Career In Progress

Career In Progress Coach for Career Coaches:
Earn internationally recognized credentials as a career services provider. A seasoned professional in the mist of transition?

Join my Facilitating Career Developments (FCD) Training or get 1-1 coaching on how to amplify your coaching practice! Are you a new graduate navigating the world of work for the first time? A job seeker looking to reinvent in your professional brand? A career practitioner interested in furthering your skills and abilities? Career In Progress is designed to provide assistance with all aspects of yo

ur career and professional development. Together we will work to clarify and reach your goals, and set in motion your career satisfaction. An award winning Career and Professional Development Instructor, providing career literacy training to career practitioners globally since 2002.

I used to think emotional control meant holding it together.Now I know it’s about knowing yourself well enough not to un...
06/01/2026

I used to think emotional control meant holding it together.

Now I know it’s about knowing yourself well enough not to unravel every time things get hard.

Lately, I’ve been paying attention to how I respond when I’m frustrated or overloaded.

It’s an attempt to work on my emotional self-mastery.

I’m learning it isn’t about getting it right all the time.

It’s about catching myself faster.

My goal isn’t to ignore my emotions.

It’s to understand them, and respond in a way that:

↳ Aligns with who I want to be
↳ Puts me in the driver’s seat
↳ Builds trust and openness

Here are 9 small moves I’ve been using (and sharing with clients):

↳ Tune into what triggers you
↳ Pause before reacting
↳ Zoom out: “Will this matter next week?”
↳ Set gentle boundaries
↳ Reset before responding
↳ Name the emotion
↳ Lead with curiosity
↳ Speak it out loud
↳ Have a plan for the patterns

The great news is that emotional intelligence is a skill.

We can develop it one choice and one boundary at a time.

What’s your go-to move here? ⤵️
——
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Career development is changing fast.Client needs are evolving.AI is reshaping job search, coaching, and career conversat...
05/28/2026

Career development is changing fast.
Client needs are evolving.
AI is reshaping job search, coaching, and career conversations.

Staying current shouldn’t feel overwhelming.

That’s why Weekly Insights for Career Professionals exists.

Each edition delivers:

Coaching Tools – practical frameworks you can use right away
Research & Trends – timely insights shaping career development
Free Resources – tools, ideas, and guides to strengthen your practice
Exclusive Perks – added value for your professional growth

No fluff.
No endless scrolling.
Just practical insights designed to help you create stronger impact for your clients.

Because great career support is built on more than good intentions.
It’s built on staying informed, sharpening your skills, and having the right tools when they matter most.

Who else loves resources that are actually useful instead of just “more content”?

Career advice is everywhere.Career coaching is different.Giving advice is easy.Guiding someone through uncertainty, care...
05/27/2026

Career advice is everywhere.

Career coaching is different.

Giving advice is easy.
Guiding someone through uncertainty, career change, self-doubt, identity shifts, leadership decisions, and “what’s next?” conversations…

That takes skill.

A strong career coach does more than review resumes or suggest job titles.

They help people:

→ make clearer decisions
→ navigate transitions with confidence
→ uncover strengths and blind spots
→ align ambition with reality
→ build careers intentionally, not accidentally

And with AI, shifting markets, and evolving careers, thoughtful career guidance matters more than ever.

If you want to support others in making career decisions with confidence and credibility, investing in proper training is not a nice-to-have.

It’s part of doing the work responsibly.

Because people are not trusting you with a document.

They’re trusting you with direction.

Follow for more information about career coaching

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.Letting go is scary. But sometimes, it’s the only way forward.When ...
05/26/2026

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

Letting go is scary.

But sometimes, it’s the only way forward.

When you’re standing at the edge of a career change, you’re not just choosing a new job.

You’re releasing:
➙ Titles
➙ Habits
➙ Identities
➙ Comfort zones

It can feel like cutting ties with the only YOU you’ve ever known…

Career pivots are deeply personal.

You’re not just updating a resume or polishing your interview skills or dusting off your networking strategies.

You’re rewriting a new chapter.

If you’re in that in-between space.
Mid-air, mid-pivot.
I see you.

It’s okay to feel temporarily lost.

It just means you’ve let go of what’s behind you.

You don’t need all the answers.
You just need to trust the float.

What is one thing you can do today to write your new chapter (or help someone write theirs)?

Quote: Lao Tzu

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Your clients are not waiting for permission to use AI in the job search.They are already using it.They are using it to e...
05/25/2026

Your clients are not waiting for permission to use AI in the job search.

They are already using it.

They are using it to explore career options, research industries, rewrite resumes, prepare for interviews, draft networking messages, compare salary data, and make decisions faster.

And sometimes?
They are using it badly.

Your clients are trying to make sense of these new tools without trusted guidance or enough context to know when the output is useful, and when AI steers them in the wrong direction.

For as helpful as these tools are, they create a new responsibility for career professionals.

We don’t need to become experts in every AI tool on the market (that would be totally impossible).

But we do need to understand what tools our clients are already bringing into the job search.

AI is changing how our clients gather information, make meaning of their experience, present themselves, prepare for conversations, and evaluate opportunities.

That means our role is shifting too.

We are no longer just helping clients complete job search tasks.

We are helping them ask better questions, evaluate AI-generated advice, check assumptions, protect their voice, and make decisions with more clarity.

The tools are here.

We add value by helping clients use them better.

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05/19/2026

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

The same is true of how you build your coaching practice.

Research at DePaul University found that 20% of adults are chronic procrastinators.

But here’s what the study also showed: we don’t avoid tasks because they’re hard.

We avoid them because they’re emotionally uncomfortable.

And nothing in a coaching business is more emotionally uncomfortable than the business-building work.

➤ Following up with the lead who ghosted you
➤ Raising your rates on the discovery call
➤ Sending the proposal you keep revising
➤ Asking the past client for the testimonial

These aren’t hard tasks.
They’re identity tasks.

Every one of them asks you to be visible in a way that could lead to rejection.

So, instead, your brain finds you a softer task and your to-do list becomes a hiding place.

Here’s the one strategy that actually breaks the pattern:

Address the feeling, not the action.

Instead of “send proposal to Sarah,” write “ask Sarah for $4,500 and risk hearing no.”

Instead of “post on LinkedIn,” write “share my actual opinion on career assessments and let people disagree.”

Instead of “follow up with the lead,” write “find out if she’s still interested or if I imagined the connection.”

Naming your roadblock out loud strips the task of its disguise.

And most of the time, once you identify what’s causing the hesitation, you can do it in ten minutes.

The work that grows your practice isn’t the work that feels productive.

It’s the work that feels exposing.

What’s the task on your list today that’s actually an identity task in disguise? Name it! 👇
——
Quote: Annie Dillard

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You’re giving 2020 job search advice in a 2026 hiring market.I get it - you’re busy.You’re carrying full caseloads, back...
05/18/2026

You’re giving 2020 job search advice in a 2026 hiring market.

I get it - you’re busy.

You’re carrying full caseloads, back-to-back appointments, student needs, client crises, employer requests, program goals, and administrative work that’s multiplying by the minute.

But career development work does not sit still.

Hiring practices change rapidly and clients come in with different fears, different expectations, and different questions about work, identity, money, purpose, burnout, and stability.

So when our knowledge gets stale, the risk is not just that we sound outdated.

The risk is that we start giving confident guidance that no longer fits the client, the market, or the moment.

That matters.

Because we are helping people make sense of decisions that affect their income, identity, family, confidence, wellbeing, and future options.

That requires more than good intentions.

It requires a toolkit that keeps getting updated.

There are 3 areas that need constant strengthening:

1/ Knowledge toolkit
Career theory. Labor market trends. Ethical standards. Hiring practices. Assessment literacy. Workforce shifts.

2/ Coaching toolkit
Listening. Questioning. Reflection. Motivation. Ambivalence. Resistance. Accountability.

3/ Strategy toolkit
Resumes. LinkedIn. Networking. Interviewing. Salary conversations. Career exploration. Job search systems.

Here is a simple test:

Look at the last five people you supported.

Where did you...
1/ feel most current?
2/ feel too dependent on repetitive advice?
3/ rush to a tool when you needed a better question?
4/ assume you understood the market instead of checking?
5/ give a strategy without fully exploring the client’s context?

That kind of reflection is professional maintenance.

We do not need to chase every trend or turn continuing education into a second unpaid job.

But we do need a rhythm for staying sharp.

Here are 12 must-reads that can help:

That is the standard worth building toward.

——
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AI responds to prompts. Human coaches read the pause.And in career work, the pause is often where the real issue lives.I...
05/13/2026

AI responds to prompts. Human coaches read the pause.

And in career work, the pause is often where the real issue lives.

In my 20 years of career coaching, the conversation almost always begins with the client requesting resume support.

But then they doenplay every accomplishment.

They soften every leadership sentence.

They turn measurable impact into secondary support.

They remove the strongest parts of their story and then wonder why the resume does not sound compelling.

That is not a resume problem.

That is a confidence problem wearing a resume costume.

And this is one example where the difference between AI and human coaching becomes clearer.

✔️ AI can rewrite the bullet.
💡 A skilled coach can ask why the client downplays their valuable on paper.

✔️AI can generate career options.
💡 A skilled coach can notice that every realistic option keeps the client safely under-challenged.

✔️AI can draft interview answers.
💡 A skilled coach can hear the exact moment the client stops believing their own story.

✔️AI can build a job search plan.
💡 A skilled coach can explore why the client abandons every plan the second rejection or self-doubt enters the room.

AI is incredibly useful for information, structure, language, and practice.

Career professionals should not ignore that.

But career development is rarely just an information problem. It’s rarely a document issue.

Most clients are not stuck because they have zero access to advice.

They are stuck because the advice collides with something human:

➤ Fear of being rejected again.
➤ Grief over leaving an old identity.
➤ Pressure to make the responsible choice.
➤ Confusion about whether ambition feels worth the cost.
➤ Shame about needing help.
➤ A definition of success they inherited and never stopped to question.

So here is a practical distinction for career professionals: When AI gives a client an answer, listen for the client’s relationship to that answer.

🖇️ Save this if you work with clients who have plenty of information but still cannot seem to move.

Yours clients keep blaming themselves for being miserable at work.Stop letting them.The problem isn’t their attitude.It’...
05/11/2026

Yours clients keep blaming themselves for being miserable at work.

Stop letting them.

The problem isn’t their attitude.
It’s their manager.

We spend so much time talking about skills gaps and career ladders.

Meanwhile, the thing that actually determines whether someone thrives at work is sitting right there in weekly one-on-ones.

So here’s what to teach your clients about what career wellbeing actually looks like:

1/ Help them spot psychological safety
↳ Can they mess up without killing their careers?
↳ Do they speak up in meetings or just nod along?
↳ Are questions welcomed or treated like personal attacks?

2/ Teach them to expect whole-person recognition
↳ Does their manager remember they have a life outside work?
↳ Are personal wins celebrated, not just quarterly targets?
↳ Is flexibility offered before they have to grovel for it?

3/ Show them what real feedback sounds like
↳ Is it specific enough to be useful?
↳ Does their manager know what actually motivates them?
↳ Are they celebrated in ways that matter to them, not their manager?

4/ Help them demand growth beyond promotions
↳ Are development conversations happening without them begging?
↳ Is their manager actively building their skills?
↳ Are new opportunities being brought to them regularly?

5/ Show them how to set boundaries that actually stick
↳ Are evening texts truly optional?
↳ Is vacation time protected or just “technically available”?
↳ Are deadlines realistic or built for fantasy land?

6/ Help them understand what belonging feels like
↳ Are they in the conversations that affect their work?
↳ Does their manager adjust for how they actually work best?
↳ Do they see people like them succeeding here?

7/ Teach them about upward advocacy
↳ Is their manager fighting for them behind closed doors?
↳ Are opportunities being brought to them first?
↳ Is someone actively removing barriers from their path?

Share this if you think career wellbeing deserves more attention in our work.
Follow for more on what career development really looks like.

Address

Westford, MA
01886

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 5pm
Tuesday 8am - 5pm
Wednesday 8am - 5pm
Thursday 8am - 5pm
Friday 8am - 5pm
Saturday 8am - 5pm
Sunday 7am - 5pm

Telephone

+16179255289

Website

https://career-in-progress.beehiiv.com/, https://www.careerinprogress.com/facilitatingcar

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