1Up is reinventing Career Coaching for First-Gen, Nontraditional college students and we are currently seeking an Online Career Coach to join our team.

This story needs a little background before I can explain the job.

I was a K-12 educator, working with students from poor families. I managed teams so I’ve hired (and fired) people before. I’m blessed with lots of “social capital” so I make good educated guesses on exactly what managers want.

I switched to become a career coach. Self taught. Purposefully rejecting the conventional approach. My focus was First-in-Family college grads who were struggling to find good jobs. Mostly grew up poor; mostly African-American and Hispanic.

This career coaching effort was an experiment, and … it worked. Shockingly well. I say that as someone who, in other experiments, failed a lot!

So now some backers want me to serve more people who need this “Last Mile” help of getting a better job.

Please read this for context on what we do. And then read this for why our clients say that traditional career coaches (from their colleges) did not succeed with them.
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Our framework: the client needs to “win” - to beat out 10, 20, 50 other (probably nice) people for the job. So any normal “light touch help” has a near zero chance of success. We ask for permission to be unusually blunt and directive - clients always say yes - and then that’s exactly what we are.

I’m looking specifically for ex-executives who hired (and fired) lots of people … but who now want a more flexible, work-from-home job with ENORMOUS job satisfaction and social impact.

Hours: ~20/week
Pay: $70/hour
(Though I can imagine some semi-retired execs would want to do this entirely on volunteer basis….that’s fine you could designate a charity to receive your pay).

I will train you on precisely how to help these recent college grads who are struggling mightily to get a better job.

Typical Career Counselor (What we DON’T do)
1. Wait to see who makes an appointment
2. Give job seekers encouragement and light resume and cover letter edits; suggest resources like job boards, Handshake , etc
3. Hope for the best

1Up Career Counselor (What we DO)
1. Our university partner sends out emails to recent alumni. “Hey if you’re struggling to find a good job, we can help.” When alumni respond “yes please” then they send them to us. You meet with them, and in an honest conversation, explain what we do and how we do it.

Context: these alumni often feel sad and low confidence. In May they celebrated college diploma and now in October they can’t find a decent job and feel like failures.

2. Usually your roster is 20 clients at a time. Each week you’re launching 2 new clients, helping 16 that are mid-process, and helping 2 at the finish line negotiate their offers and start the new job.

3. For me, while my hours have been roughly steady (I’m full time so I work 8am to 6pm or so), I make time when clients need me. They have a job interview tomorrow at 10am? And the only time they can prep is tonight at 8pm? No problem, I’m there.

For a 20 hour per week coach, I’d imagine a similar set up. Mostly regular hours but switching as needed - whatever it takes.

4. Just as an example of our process: a typical career counselor simply says, “What do you want to do?”

At 1Up we go much deeper. We have clients read Job Descriptions (JD) aloud to you; try to answer their questions on what each sentence means (you correct as needed); and then have them rate that JD 1-10. Usually after several of these “close readings” - both of you become clear on what the student wants.

You’ll read more about our approach in the links above.

How To Apply
Email me at: Geordie [at] 1Upcoach.org

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