In career coaching, problems from the professional environment are reflected on and suitable solutions are developed. The following case study describes how career coaching can work.
Monica C. is in her mid-XNUMXs and is a sales manager in a corporation. The mother of two school-age children regularly works overtime and suffers from being constantly overwhelmed by the high targets in her job and the associated pressure to produce results and the high expenditure of time that this causes.
As a result, she has too little time for herself and her children and can hardly recover. Persistent health problems and insomnia have prompted her to reconsider her career. Since she has sufficient financial reserves, she is considering changing careers and only working part-time in the future. With the help of career coaching, she tries to find out what she can change or what other job she should strive for that corresponds to her ideas, fits better into her current life situation and can offer her a better quality of life.
After clarifying the general target criteria of the ideal job, i.e. the activities to be carried out, the organizational, financial and time constraints, the plus-minus-interesting list method was used in coaching to make the decision.
First of all, a brainstorming session was carried out as to which professions Monica C. had already considered, which she might consider in the future and which ones came to her mind spontaneously and which seemed interesting to her. Each idea was written on a sticky note. Eight occupations have been recorded in this way.
She was then given the task of evaluating which of the listed occupations was "plus", "minus" and "interesting". Each note was discussed individually. The aim was to find out what knowledge already exists about the profession listed, i.e. whether there is a clear and realistic picture of the tasks, requirements and entry criteria in this profession, and whether the requirements based on previous experience and training have already been met.
The "PMI list" was thus adapted a little in the sense that only those professions were included in the "Plus" list for which the entry requirements had already been fully met, i.e. which could be implemented immediately. All those occupations for which information or qualifications were still missing were included in the "Interesting" list.
With this division, the slips of paper were subsequently assigned to two occupations in the "Plus", two in the "Minus" and four occupations in the "Interesting" list on a flipchart.
Since Monica C.'s current life situation made no part-time training or retraining possible, it was decided that she would initially concentrate on the two professions on the "Plus" list. Since she has acquaintances who work in these fields, it was agreed that she would interview them before the next coaching session to find out what the requirements are for entering this profession and what salaries would be possible.
For the four professions from the “Interesting” list, it was agreed that she would gradually gather information, partly through internet research and through conversations among friends, with people who work in these fields, in order to evaluate whether one of these professions would represent a possible medium-term perspective.