Career coaching plays a crucial role in helping people to find jobs that move them out of low-wage roles and into jobs that provide opportunities for career advancement. Access to career coaching services can empower individuals by providing the support and information they need to understand their options and increase their chances of getting the job they want.
For the nearly 70% of adults without a bachelor’s degree, an over-emphasis on credentials and academic achievement has made finding a new role particularly challenging. Many are also people of color for whom systemic racism, which includes discriminatory hiring practices and unequal access to education and opportunities, has created additional barriers to good jobs.
Despite the important role they play, career coaches often find themselves without the tools or support to be able to best serve their clients. To address this, the Rework America Alliance is providing high quality training and resources, developed in partnership with members of the coaching and workforce community, to better equip career coaches to help job seekers find good jobs in today’s economy.
The Foundational Career Coach Skills Training provides new tactics, tools, and job market insights for career coaching. The program teaches a skills-based, human-centered, equity-driven approach to creating deeper relationships and better understanding between career coaches and clients, which can lead to more successful outcomes and longer-term success for the job seeker.
An interactive, online tool providing career coaches with actionable job market insights on good jobs that are in-demand in their community and are relevant to workers without a bachelor’s degree. The Job Progressional Tool shows potential career progressions that can lead to good jobs based on historical data of how people have transitioned to new roles in the past.
An online tool to help coaches and job seekers create effective resumes that highlight the capabilities a job seeker has gained through experience and align the resume to the skills needed for a specific job. Skill My Resume can be used to create a new resume or to improve an existing one.
Working with national and community partners, including Goodwill, National Urban League, Rural LISC, UnidosUS, and state workforce partners, the Rework America Alliance is providing training and resources to career coaches and guidance counsellors across the U.S.
This work is done in partnership – and with thanks to – JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft, State of Indiana Governor’s Workforce Cabinet, Strada Education Network, Walmart, and Wipfli LLP. With special thanks to many members of the coaching community and coaching workgroup who have provided guidance and feedback throughout the development of the training series–and all those that contributed to this work.
“Across the country, millions of our neighbors need a job, a better job or a career so they can support themselves and their households. When job seekers and career advancers courageously take action to transform their lives, a readily-available career coach can co-create bridges to opportunity. In a career coaching relationship, job seekers recognize their capabilities and interests, discover insights on local career options and jobs employers are looking to fill, and connect with training that equips them for careers with thriving wages – often while navigating the toughest times of their lives. By providing coaches with effective skills, we are equipping more job seekers and career advancers to successfully move into jobs that will allow them to thrive.”
Wendi Copeland, Chief Strategic Partnership Activation Officer for Goodwill Industries International.
The Rework America Alliance is now led by Jobs for the Future (JFF). Alliance tools and resources are shared by JFF to support its North Star goal to help 75 million people facing systemic barriers to advancement move into quality jobs within the next 10 years. You can still access Alliance resources here while JFF works to get them live on its site, at www.jff.org/idea/rework-america-alliance.
