October 7, 2001

By BARBARA WHITAKER

Manassah Bradley knows what it is like to rethink a career.
Since graduating from Northeastern University in 1985 with
an economics degree, Mr. Bradley has made more changes than
many other working people make in a lifetime.

He started as a customer service representative at Fidelity
Investments, but was laid off after the stock market crash
of 1987. After traveling and working several odd jobs at
investment firms, he was hired by Kidder Peabody to sell
fixed- income securities, only to be laid off again in the
mid-1990's when the company was acquired by PaineWebber.

Disenchanted with Wall Street, Mr. Bradley returned to
school and received an M.B.A. in entrepreneurship in May
2000. He wanted to "make lots and lots of money while doing
social work," he said. He landed a high-paying job with
UPromise Inc., a company that helps create college savings
plans; that lasted until he was laid off one year and 12
days later.

There may be more career changes ahead. But this time, Mr.
Bradley has taken a new approach - hiring Suzanne Blake, a
career coach with offices in the Boston area, to help guide
him. "I'm hoping she can clarify for me how I can reach my
goal of being that six-figure social worker or at least say
to me, `You're never going to get that; here's what you can
do in the interim,' " said Mr. Bradley, 39, who lives in
Franklin, Mass., a Boston suburb.

Many other working Americans are doing the same. Huge
corporate layoffs - affecting more than 1.5 million so far
this year - along with the terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon, have caused many people to
re-evaluate their lives and careers. "People are coming for
very practical, pragmatic reasons," said Judith F. Feld,
president-elect of the International Coach Federation, a
6,000-member professional association based in Washington,
and owner of CoachNet in Dallas.

Responding to the financial problems in the airline
industry, federation officials say they are developing a
plan for members to offer free coaching services to airline
workers laid off since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Career coaches are part cheerleader, part guidance
counselor and part sounding board. They can help clients
clarify their goals, hone their talents and develop job-
search and interview skills. Most also try to match
clients' objectives with their personalities and how they
live - maybe suggesting ways for people to lighten their
workloads while maintaining their income levels.

There are about 10,000 full-time professional coaches of
all types (excluding sports) nationwide, and that number is
expected to grow. Thomas Leonard, a pioneer of the
profession and a founder of Coach U in Colorado Springs,
one of the largest training schools for personal and
business coaches, predicted that "it will be as common to
have a coach as it now is to have a personal fitness
trainer."

But choosing the right career coach can be a challenge in
itself. How much should you pay? How long should a coach be
retained? What results should you expect?

While there are few exact statistics for gauging success,
people in the business have several suggestions. First,
they say, check credentials. Random searches on the
Internet show a variety of sources for training and
credentialing - some offer certification after just a
three-day course - but the experts recommend certification
by the International Coach Federation. The group, which has
a set of standards and a code of ethics for its members,
offers certification for those who have graduated from an
accredited coach-training program and have met other
requirements, including completing a minimum of 750 hours
of coaching. It lists 10 accredited schools on its Web site
(www.coachfederation.org), many with training programs
lasting several months.

People should also consider the coach's communications
skills, education and experience, as well as his or her own
job background. Experts recommend interviewing several
candidates before hiring one.

"The client has to feel the coach understands the world
they live in; there needs to be good chemistry and good
communication," Ms. Feld said.

Rich Feller, a counseling and career development professor
at Colorado State University, said career coaches "seem to
work best with self-directed people who have few barriers
holding them back." Mr. Feller also serves on the board of
the National Career Development Association, a professional
group in Tulsa, Okla.

According to the coach federation, most career coaches
charge by the month and require a minimum of at least three
months. The average monthly fee is $500, but may be as low
as $250. Coaching fees for corporate executives tend to be
higher.

Most coaching sessions, excluding those for top-level
executives, are conducted over the telephone or on the
Internet. Once hired, a coach assesses a client's skills,
personality, lifestyle and goals.

Lori Sallet, 37, hired Ms. Feld after leaving MCI in 1999
after it was acquired by WorldCom (news/quote). She had
worked there for 12 years.

"Then I was faced with `Where do I go next?' " said Ms.
Sallet, who was also re- evaluating her life in Washington,
where she was living at the time.

With a background in marketing, she briefly considered
becoming a career coach herself. But as she worked with Ms.
Feld as a mentor, she examined her options and started a
consulting business - Project Management L.L.C. - which
helps corporations manage change in situations like
mergers, restructurings or downsizings.

Ms. Feld also helped Ms. Sallet change the way she
approached her work life. Rather than being driven by a
checklist detailing all she had to do, she began looking at
the type of work she was drawn to, isolating what she
valued in her life. As a result, she and her husband,
Jonathan Sallet, 49, once the chief lawyer advising MCI on
policy issues and now a business consultant, moved to
Centreville, Md., on the Eastern Shore, and scaled back the
number of hours they worked.

But Ms. Sallet's work with Ms. Feld did not end there. She
continues to consult with her coach almost every week and
has used the relationship to help her build her business
and draw boundaries. For example, she said, Ms. Feld helped
her to develop standards, work practices and fee schedules.
When a client was too demanding, she turned to her coach to
find the strength to say "no" and then came up with
acceptable alternatives. She declined to disclose her
income, but said that it was about the same as at MCI and
that her workweek had been scaled down to three days. That
means she and her husband can take their boat out for a
spin on many afternoons on Chesapeake Bay.

"I'm very happy," she said. "First of all she's helped me
make my business very successful, and successful on my own
terms."

While such stories abound, some experts in career
counseling and job transition question the value of career
coaches.

"I have trouble getting my hands around what a career coach
is," said Robert K. Otterbourg, author of "Switching
Careers" (Kiplinger Books, $17.95).

Mr. Otterbourg's book, published this year, details how and
why dozens of people switch careers, and it suggests that
those looking for a change can easily handle it themselves,
saving a lot of money in the process.

"You can do an awful lot of investigation yourself," he
said, noting various sources available in publications or
over the Internet. Many universities and community colleges
also offer skills assessments, he added.

"If your goal is to be a minister, go see a minister," Mr.
Otterbourg said.

Most important, he said, is to "do something you love" and
not to try to second- guess the job market. After all, the
hot jobs of two years ago, like those at dot-coms, are
among the least attractive today.

Coaches and their clients, however, say the do-it-yourself
method does not always work. It is sometimes hard, they
said, for workers to be objective about their own skills
and talents, particularly when going through a rough patch
like a layoff, which can be demoralizing.

"First, you're shocked, then you're disappointed," Mr.
Bradley said. "Then it's, `How are you going to pay your
bills? Can you make it?' Then you have to deal with the
three R's - reality, responsibility and redirection."

Ms. Blake, his coach, has helped him through that
self-searching period. Mr. Bradley recently completed the
first of a three-month contract, at $350 a month. And he
has come up with a plan to do decorative painting, paying
about $25 an hour, while he develops his next career as -
you guessed it, a career coach.