Coaches help work out careers

Dallas Morning News

DALLAS — After he was laid off from his banking job in December, John Halliburton asked himself what he wanted to do with the rest of his working life. Before he could apply for another job or even write a r sum , the 57-year-old Allen, Texas, resident knew he had to answer that basic question.

That’s when he met Jill Pfaff Waterbury, a career counselor who helped him repair his damaged self-esteem and size up his professional strengths and personal interests. With her coaching, he concluded he has a future as a consultant to investors who buy troubled bank assets.

The recession has turned into a boom for career counselors such as Waterbury. Many clients are older than 50 and have spent their entire working lives within a single industry. Unemployed for the first time in years, they wonder what they can do next and who will hire them.

Halliburton is devoting 35 to 50 hours a week to his quest for work.

“Thanks to Jill, I’ve gotten over my bitterness and moved on,” he said. “I have a plan for the next stage of my life, and I’m finally able to get a good night’s sleep.”

“This recession is different from others. It’s much broader than the tech bust, and it’s reached deep into the ranks of longtime employees,” said Waterbury, who counsels at an outplacement company.

Laid-off workers in their 50s or early 60s who might have retired in previous downturns don’t have that option this time because the severance packages are smaller and the market has sliced their nest eggs in half, she said. But they also doubt they’ll find another job like the one they had.

Many of the newly unemployed come from shrinking industries, Waterbury said, so they can’t just jump to a competitor and do the same work. Instead, they must figure out how to apply their skills in a new industry or completely reinvent themselves.

Downsized employees hire a career counselor on their own or get the help through an outplacement benefit paid by their former employer. The coaching typically takes place in one-on-one sessions or group workshops over several months.

Counselors say their first task is often to help clients work through their emotions.

Some are in denial and think they’ll soon be rehired by their old company. Others are paralyzed with fear that they won’t land a decent-paying job. Still others are angry at the way they were let go.

Job counselor Helen Harkness tackles her clients’ fears of age discrimination head-on. She asks them what they’d like to do if they were 20 years younger. Then she challenges them to pursue it.

Harkness lives what she preaches. She started her business, Career Design Associates in Garland, at midlife and continues to run it long past the traditional retirement age. She’s counseled more than 6,000 clients in the past 30 years.

Career coaches usually put clients through a battery of self-assessment tests to discover their interests, skills and strengths.

Anyone wanting to hire a career counselor should check for professional credentials, since the booming field has attracted some practitioners with little or no training, said Deneen Pennington, executive director of the National Career Development Association.

The association’s Web site, www.ncda.org, gives advice on how and where to find a coach.