What a career coach does
A career coach helps you figure out what you’re aiming for and how to get hired into it: positioning, resume and LinkedIn strategy, interview preparation, offer negotiation, and — often the most valuable part — deciding what you actually want before you optimize the paperwork.
The common confusion is with recruiters. A recruiter works for employers and gets paid to fill specific roles; a career coach works for you and gets paid whether or not you land anywhere. Both are useful; only one is on your side of the table. The career coach vs recruiter guide sorts out who does what.
Coaching is an unregulated field — there’s no license, and anyone can adopt the title. Some career coaches hold ICF credentials or HR certifications; plenty of good ones hold nothing but a decade of recruiting or hiring experience. Weight the experience.
What it costs
Career coaches typically charge $100–$350 per session. Most job-search engagements run three to eight sessions. Price moves with:
- Scope of deliverables — pure conversation sits low; packages that include resume rewrites, LinkedIn overhauls, and mock interviews sit high.
- Your seniority — coaching a director-level search takes more market knowledge than entry-level, and prices accordingly.
- The coach’s background — former recruiters and hiring managers charge more than coaches who’ve only ever coached.
Full numbers in our career coach cost guide.
How to choose one
Match their market knowledge to your target. A coach who mostly serves teachers changing careers will not know what a fintech engineering manager’s resume needs. Ask what industries their last ten clients came from.
Then ask to see anonymized before-and-after work — a resume, a positioning statement. The delta tells you more than any testimonial. And prefer a single paid session before a package; a good coach delivers visible value in one hour. Our checklist for hiring a coach safely covers vetting when there’s no license to check.
When you don’t need one
If your only problem is interview performance — you get calls but no offers — a specialist interview coach is a cheaper, sharper tool. If you already know your target and your materials are strong, spend the money on networking time instead.
A career coach earns their fee when you’re stuck on direction, when you’ve been searching for months with no signal, or when you’re negotiating an offer where one session can pay for itself several times over.
Questions to ask before you hire
- Do you know my industry well enough to tell me what hiring managers in it actually screen for?
- What's included — sessions only, or resume review, LinkedIn work, and mock interviews too?
- How recently have you been close to a real hiring process, on either side?
- What does a typical engagement look like for someone in my situation?
- Where do your clients usually get stuck, and what do you do about it?
Red flags
- Guaranteed job offers or guaranteed salary increases — no coach controls a hiring decision.
- One template resume for every client regardless of field or level.
- No recent contact with actual hiring — their advice dates from a market that no longer exists.
- Upselling a large package before they've asked what you're actually trying to change.