Executive coaching jobs often entail one-on-one business coaching, coaching a team of individuals assigned to a special project or department within an organization, or coaching larger groups of individuals in a conference or seminar setting. Different from a personal coach, an executive coach focuses primarily on business strategies that will help position an individual or a group of individuals for greater success in business. Executive coaching jobs may include a self-employed coach, a coach hired by an organization to provide ongoing coaching to an organization or a coach hired for a special presentation to a team of executives. Coaches may also be employed to recruit and train new executives or to work with human resource managers to increase levels of competency and effectiveness at that department’s level.
Coaches are sometimes retained by an organization to recruit and train new management potentials. In this capacity, an executive coach will share strategies and offer useful tools to prepare a management trainee for a specific role. These coaching jobs can be short-term opportunities or long-term depending upon how often an organization may need a coach’s services.
Executive coach training is offered through select organizations, but many coaches are self-trained and are hired for their coaching expertise based on results individually gained through work experience. For instance, a retired executive wildly successful within a particular discipline, such as sales or project management, may be retained by an organization to coach an organization’s members toward the same levels of success. Executive coaching jobs like these often deal with groups, but are usually short-term with some being hired to work with teams of individuals only once or twice per year.
Executive coaching jobs do not typically require an individual to have a license or other academic certification. Most executive coaching jobs are results-driven in that individuals or organizations hiring a coach are more concerned with the coach’s accomplishments and coaching track record than particular training or certification. Executive coaching training, however, does enhance a coach’s skills, as well as train a coach in new methodologies that increase her or his effectiveness in the field.
While executive coaching jobs do not require a high degree of education, many coaches enter the field after working several years within disciplines that require upper level degrees. Psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health experts often segue into executive coaching jobs with a modicum of success as these individuals are highly experienced in defining human behaviors and helping individuals along a path of personal and career development. Former executive managers, attorneys, teachers and medical doctors also have a high degree of success in self-employed executive coaching jobs. Others, such as former human resource managers, are often hired by large companies as full- or part-time executive coaches to strengthen the effectiveness of current human resource teams.