For parents · Launch League blog
Is hiring a career coach worth the money?
By Nick Gonzalez, founder, U.S. Air Force veteranPublished
The short answer
Career coaching is worth the money when it gets something done you could not get done for free: real conversations with people in the field, a written plan, and one thing actually tried. It is a waste when it produces only talk, a personality report or a promise. Use the free options first, then pay for the gap.
The free-first rule
Before you pay anyone, use everything free: the school's guidance staff, a free career quiz, and one conversation you arrange yourself with someone who does the job. Then pay only for what is still missing. If nothing is missing, you just saved the fee, and that is a good outcome.
Is hiring a career coach worth the money? It comes down to one thing
I sell career coaching, so read this with that in mind. My honest answer is that coaching is worth the money only when it produces something your family could not produce on its own. Not a better feeling after a nice conversation. Something you can hold: a plan written in your teenager's words, the names of two people in the field they actually spoke to, and one real thing they tried.
If a coach can't tell you, before you pay, what your teenager will have at the end, you are buying talk. Talk has its place, but you can get it from a good aunt, a teacher or a family friend for nothing.
When I ran operations at a 100-plus person company, I watched young people figure out their direction far faster by doing the work for a day than by thinking about it for a year. A coach earns the fee by shortening that distance: getting a teenager in front of real work, sooner, with someone holding them to the next step.
What the research does and does not say
There is good evidence that coaching helps adults. A 2014 meta-analysis in The Journal of Positive Psychology pooled studies of coaching in organizations and found positive effects on performance, well-being, coping, work attitudes and goal-directed self-regulation. Those were mostly adults at work, though, so it tells you coaching can work, not that any particular teen program does.
The more useful evidence for parents is about what teenagers do. OECD analysis of long-term studies in several countries found that teenagers who had career conversations, took part in workplace visits or job shadowing, or held part-time jobs tended to have better employment outcomes as young adults. The OECD is clear that these are associations, from limited data, not proof of cause.
Put those together and you have a working test. Coaching is worth paying for to the extent that it makes those activities happen. A coach who never gets your teenager talking to anyone outside the session is leaving out the part with the strongest evidence behind it.
Is career coaching a waste of money? Sometimes, yes
Here are the situations where I would tell a family to keep their money, including when they ask me.
- Your teenager doesn't want it. Coaching someone who is there only because a parent insisted rarely works. Ask them first and take the answer seriously.
- What's on offer is mainly a test and a report. An interest inventory is a decent conversation starter and a poor oracle. Free ones do the same job.
- The real problem is anxiety, low mood or something at home. Coaching is not therapy. A good coach will tell you so and point you to the right professional.
- You already have the network. If your family can line up two conversations and a shadow day in the field your teen is curious about, do that first.
- The coach promises an outcome nobody controls: a job, an admission, a scholarship.
Do the free version first: a checklist for tonight
This is the free-first rule in practice. Most families can do all four of these within two weeks, and some will find they don't need a coach at all.
- Book a meeting with the school's guidance office. Bring one question, not ‘what should my kid be?’ but ‘what would help them try something real this term?’
- Have your teenager take a free career quiz such as Future Finder, then talk about the two results that surprised them most.
- Arrange one conversation with an adult who does a job your teen is even slightly curious about. Twenty minutes. Your teen asks the questions.
- Afterwards, write down what is still stuck. That list is exactly what you would be paying a coach to fix.
Free help that already exists in Ohio
Ohio law requires every school district board to adopt a career advising policy, post it where families can find it, and provide career advising to students in grades six through twelve through a written plan. Ask your teenager's school counselor for that plan. If your teen has never seen it, that is a useful conversation to start.
Our free Ohio career pages show what each job pays in the state and the honest route in, which is often enough to turn a vague interest into a question worth asking someone who does the work.
When paying for coaching does make sense
Three signals, in my experience. The conversation at home has stalled and every attempt turns into an argument. Your teenager will talk to a stranger more openly than to you, which is common and not a failure on your part. Or you don't have the contacts to get them in front of people doing the work they're curious about.
In any of those, a coach is buying you something specific: a neutral adult, a weekly structure, and a network. Judge the coach on whether those three show up within the first two sessions.
How Launch League's Sprint is built around this
The Future Ready Sprint for Northeast Ohio families is six weeks of one-to-one coaching over video for US$1,295. It is built to produce the things above: a written 30/60/90-day plan in your teenager's words and at least two conversations with people doing the work.
Two guarantees take the risk off you. Do the first two sessions; if you don't think it's worth it, you get the whole fee back. And if your teenager comes to all six sessions and does the tasks but doesn't finish with the plan and the two conversations, I coach them for up to four more weekly sessions, free, to get there.
Questions
Quick answers
- Is a career coach better than a career quiz?
- They do different jobs. A quiz widens the list of careers a teenager has heard of. A coach helps them test a few of those against real work. Start with the quiz because it's free; pay for a coach only if the testing part isn't happening.
- Does my teenager have to want coaching for it to work?
- They have to be willing, at least. A reluctant teen who agrees to try two sessions often warms up once the sessions are about them rather than about a decision. A teen who flatly refuses will usually sit through six sessions and do none of the tasks.
- How soon should we know whether it's working?
- Within two sessions. By then your teenager should have a task that involves the real world, such as a question to ask someone or a workplace to visit, and you should know what it is. If it is still all talk after two sessions, ask why.
- Is coaching over video as good as in person?
- For most teenagers, yes, and some talk more freely on video. What matters more is whether the conversations with people in the field happen, and those can be arranged over video too.
- What if the real issue is anxiety or my teen's mental health?
- Then start with a doctor or a mental health professional, not a coach. Coaching is not therapy. If your teenager is in distress, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is free and available 24/7 by calling or texting 988.
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Sources: Theeboom, Beersma and van Vianen, Does coaching work? A meta-analysis (Journal of Positive Psychology, 2014) · OECD Education and Skills Today, Preparing youth for work: what works in career guidance · International Coaching Federation, Code of Ethics · Ohio Revised Code 3313.6020, career advising policy · 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Coaching is not therapy, medical, legal or financial advice.