FAQs

There’s not really a short answer for this.

Firstly, we are the only UK based career consultancy specifically focusing on young adults. And in our opinion, this is the time in someone’s life where most people need some career support and guidance. If you are a seasoned career veteran, looking to advance your career, then there are other suppliers than will be able to meet you needs more accurately than us.

Secondly, all coaches come from a multi-skilled background. We only hire coaches with direct recruitment experience, as well as coaching and mentoring experience. We find that having hands on recruitment experience allows us to more accurately demonstrate the skills you’ll need to develop and show to be more successful at identifying and pursuing your chosen career. Just being an accredited career and life coach does not give you the insight into the modern world of recruitment.

And thirdly, we deliver proven results, with real-world cases. We have worked with numerous candidates who come from a variety of backgrounds. We have worked with the academically gifted who may lack confidence and social skills, through to people who prematurely dropped out of education. We have also worked with people who have both learning, and physical difficulties.

All career coaches and mentors at Career Smart have attained recognised career coaching accreditations. On top of this, the coaches also have mental health awareness certificates, management and leadership qualifications and even young-adult focused counselling diplomas.

On top of this, we have a mandatory requirement for all coaches to have a minimum of 10 years hands-on recruitment experience. We combine our knowledge of recruitment with our flair for coaching to achieve the results we are known for.

Career Coaching is quite simple really. It’s a type of counselling, and in terms of the techniques used, it’s not too dissimilar to other forms of counselling. The primary focus however is not just focusing on you but also your career, and what you can do achieve certain set goals and overcome certain hurdles.

A career coach helps you build the skills and capabilities to improve your job-searching skill. We also use a variety of techniques to get a deeper insight into how your mind perceives challenges and set backs, and offer support and guidance on how to overcome these issues, and grow your job-market confidence.

All sessions we run are 1-2-1 using either Zoom or telephone. We do not prerecord any elements of our training, and we do not send useless PDFs to “speed up the training process” unlike other training providers.

We find the human interaction is vital to the success of our clients. All modules are conducted 1-2-1 and carefully worked around your personal situation.

We aim to offer face-to-face training in the future, however given our clients come from all around the UK, we fear this will add too much cost.

Anyone who books onto a course will automatically get two additional phone calls. We like to call these emergency help calls – but perhaps that’s a little too dramatic!

The aim of these calls is for us to be able to provide additional help and support for our clients who may have a situation arise in between sessions. Most people typically use these calls for sudden interview requests, perhaps before they’ve even covered the mock interview stage! Which really is a great scenario for us!

Yes, and no.

Our aim is for us to put the onus back on you. Ultimately, you are in charge of your own destiny and as much as we try to help, if you are not committed to the basics, there isn’t much we can do.

When it comes to the day to day small things, like not completing a minor part of your home learning, then yes that can be forgiven. We also send email reminders of our planned course content and preparation before each session, to avoid situations like these!

Over the length of the course you can expect anywhere from 8 to 10 hours.

Due to the 1-2-1 nature of our courses, and how we sculpt them around our clients, it’s hard to give exact timings. As a rule of thumb, most sessions will last 60 minutes, however depending on the situation, these can be longer if additional areas need to be discussed.

Yes. We will not accept a new client until we’ve had a 15 minute consultation call with either the course funder or the client.

These calls are free, although that may change in the future. We require these calls as not all situations are equal, and it allows us to understand the intricacies of your personal situation.

Yes, in certain instances we can offer a short payment plan. You should ask the coach about this during the initial consultation call.

This isn’t something that we can really answer for you, so it will be up to you to make the final decision. Here are some questions to ask yourself that may bring you to the right conclusion:

1. Am I at a stagnant point in my life?
2. Is my Mental Health being affected by my job-search?
3. Do I know my career direction?
4. If yes, do I understand what I need to do to get there?
5. Would you have the confidence to attend a face to face interview tomorrow morning if you received the request tonight?

Generally speaking, if you are struggling to make any firm career decisions, it’s starting to affect your mental health and damaging your relationships, or maybe you’re struggling to execute your plan, then yes, you can benefit from working with Career Smart.

Our opening hours are Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm.

Our coaches do occasionally set up sessions out of hours to accommodate certain clients who already have part-time work. These are typically done on Wednesday and Thursday evenings until 10pm, but availability is tight and it is based on the persons situation.

You can expect 8 weeks of structured learning, mentoring and coaching. This will include home learning after each session – sorry!

Each week will focus on different job searching principle, following a linear job-seeking process. It will start with taking a look at your personality traits, core skills and motivations, developing a perfectly optimised CV and covering letter, training on the recruitment and application process, and many more. It will also include a mock video interview, and job offer negotiation training.

All of these skills will be key to your immediate and future career success.

You can find out more by visiting Our Services.

Yes! Each session will end with a run down of what the coach expects from you before the next session. We call it home learning, but you can call it homework if you’d rather. Unfortunately, this is non-negotiable!

Well, firstly we hope that doesn’t happen, but we understand life can get in the way sometimes. We will be glad to rebook the same session for the an alternative date.

Yes, you will receive a PDF documentation after each session detailing the subjects we covered.

The foundation of our coaching incorporates these primary methodologies:

Ontological and Systemic Change Approach: A dynamic, transformative coaching model that systemically addresses how you relate to the world through your language and emotions. Ontological coaching is often a catalyst for paradigm shifts. It is a bedrock model of coaching that addresses where real change happens: below the surface. In fact, behavioral change accounts for only 10% of your overall performance and results.

Neuroleadership Application: An emerging field of study focused on understanding the elements of change from the perspective of the brain. We apply the latest neuroscience discoveries to better leverage change in our clients.

Cognitive Behavioral Coaching: This approach develops an awareness of the habitually recurring thinking patterns. As negative thought patterns can be personally and interpersonally destructive, we coach you to transmute destructive thoughts to minimise the impact on your performance, and job-seeking results.

Mindfulness: This is a process of creating sustained awareness and focus in the moment to override reactive emotional tendencies. Starting a new career can be mentally challenging at the best of times, so we aim to help support and guide the way your mind deals with it.

“Competing Commitment to Change” Model: While individuals can change and can be taught to change, they often don’t change or resist change. The root cause is often a competing commitment outside their conscious awareness. This Kegan and Lahey model is a four-step process that exposes an individual’s hidden commitments that conflict with their conscious motivations and goals.

Yes we do! You can discuss these options during your consultation call, however they can be added on at a later date. We have three primary additional offerings:

Fast-Track – When time is of the essence, Fast-Track brings our standard 8 week training course down to 4 weeks.

Ask the Expert – We are very happy to be able to offer this unique service which will allow the student to speak to an industry leader within their career field of choice. These video calls last around an hour and it gives the student a chance to ask an array of questions to someone who once started a career in the same sector. These calls often build a huge level confidence and has even led to some interviews. All experts are at Director level (20+ years) and above.

Post-Course Support – We aim to follow up with all students after completing our training courses, however this guarantees prolonged 1-2-1 coaching after the course is finished. We offer both 3 and 6 month follow-up packages which feature a catch up coaching course every month where guidance, support and advice will be specifically tailored to your job-searching situation.

After you’ve successfully finished the training course, we aim to keep in touch every few weeks. Obviously, if you’re happily employed, we may call a little less frequently so as not to frustrate your new employer!