About eight years ago, I sat across from a client who'd been job searching for four months with no interviews.
She'd done everything "right"—applied to 150 jobs, updated her resume three times and joined targeted networking groups.
The whole playbook.
I looked at her materials, and they were fine. I had no idea what to do next.
So I did what any coach does when they're stuck: I went home and started Googling.
Two hours later, I had 23 tabs open, three contradictory articles about ATS systems, and absolutely no idea what to tell her at our next session.
I felt like a fraud.
That's when I realized the problem wasn't my client.
It was my approach.
I was trying to solve each client's problem from scratch every single time.
→ Googling on the fly.
→ Piecing together advice from random sources.
→ Hoping something would stick.
No wonder my clients weren't getting consistent results.
I needed a system, not a collection of tactics.
Strategy alone doesn't get clients hired. Neither does pure mindset work without the structure and processes to go along with it.
What works is a framework that integrates both: the practical employability tools clients need AND the emotional resilience to use them consistently.
When I finally built that system for myself, my client results were way more consistent.
I stopped spending weekends creating one-off materials and instead developed a proven suite of resources and tools that I could use to support my clients.
My clients started getting better results, and I could finally coach with confidence instead of crossing my fingers after every session.
I speak to career coaches all the time who are dealing with this very same challenge.
They became a career coach because they wanted to help people, but somewhere along the way, it turned into:
Endless research trying to stay current
Guilt when clients ghost because you're not sure you helped them enough
Imposter syndrome when someone asks about a topic you haven't kept up with
Weekends spent building tools you'll probably only use once
You're working harder than ever and still feeling like you're falling behind.
That's not sustainable, and it's definitely not the practice you envisioned when you started.
Later this week, I'm going to show you exactly how this framework approach has helped other coaches cut their prep time in half while actually improving their client outcomes.
I'll share a real example from a coach I trained last year who went from "frantic Googling before every session" to having a reliable system she could adapt in minutes.
Talk soon,
Heather
The Coach for Career Coaches