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Research Outline

Prepared for Rich F. | Delivered January 23, 2021

What Evidence Is There That Career Coaching Works?

Goals

To find out what information and evidence exists which confirms that career coaching is a worthwhile practise with clear results and positive benefits

Early Findings

Industry Information
  • The career coaching industry was estimated to be worth $15bn in 2019 and increasing at a rate of 5.6%.
  • The industry was reported to be worth $7.5bn in the US alone.
  • As the career coaching idustry has increased in size, focus has moved from not just junior staff and middle-management, but also onto more leadership and executive coaching.
  • Coaching has also diversified into different disciplines, such as health, wealth, business, spirituality, personal development and many others.
Initial Research
  • There are numerous available examples of case studies, based on actual real life career coaching experiences. These can give highly specialised information and insights about different scenarios throughout multiple industries, the effect of career coaching, how coaching changed specific events and circumstances, and the outcomes and ongoing process.
  • Survey data exists such as the Global Executive Coaching Survey. These studies highlights key coaching trends and coaching requirements companies focus on, as well as targets and methods for evaluation and assessment of the impact of coaching.
  • Studies on the effectiveness of coaching have also been undertaken in recent years. One such example reports on an extensive review of current literature, coach-centric constructs, coachee characteristics, and coaching effectiveness, investigated through 320 questionnaires. Such studies focus on the extent to which coaching objectives have been met, to measure the effectiveness of career coaching.
  • There is a considerable amount of information that can be inferred from more general statistics on the career coaching industry. Industry growth, increases in the number of career coaches, increased cost of career coaching, diversification of coaching concepts, and increases on the amount companies are spending can all provide insight into how successful the practise is and how many companies are finding that it adds value to their employees and also their business.
  • Lastly, several articles and blogs are available to view online, most which give less formal points of view on the subject, but also can contain direct quotes, and or interviews with industry insiders, who provide information on their personal experiences and their successes with career coaching
Additional Information Required
  • More specific definition of what 'career coaching works' means, and how this should be measured. Is this in terms of revenue? Value added? Employee job satisfaction? Can it be measured in terms of how employees progressed into senior roles? There are many different ways you can define the success of career coaching and doing this will benefit any future research in the matter.
  • Industry specific - Coaching is now common in a wide range of industries, each with their own respective needs and requirements. It may aid research in this field if it is focused on a particular industry (or industries).
  • Level of coaching - For example, junior career coaching is a different field to more senior executive coaching. If there is a specific requirement of either then it would be best to focus the research in that area.
  • Diversification - Career coaching has diversified into many different disciplines. If there are any that are particularly of interest, it would also be practical make sure research is specified to match this.