Career coaching for STEM leaders
Every career has its ups and downs, so having the right support and advice in place to navigate challenging times and to build on success can be vital to maintaining the sense of balance and optimism that are central to a happy and successful working life.
Whether you are facing redundancy, rejoining the workforce after a break, planning a career move or simply in need of some direction and motivation, career coaching can provide the external perspective and insight you need.
Our specialist Career Coach, Katherine Wiid, has years of experience working with STEM leaders at all career stages and a huge range of work contexts. With coaching programmes tailored to your specific situation, she can provide the sensitive, personalised coaching support you need to help you fulfil your career ambitions.
Lead Career Coach
Services
Outplacement 1:1
Coaching to support the emotions and practical career transition needs of individuals who are leaving your organisation following restructuring or redundancy. Our tailored coaching helps leavers move away from anxiety and uncertainty to exploring the possibilities in their future careers with optimism. Sensitively delivered, practical support during difficult times.
Career development
Positive and future focused coaching, these sessions help coachees to develop and thrive in their careers. The coaching equips them with greater self-awareness and self-belief in their ability to achieve, as well as to bounce back from setbacks.
Return to work
Returning to the workplace after a break can be challenging for many people. These coaching sessions focus on easing that transition, helping the returner build their comfort levels and addressing their concerns in a supportive and confidential environment.
Career profiling
As one of just 550 people in the world to have mastered a psycho linguistic conversational tool (the LAB Profile), our Lead Career Consultant, Katherine Wiid, works with our clients to pinpoint their key work motivations. This isn't about getting ‘labelled’ or ‘put into a box’, but helping the coachee to become very clear about the direction of their careers and to operate at peak performance. The profiling and coaching sessions are revealing and thought provoking. They facilitate awareness of what matters most to the individual concerned, and of the ideal work environment that will enable them to perform at their best.
Read more about what you can expect from a LAB Profile by clicking here.
"Katherine is a caring and insightful Career Management Coach that puts her client's needs first. We worked together after I had been made redundant to help me evaluate all of my career options... After only a couple hours of coaching sessions, I felt confident that I had explored all of my options and that I was making an informed decision, not just for my next role but for the subsequent years to come."
The process
1. "Chemistry" session
For coaching to be effective, the coachee (the person being coached) must feel at ease with their coach. During an initial "chemistry" session, our coach will spend time with the coachee, exploring the work they’d like to do and explaining how the partnership and process can help them achieve their goals. This is an important opportunity for the coachee to get to know their coach and to decide if they are the right person to help them in their professional development.
2. Contracting
If coachee and coach decide that they are a good fit and can work well together, they'll move seamlessly on to what is often called "contracting". Much simpler and less formal than the word suggests, contracting includes discussing and agreeing coaching goals, outcomes and measure of success, i.e. how they’ll know the goals have been achieved. It also covers other practicalities, including confidentiality.
3. Schedule coaching sessions
Next it's time to build a coaching plan. Usually this will consist of a block of coaching sessions spaced over several weeks or months. Sessions vary in duration, but as a guideline, usually last one-and-a-half to two hours.The frequency and duration of sessions may alter as coaching progresses.
Additional three-way meetings
If you are engaging a coach for a colleague, or your organisation is sponsoring your coaching, you might be wondering how the organisation remains involved whilst respecting confidentiality between the coach and coachee. To address this, we recommend that three-way meetings including the coachee, the organisational sponsor (which might be HR, L&D or the coachee’s line manager/director) and the coach are organised to ensure alignment of goals and to review progress. Often, three-way meetings are arranged at the start and/or end of a coaching package.
Outside of these three-way meetings, the content of the coaching sessions is confidential and not shared.
Clients include:
"Sessions with Katherine gave me unique chance to be seen from different angles revealing my underestimated strong and weak points. Using simple and understandable techniques Katherine equipped me with the powerful career development tools. I left the last session charged with confidence and clear vision of the next step in my career."
Experience and qualifications
STEM Leadership Academy is part of Cambridge Executive Development, a leadership development consultancy that provides training and coaching support to scientific and research-focused organisations across the UK and beyond. For twenty years we’ve been helping to build leadership capacities and performance, to enhance wellbeing and productivity and to boost engagement at work.
Our coaches have extensive experience working with clients in STEM roles, and are qualified in a range of powerful tools that can help to inform and guide coaching sessions. As well as being a Master in Language and Behavioural Profiling, Katherine, our Lead Career Coach, is also a qualified in Neuro Linguistic Programming, and trained in Transactional Analysis, Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. She has been coaching scientists for over a decade.
For more information: please just click the button below and email us a few details about your requirements.