Bait and Switch Read Free Page B

Kiwanis and Ro¬tary clubs.
    depressed—a perfect market, in other words, for any service Surely he can guide my transformation into the mar¬ketable middle-promising prosperity and renewed self-esteem. Some coaches level professional I aspire to be. Besides, he assures me, I will not have to pay for our first, trial session.

    12 See Daniel C. Feldman, "Career Coaching: What HR Professionals Need to Know," Human Resources Planning 24:2 (2001), p. 26. Even an improving economy poses no threat to the coaching industry, representatives of the Career Coach Academy and the Career Coach Institute assured me, since companies often hire the same coaches to rev up their executives and employed individuals often seek them out when they see "the handwriting on the wall"— a subject 13 See Stratford Sherman and Alyssa Freas, "The Wild West of Executive Coaching,"
    common enough to be the topic of Internet and conference call seminars. Some Harvard Business Review, November 2004. Although this article is about executive, coaches work as individuals; others are in firms offering, for a fee, office space and as opposed to career, coaching, many individuals do both, and the same lack of equipment for the job seeker.
    credentialing and regulations applies to career coaching generally.

    I have no trouble recognizing him at Starbucks in Char-papers with only somewhat more enthusiasm than if a fly were lottesville's Barracks Road Mall; he's the one wearing the advancing across the table toward his arm. Maybe he can tell
    "JMU" baseball cap, as promised, a description that encour-without reading it, by the very format of the pages—the aged me to come in rumpled gray slacks and sneakers. The top is lack, as I now see it, of bullets and bolding—that it isn't worth a better, though—black turtleneck, tweed blazer, and pearl earrings—serious coach's attention.
    which I am hoping will pass as "business casual." Flustered by But he is bringing something out of his briefcase—an 8h x 11
    being five minutes late because my normal route to the mall was inch transparency—which he places methodically over a sheet of blocked by construction, I stumble over my new name in the white paper so that I can read: "Core Competencies and handshake phase. He appears not to notice. In fact, he doesn't Skills," or "the four competencies," as he refers to them. These are seem to be much into the noticing business or perhaps already Mobilizing Innovation, Managing People and Tasks, Com-regards me as a disappointment.
    municating, and Managing Self. This must be what I need—an After exchanging some observations on the pre-Christmas introduction to the crisp, linear concepts that shape the corpo-parking situation at the mall, I lay out my situation for him: I do rate mind. I am taking notes as fast as I can, but he assures me public relations and event planning, I tell him, but I've been doing that he will leave me with copies, so I am free to focus on the it on a freelance basis and am now seeking a stable corporate content.
    position with regular benefits, location flexible. How to present The next transparency features a picture of a harness racer and myself? Where to begin? I pull out the resume that I completed horse, and reads:
    over the weekend and slide it across the table toward him. In the Clear mind, skillful driver
    worst-case scenario, he will grab it and quiz me on it while Sound spirit, strong horse.
    holding it in such a way that I will be unable to refresh my Strong body, sound carriage.
    memory with an occasional glance. But he regards the stapled Mind, body, spirit work as one . . .

    Path to victory is clear.
    Wizard of Oz, and Morton digresses into the back story on the tin The syntax is a bit disturbing, particularly the absence of arti-man, trying to recall how he got such a hard "shell." All I can cles, which gives it a kind of ESL feel, but if modern-day exec-think is that I'm glad he didn't bring the dolls with him, utives can derive