What Is Professional Career Coaching?
Professional Career Coaching
Professional career coaching provides structured, one-on-one support to help individuals think clearly about career direction, transitions, and positioning over time.
Unlike resume writing or interview prep alone, career coaching focuses on how decisions are made — particularly during moments of uncertainty, change, or inflection. The work is strategic rather than motivational, and forward-looking rather than retrospective.
My approach to career coaching is grounded in personal branding: understanding how experience, strengths, and patterns of value come together at a particular stage of a career — and using that clarity to inform next steps.
- Clarifying career direction and priorities
- Examining patterns across roles and experiences
- Defining positioning and personal brand narratives
- Evaluating opportunities and tradeoffs
- Supporting execution once direction is clear (resumes, LinkedIn, interviews)
Not every engagement includes every element. The work adapts to the questions being explored.
The scope of career coaching varies depending on context, goals, and career stage. Engagements may involve:
What Professional Career Coaching Can Include
- Feel stalled or misaligned despite strong performance
- Are navigating leadership transitions or changes in scope
- Are returning to the workforce after time away
- Are considering a pivot but lack clarity on direction
- Want to be more intentional about their next move
Career coaching is especially valuable during periods of uncertainty, transition, or inflection.
Who Typically Seeks Professional Career Coaching
By examining what has worked, what no longer fits, and how value has been expressed over time, coaching creates a clearer basis for evaluating options and choosing next steps.
The emphasis is on sense-making, not speed.
How Professional Career Coaching
Can Help
Career transitions are rarely about effort—they’re about clarity.
In complex moments, even strong performers can lose perspective on how their experience translates, what direction makes sense, or how to move forward with confidence.
Professional career coaching provides a structured, strategic framework to support clarity, positioning, and execution when the next step isn’t obvious.
Professional career coaching may incorporate resume strategy or interview preparation, but its primary function is career decision-making and execution, not document editing alone.
Strategy, positioning, and forward momentum
A tactical output that often supports coaching
Mental health support focused on emotional processing
Therapy
Resume writing
Career Coaching
Career Coaching vs. Resume Writing vs. Therapy
While resume strategy or interview preparation may be part of coaching, the primary function of career coaching is not document editing or emotional support.
Learn more about 1:1 Career Coaching
About Rebecca Henninger
- A decision needs to be made, but the path forward isn’t obvious
- Past success no longer provides clear guidance for what’s next
- Multiple options exist and tradeoffs need to be evaluated
- Timing, positioning, or readiness are unclear
Career coaching tends to be most effective when:
When Career Coaching Is Most Effective
Professional Career Coaching FAQs
What is professional career coaching?
How is career coaching different from resume writing?
When should someone consider working with a career coach?
Professional career coaching provides structured support for clarifying career direction, navigating transitions, and making informed decisions about advancement, re-entry, or change.
Career coaching addresses direction and decision-making. Resume writing supports execution once positioning and goals are clear.
Career coaching is most effective during periods of transition, uncertainty, or inflection—such as preparing for a promotion, navigating a pivot, returning to work, or reassessing long-term career direction.