How to Become a Career Coach in 2025: The Complete Step-by-Step Guide

If you're considering becoming a career coach, this guide is for you.

Hi, I’m Cara 👋. I work as an executive career coach and the President of the International Association of Career Coaches (IACC).

I can tell you firsthand that career coaching is an incredible profession. You get to help people build purposeful lives, use your social and emotional intelligence, create a business that fits your lifestyle, and potentially earn enough to replace your 9-5.

Plus, with AI impacting just about every industry, the demand is growing to help people find clarity and direction in their work.

And you don’t need a specific background to succeed in this work. I’ve seen incredible career coaches come from backgrounds in HR, therapy, teaching, marketing, and winding paths that didn’t seem “career-related” at all.

You don’t need a particular background to succeed as a career coach—you just need to care about people, understand how careers work, and be willing to keep learning.

But before hanging a shingle and calling yourself a coach, I’d highly recommend going through the 7 steps below, so you’re not just winging it, but stepping into this work with a sound plan.

Here are the 7 steps:

1. Get Clear on What Career Coaching Involves

2. Build Your Coaching Skill Set

3. Choose to Get Certified or Not
   

4. Get Real Client Experience 

5. Choose a Starting Niche 

6. Design Your Coaching Offering
   

7. Share Your Work With the World
   

Now let’s get more specific.

Step 1: Get Clear on What Career Coaching Involves

Before diving in, it’s a good idea to understand what career coaching actually looks like day to day. The job title might sound appealing in theory, but until you consider the daily realities, it’ll be hard to know if it will actually be a good fit.

🕒 How you’ll spend your time as a career coach

Most people get into coaching because they love the idea of helping others grow through meaningful conversations. And it’s true that this is the backbone of the job, but it’s not all that goes into it. 

If you want to work as a self-employed coach, be prepared for everything else that comes with running a coaching business.

Once your practice is up and running, a typical week will look something like this:

• 10–15 hours coaching clients
  

• 5–8 hours marketing, networking, and client outreach
  

• 3–5 hours on admin (scheduling, finances, follow-up)
  

• 1–3 hours on continued learning or skill-building
  

But while you’re still in the early days of building your practice, the time spread will look more like this:

• 5-8 hours coaching clients
  

• 10–15 hours marketing, networking, and refining your niche
  

• 2–3 hours on admin 
  

• 4–6 hours on continued learning or skill-building

  
  

A lot of coaches balk when they realize that not all of their time is spent in front of clients, so it’s best to realize this before you get started.

Also, expect that some of your work may fall outside the typical 9–5 hours. For example, if a client receives a time-sensitive job offer, they might need your support with negotiations. That said, you’re in charge of your schedule, and you can set boundaries that align with your lifestyle and business model.

💸 How much money you’ll make

Your income will depend on your time commitment, niche, and pricing. But here’s a rough benchmark:

• The average career coach salary is $96,000/year.
  

• Coaches certified with the International Association of Career Coaches (IACC) average around $137,000 per year.

There are a few reasons why IACC certified coaches earn more:

1. Reputation. Certification gives you more credibility
   

2. Community. IACC-trained coaches can join a community of career coach graduates (called The Path) to receive ongoing support, feedback, and shared lead generation.
   

3. Methodology. They use a tested method to support clients effectively, so they can take on more clients without wasting time guessing what works.
   

Just to break down some quick math—if you charge $2,000 per client per month, then you’d only need 6 clients to make $12,000 per month (or $144,000 per year). And if you have the right backend offer in place (EG, contract extension or group coaching), you may only need 2 or 3 new clients per month to hit that goal.

It might take some time to get to that level of success, but it is possible.

❓What will happen in a coaching session

If you work with a client one-on-one, a typical arc starts with helping them clarify their dream job. This will involve some deep conversation where you help them reflect on their values, past roles, and deeper life desires.

Once they’ve found their north star, you’ll guide them in taking the action required to get that dream job, which might include job search strategy, practicing interviews, teaching them networking tactics, or rewriting résumés.

If you want to learn more about what happens in a career coaching session, check out this article: What Exactly Does a Career Coach Do? 

Step 2: Build Your Coaching Skill Set

The best coaches have a craftsman mindset.

In other words, they understand that helping clients with their careers is a specific skillset, and the more they train those skills, the better they become.

Just like Bach kept refining his compositions throughout his life, or Serena Williams continued perfecting her serve even after dominating the sport.

If you pursue mastery as a coach, you’ll help your clients more, you’ll make more money, and you’ll feel more fulfilled with your craft.

Here are a few of the most crucial skills you’ll need to thrive:

• Empathy. Clients need to feel safe sharing their deepest career dreams and challenges with you.
  

• Motivating clients to take action. A big part of coaching is helping people overcome their resistance and doing the thing.
  

• Strategic understanding of the job market. For many clients, the main goal will be getting hired. So the more you understand job search strategy, industry trends, and how recruiters think, the more value you can offer.

• Résumé and cover letter writing. Knowing the ins and outs of a good résumé will help your clients get interviews.
  

• Interview prep. Most clients will face interviews, so you’ll need to know how to help them practice and feel confident.
  

• Negotiation practice. Once a client gets an offer, you can help them negotiate for the best package they can.

If you want a complete list, here are the 15 Skills That All Successful Career Coaches Possess.

There are plenty of ways to practice these skills. You could read books, attend workshops, or join peer practice groups.

Though I’d say the most effective way to build your skills is to enroll in a coaching certification program. 

Step 3: Choose to Get Certified or Not

Technically, anyone can call themself a coach.

Unlike therapy, there’s no governing body that regulates the coaching job title.

And there are plenty of successful career coaches out there who aren’t certified. 

So, should you get certified? Is it worth it?

In most cases, I’d say yes. Getting certified can only help you.

When you go through a training program, you get to learn firsthand from experts who have built the exact career that you are trying to build.

You’ll learn coaching frameworks, gain practical tools, and train with practice sessions.

And perhaps most importantly, most certification programs allow you to join a coaching community that offers ongoing learning, personalized support, and open dialogue about hiring trends, market wobbles, or unexpected opportunities.

Even if you’ve worked as a life coach or similar, doing a deep dive into the specifics of career coaching will probably make you a better coach and help you find more clients. 

🎓 Which career coaching certification program should you choose?

There are plenty of great career coaching certifications out there, but the one I’d recommend is the Senior Professional Career Coach certification program with the International Association of Career Coaches.

It’s a 9-week cohort-based course where you’ll learn everything from helping a client identify their dream job to teaching them how to negotiate a job offer.  

And once you graduate, you can join The Path, which is an ongoing community of career coach graduates.  

While it’s not easy, most IACC-certified career coaches say it was the single most impactful shift in their career.

Step 4: Get Real Client Experience 

As you get started, any coaching experience you can find is gold.

Some coaches feel ready to start working with paid clients from the get-go. And others like to work with free practice clients before charging.

I had a student who challenged themself to schedule 50 free coaching sessions in 3 months. They got a ton of free practice, and some of those pro bono clients turned into paid ones.

You can read as many books as you want, but really, there’s no better practice than sitting with a real person discussing their actual career challenges.

🔍 How to find your first client

There are likely plenty of people in your warm network who would love to be your first client. You just have to let them know you’re looking! 

Try posting something like this on LinkedIn:

“I’m opening up a few spots for career coaching this month. If you (or someone you know) wants clarity about your next career move or help pursuing your career goals, shoot me a message.”

Or send an email to former colleagues, classmates, and friends who may want to try out coaching (or know someone who does). 

If you’d like more ideas, here are The 10 Most Effective Ways to Get Career Coaching Clients.

Step 5: Choose a Starting Niche 

Your niche refers to the specific type of client you serve and the career challenges you help them solve.

For many new coaches, picking a niche feels like pulling out teeth. They have so much to offer to so many people that the idea of cutting off possibilities sounds horrible! 

But the truth is, picking a niche doesn’t mean you can only ever work with one type of person. Rather, niching helps you focus your marketing and offerings to more effectively draw potential clients to your work. 

For example, if you’re working primarily with new grads landing their first job, you may lean more on TikTok or Instagram rather than LinkedIn. And your content will probably focus on career direction and résumé fundamentals instead of mid-life crises or getting a promotion.

Plus, if you’re working with new grads, you may want to consider group coaching so you can offer more affordable rates for your price-sensitive clients (more on that in the next step).

🎯 Which niche should you pick?

As far as picking a niche, anything you have deep experience with or insight into can be parlayed into career coaching.

Coaches I’ve trained have gone on to specialize in working exclusively with:

• Clients with ADHD and neurodivergence
  

• Women of color who want to thrive in the upper tiers of the corporate world
  

• Humanities majors interested in project management
  

• HR professionals
  

• Healthcare executives seeking a career transition
  

As you can see, you have plenty of options! 

And don’t worry, picking a niche isn’t a final choice you’ll be condemned to forever. You can always pivot. 

In fact, for many coaches, their niche is an evolving process. 

Over time, you’ll likely work with a wide range of people. And eventually, you may notice that a certain type of client is consistently drawn to your work, or that you especially love helping a specific group.

Plus, even if you have a niche, you can still work outside of it. 

For example, a new coach may start with a niche like “helping people with ADHD find jobs they love,” only to have someone say, “I don’t have ADHD, but could you help me too?” And of course, most coaches—especially early on—say yes. So your niche helps you focus your message, but it doesn’t box you in.

And then who knows, that new client may point you in the direction of evolving your niche.

Step 6: Design Your Coaching Offering 

Are you going to offer one-on-one coaching, group coaching, or a mix of both? 

One of the beauties of this field is that you get to customize your career coaching sessions and be in control of how you work with people. 

Some coaches only ever work face-to-face with one client at a time, like a therapist or a stylist. Others specialize in group coaching (more like a classroom teacher or a team athletics coach). Many tend to find one more effective and satisfying than the other. 

Some coaches lead summits and retreats. Others host daylong 1-on-1 immersions. And others only meet over 30-minute phone calls.

Some savvy companies hire in-house (or continuing consultant) career coaches to assist with upskilling, interpersonal dynamics, and helping to redistribute resources after a significant acquisition or downsizing. 

The point is—you have options. Finding your right offering will take some trial and error, but just start with an offering and treat it like an experiment. Keep what you like, and shift what you don’t like. 

Keep trying out offerings until you home in on what fuels you and your clients most.

Step 7: Share Your Work With the World

Marketing is where the rubber meets the road.

You might be a better coach than Brené Brown, Tony Robbins, or corporate Yoda, but if nobody knows you exist, you won’t make any money.

I won’t lie—lots of career coaches recoil from marketing themselves. Some even resist taking this path because they know they’ll have to market and feel overwhelmed by the idea.

No one wants to come across as “salesy,” pushy, or self-aggrandizing. And that’s a totally valid fear.

But don’t get scared off just yet!

There’s an authentic way to approach marketing that can actually be creative, fun, and values-aligned.

Effective, feel-good marketing is really just about sharing your knowledge in a way that’s genuinely useful to others. When the right people know who you are and how you can help, lots of them will want to go deeper and hire you as their coach.

Here are a few marketing approaches to consider:

• Hosting workshops
  

• Writing blog posts
  

• Posting on LinkedIn
  

• Building a referral network
  

You don’t need to do all of it at once. But you do need to show up somehow, especially early on.

Plus, one great thing about being a career coach is that if you do a good job, your clients often become your marketing department. Plenty of coaches fill their coaching practice through word of mouth alone.

If you want to read more, here are some tips on Digital Marketing for Coaches Who Value Authenticity, where we dive deeper into non-sleazy marketing approaches.

And if you do get certified, any reputable program will help you with marketing. For example, the IACC has an entire 8-week course for career coaches called Business and Marketing Foundations, where coaches spend time with a cohort dialing in their marketing message and approach.

The Next Steps to Becoming a Career Coach

If you’re wondering if career coaching might be right for you, it could help to look into some career coach training programs and see if you feel excited by the idea of doing them.

Here is the accredited training from the International Association of Career Coaches to consider. 

If you’re still on the fence and have questions about the certification process, you can book a free 30-minute consultation with me to figure out if this training is the right step for you or not.

Either way, career coaching is a rewarding profession for those who feel called to it, and I wish you the best of luck.