Driven by the disruption brought about by technological advances and the unprecedented emergence of the pandemic, which led to ‘The Great Resignation’ that forced people to reexamine their personal and professional priorities, the landscape of work is rapidly evolving. A lot of people are seeking guidance and support to navigate the changing career terrain as it is getting increasingly difficult to map out a path on the basis of existing knowledge and skills. This presents an opportunity for entrepreneurs to better harness and leverage technology by launching an online career coaching platform and allowing individuals to cultivate career agility.
As mentioned above, the workforce market has been in a state of flux ever since the emergence of Covid 19, which was followed by massive layoffs, remote work and redefining of job roles. All of this cumulatively led to a surge in demand for career coaching services that holistically range from writing simple and substantial résumés to helping with interview preparation, salary negotiation, confidence building, finding work-life balance and more. That said, according to IBIS World, the market size of the Job Training & Career Counseling industry increased by 9.1% in 2022 and reached $18.4 Billion in the same year.
From being a luxury in the past to being a necessity in the present, career coaching has come a long way with several trends driving its popularity and shaping the market. Let us explore a few of them.
Technology acceleration has accentuated virtual coaching where suitable assistance is now accessible at the tap of a button. Additionally, coaches can provide personalized coaching using data driven insights by using tools provided by career coaching platforms.
In a world where “technology is evolving from automating the business to being the business,” effective collaboration between machines and humans is becoming increasingly crucial in the modern work environment. Career coaches can help clients understand their strengths and how to effectively collaborate with machines for an era where human-machine interaction is essential.
Technology acceleration is reshaping job roles, thereby increasing the need for people to upskill and reskill to stay relevant in a technology driven world. Therefore, career coaches are the ones who identify skill gaps and encourage clients to reskill and upskill in order to meet their professional goals.
People are increasingly trying to achieve a healthier equilibrium between their professional and personal lives. This has given rise to remote and flexible working.
Career coaches are poised to help clients navigate through this new mode of work and in guiding them to focus on work-life balance.
By leveraging technology, several online coaching platforms have risen to prominence.
A few of them are as follows:
Transcending geographical boundaries, an online career coaching platform caters to a diverse global audience. In this section, we explain the workings of an online career coaching platform.
For any business to sustain itself, monetization is vital. In this section, we discuss a few ways to monetize an online career coaching platform.
This is a popular way to monetize an online career coaching platform, i.e. the admin can charge a commission on every booking.
This is an old yet effective way where the admin earns by displaying advertisements on the online career coaching platform.
The admin can charge membership fees from the clients and the coaches. This can either be monthly, half-yearly or annually.
If online career coaches want a spotlight on their profile, then they can pay a specific amount and get their listings highlighted on the career coaching platform.
A successful career coaching platform should have a comprehensive set of features that enhance the user experience and foster trust, so that individuals can achieve their goals and career coaches can effectively deliver guidance and support. Here are some necessary features to have in a career coaching platform.
Both career coaches and clients should be able to register and create their profiles.
Using this feature, clients can book their coaching sessions, whereas coaches can synchronize their calendars.
Both clients and career coaches can have face to face meetings in real-time using the video conferencing feature.
The platform should offer industry’s leading secure payment gateways so that the financial information of users is not compromised.
This feature allows clients to give ratings and reviews on the basis of their experience.
An online career coaching marketplace should have a push notification feature so that the users get alerts/reminders for a scheduled session.
This feature allows the admin to view critical information so that informed decisions can be taken on the basis of data and insights.
This feature allows participants to discuss a particular topic in the form of posted messages.
This is an important feature keeping in mind that an online career coaching platform will cater to a global audience with different languages. Being able to interact with a career coaching platform in a regional language makes the platform user-centric.
Just like the multilingual feature, multicurrency feature allows users to pay for a career coaching session in their currency.
This feature allows the admin to create, manage and modify content on the career coaching platform without the need of technical experts.
Using this feature, the admin can update meta tags, sitemaps, SEO URLs and so on. All of this helps in improving the visibility of the career coaching platform in relevant search engines results pages.
Using this feature, the admin can manage session orders, subscription orders, gift card orders and so on.
An online career coaching platform can be started by following either of the two approaches, i.e. custom development or choosing a readymade solution.
Under this approach, the online career coaching platform is built from scratch to meet the tailored needs of a business. It offers more flexibility, customization and scalability to meet the business needs. But custom development is time consuming and expensive as everything is done from ground up.
This is a suitable approach for those who are looking for a quick go-to-market solution. Such career coaching software solutions are cost effective and ready-to-use, encapsulating industry specific features.
FATbit Technologies is a software development company that was founded in 2004 with a vision to help startups, entrepreneurs and well-established companies to stay ahead of the curve. With 19+ years of experience, extensive industry research and keen watch on the latest trends, the team of FATbit Technologies designed and developed Yo!Coach – A ready made career coaching solution. This purpose-built solution encapsulates a wide range of exemplary features and functionalities that enhance user experience.
Aha!Interview is an interactive online coaching platform that is designed to connect professional interview coaches with individuals looking for guidance in order to clear their interviews. The platform is built with Yo!Coach and consists of rich features like screen sharing, screen recording, video conferencing, audio chat, discussion forum, and so much more.
The outset of the pandemic and “The Great Resignation” created a great reckoning among employees that ushered in a new era in the world of work. Additionally, latest technological advancements added to the turmoil. As individuals grapple with the challenges of the evolving job market, there is a raft of career coaches that help clients to not only survive but thrive. That being said, entrepreneurs who understand this shifting paradigm have an opportunity to leverage technology and launch an online career coaching platform so that the demands of the 21st-century workforce can be met.
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Vibha Sharma is an accomplished senior content writer and marketer at FATbit Technologies, where she brings her passion for storytelling and digital expertise to create compelling narratives. With a Master’s Degree in Computer Applications, Vibha successfully blends creativity with technical acumen. Outside of her professional pursuits, Vibha is a voracious reader, an avid traveler, and a lifelong learner.
