> (terms like &ldquo;autistic person&rdquo;).
When you are creating your inclusive language guide, open the conversation publicly to allow everyone&rsquo;s voice (especially those within the communities you&rsquo;re referencing) to be heard before making a final call. But remember that you will likely have some employees who use different terms to refer to themselves and there isn&rsquo;t anything wrong with that.&nbsp;
<h3> Be Ready To Make Mistakes and Know How To Correct Them</h3>
Adopting inclusive language is all about learning together and holding each other accountable. You&rsquo;re going to make mistakes and that&rsquo;s okay, what matters is how you face them.

When you&rsquo;ve said something that has caused offense:
<ul>
<li>Recognize and own up to your mistake and apologize. Don&rsquo;t spend too long diving into your apology as that can turn the attention towards making people feel obligated to say, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s okay&rdquo; when, in reality, it&rsquo;s not.</li>
<li>Thank the person who raised their concerns to you for taking the time to educate you. Shifting directly from the apology to gratitude for the education helps to get the conversation on track.</li>
<li>Make a plan to do better in the future. You can do this part internally, but consider where your mistake came from and what words you can use instead in the future.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
Here&rsquo;s an example to use as a template: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry. I didn&rsquo;t realize that term was offensive, so thank you for taking the time to correct and educate me. I&rsquo;ll do better in the future.&rdquo;

When you hear something non-inclusive:
<ul>
<li>Be careful with calling someone out in front of a room of people. This can feel overwhelming at first, so consider talking to the person privately. As the culture of your company changes, there&rsquo;s nothing wrong with taking the appropriate action to correct in public.</li>
<li>Assume good intent. Chances are the person didn&rsquo;t make the mistake on purpose, so approaching the correction as a judgment could put people on the defensive and no one grows when they&rsquo;re focused on defending themselves.</li>
<li>Call them in rather than calling them out. Consider sharing some resources with them to learn more.</li>
<li>If they continue to use exclusive language, it&rsquo;s likely they aren&rsquo;t the only one making these mistakes so it could be a good opportunity for the organization to learn together. You can always talk with your manager about getting some more training on the calendar.</li>
</ul>
Here&rsquo;s an example to use as a template: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure it wasn&rsquo;t your intent, but &lsquo;crazy&rsquo; is often used as an insult and we should aim to use words like that less. I like to use &lsquo;wild&rsquo;&rsquo; instead, but I&rsquo;m always looking for more alternatives if you find any others!&rdquo; 
It&rsquo;s important to remember that using inclusive language in the workplace isn&rsquo;t about reaching a finish line. It&rsquo;s a journey where people learn and grow together, so take your time to make these cultural changes.&nbsp;
Approach these changes with flexibility and compassion as you continue to learn and it won&rsquo;t be long before your team feels more included.

Inclusive language is about taking an active role in making people feel welcome and included in the workplace.

How To Embrace Inclusive Language in the Workplace

Inclusive language is about more than not offending people. It’s about taking an active role in making people feel welcome and included in the workplace.

We recently sat down with recruiters from Google, Publicis Media, and our own team to learn more about what jobseekers need to know when creating their resumes.
<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/juan-alberto-montoya-63458278/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Juan Alberto Montoya</a> from Google shared with us, &ldquo;You need to look at your resume as a representative of who you are, so treat it as if it&rsquo;s speaking on your behalf.&rdquo;&nbsp;
If your resume is your story, you need to consider, &ldquo;How do I want to tell my story?&rdquo;
We&rsquo;ve pulled the 5 most important resume tips that recruiters want you to know when you&rsquo;re applying for a new role. Get out that resume of yours and let&rsquo;s make sure that it&rsquo;s polished to perfection! 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">The 5 Resume Tips Recruiters Want You To Know </h2>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">Cover The Basics</h3>
The number one thing the recruiters recommended was making sure that all of your contact information was up-to-date.&nbsp;
Make sure you have your first and last name, email address, and phone number. But it&rsquo;s not enough to just have a phone number&hellip;you need to make sure that your voicemail is available for recruiters to leave a message. As <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobschulzsa/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Jacob Schultz</a> from Publicis Media shared, &ldquo;Yes, recruiters still do pick up the phone and call candidates!&rdquo;
Beyond your contact information, your resume should always have your work experience and certificates you&rsquo;ve completed, like a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.careercircle.com/blog/post/why-you-should-earn-a-google-career-certificate" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Google Career Certificate</a>, and any technical skills you have, including, but not limited to, particular software you know how to use or programming languages.
<h3> Focus on Relevance AND Impact</h3>
When you&rsquo;re building your resume, be critical about what work experience and skills you add to it. Keep it relevant to the role you&rsquo;re applying for. Many people find it worthwhile to have a main resume that lists out all of their work experience, certificates and credentials, skills, etc. and then pull data from that main resume to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7065399789189750784" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">build a more tailored resume</a> for each role you apply for.
Remember: If you no longer feel confident using a skill, like a second language or a program you haven&rsquo;t used in years, take it off of your resume. You never know when an interviewer will start asking you questions in Spanish when you haven&rsquo;t actually used your Spanish skills in years, which is what happened to CareerCircle Customer Success Manager, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilyjleung/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Emily Leung</a>!
Outside of relevance, you need to show the impact that you&rsquo;ve had in your previous role.
<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/juan-alberto-montoya-63458278/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Juan</a> shared what&rsquo;s called the XYZ format. It&rsquo;s a way of reframing how you think about what you do on a day-to-day basis and how you can contextualize it in a resume to build a story.
When you&rsquo;re thinking about a task or project you manage, frame it as &ldquo;I accomplished X as measured by Y by doing Z.&rdquo;
For example, &ldquo;I increased productivity by 15% quarter over quarter as measured by completed projects by implementing an Agile project management framework.&rdquo;
Using the XYZ format helps you to showcase what you did, how you did it, and what impact it had to make sure that every bullet point on your resume contributes to your story effectively.
<h3> Simple Is Better</h3>
While those elaborately designed resumes are certainly beautiful, there&rsquo;s no need for colors, fancy fonts, or photos. In fact, some of those designs could make it more difficult for recruiters to find you in their <a href="https://www.jobscan.co/blog/8-things-you-need-to-know-about-applicant-tracking-systems/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Applicant Tracking System</a> because the software isn&rsquo;t able to parse (or extract the data from) it effectively.
Your resume should be:
<ul>
<li>Single column</li>
<li>PDF or doc file, depending on what the application calls for</li>
<li>No more than 2 pages</li>
</ul>
And have:
<ul>
<li>An easy-to read font like Times New Roman/Arial/Calibri/etc.</li>
<li>At least size 11 font</li>
<li>Clear headings for each section</li>
</ul>
If you want to highlight your creativity, instead of building a graphically designed resume, build a portfolio! This is especially helpful for anyone who is in the creative industry, like web designers or content writers.
<h3> Use the Lingo&hellip;Correctly</h3>
<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobschulzsa/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Jacob Schultz</a> of Publicis Media shared with us, &ldquo;I switched from being a career coach to a recruiter and my resume was filled with jargon from my career coach days. I often referred to working with students in my resume, but in recruiting, the people we serve aren&rsquo;t students, they&rsquo;re potential candidates. So I had to learn how to translate my resume and change some of those keywords. Once I started using that HR lingo, I started getting interview requests all over the place so sometimes it&rsquo;s just about changing your language.&rdquo;
When you&rsquo;re looking for a role in a particular industry, and especially if you&rsquo;re transitioning into that industry, learn the terminology they use so you can reflect that language on your resume. Then when a recruiter is using keywords to search their ATS, you&rsquo;ll come up as a candidate who knows what they&rsquo;re talking about!
<h3> Highlight Your Professional Development Efforts</h3>
One of the most frequently asked questions we see is, &ldquo;How should I talk about my Google Career Certificate on my resume?&rdquo;
For most people, you&rsquo;ll have a section on your resume for &ldquo;Education&rdquo; or &ldquo;Certificates&rdquo; and your Google Career Certificate would fall under that category. Some people like to put this section at the top of their resume to make sure it stands out at first glance and that can be a great option if you don&rsquo;t have a ton of work experience in your chosen field.
You can also take time to highlight the particular skills you learned. For example, if you have completed the Google Data Analytics Career Certificate, consider adding skills like:
<ul>
<li>SQL</li>
<li>Data Visualization</li>
<li>Predictive modeling</li>
<li>Statistical Analysis</li>
</ul>
You can also format the project you completed during your program into a portfolio on a website or in a PDF deck to help support your skills.
When we talked to one of the Google Employer Consortium members, they told us that they love seeing who has completed a Google Career Certificate because it shows them that these people have dedicated themselves to their professional development and gained the skills needed to be successful&hellip;so don&rsquo;t be afraid to highlight that certificate on your resume!

If you&rsquo;re feeling overwhelmed even getting started, we&rsquo;ve got your back. Our&nbsp;<a href="https://www.careercircle.com/resume-builder" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Resume Builder</a> will get you set up with a professional resume in minutes!

Top resume tips from Google, Publicis Media, and experts. Learn how to polish your resume and stand out to recruiters.

The 5 Resume Tips Recruiters Want You to Know

The 5 Resume Tips Recruiters Want You To Know

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141 Articles

4 Things To Do Before a Career Coaching Session

How To Embrace Inclusive Language in the Workplace

The 5 Resume Tips Recruiters Want You To Know

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