Have you had any good or bad experiences with a career coach? Would you do it again? Anything you wish you knew before starting out or would do differently? Thanks in advance.
Just a data point on my experience being coached by someone with less intellectual depth and experience than I had: there was some value in the general feedback I received (everyone benefits from having their blind spots pointed out), but in truth I really didn't learn very much overall.
I think there are good coaches out there -- I tend to think the better ones are those who've had real world experience in the area they're offering coaching in. For instance, many executive coaches are former executives so they speak from experience and have had skin the game.
I would somewhat distrust coaches who've merely taken coaching classes, whose resumes indicate that they've never done anything truly difficult in their lives in terms of career. The advice you get will likely not comport with reality -- you're much better off reading books and talking to senior people in your industry.
Ultimately I benefited more from learning from multiple sources -- I picked the brains of the best in the industry by reading and arguing with books like High Output Management, Hard Things about Hard Things, etc.
I may never have had the opportunity to be coached by the late Andy Grove, but at least I got to see things from his perspective a bit.
The right coach matters. I work well with mine, but I've had other experiences that were not very productive. It's a service, if you don't get value out of the first one it's worth trying someone else before you write the whole thing off.
My coach doesn't specialize in my technical field, but they have been working as a professional coach for a very long time. Career wise, they have seen lots of different scenarios that I have only experienced personally once or twice. There is value in that. I don't work with them to improve my technical skills (my coach is not a mentor!), I work with them to meet my professional development and career goals.
A coach keeps me accountable to my goals, they provide structure and feedback to my activities, and they are a forcing function for me to prioritize time for my own personal strategic planning.
Ideally, you can find a coach and/or a mentor who is in your industry, but I'd caution that coaching and mentoring are (two different) skills, and just because someone is a successful executive doesn't mean they are a good coach or mentor. Also, depending on the size of your field, you may not want to have these discussions with someone who is a professional peer, or even a potential supervisor.
Finally, you get out what you put in. The best coach in the world is only a facilitator. If you don't take your career seriously, and invest in yourself, they aren't going to give you a magic recipe for success.
Good luck
If you are serious about looking for a coach, I don't mind asking her if she is willing to take on additional clients or for recommendations of other coaches who may be available. Email is in my profile - feel free to reach out.
I have a flair for decision making, and getting older it felt like I needed to move away from programming in order to process in my career. So I got into first architecture and project management later into actual management along with a several university courses toward a master in IT management. Turned out I just really like coding, and I went back to doing that.
I remember that I had one mentor tell me I wouldn’t like management, and I really should have listened. But everyone else, especially coaches were more interested in making me make it happen, which was fine, and it wasn’t until I actually did it I realised what I actually wanted to do. None of what I did hurt me though, all of it had positive impacts in my life, so my advice is to go for it, and if starting with a coach is what you need to do first, then start there and see what happens.
As for career coach, I don't have any experience but think it might be worth a chance depending on your financial situation.