Career coaching is an important part of business and managerial education, and this is no less true when it comes to online study. Coaching allows you to make best use of the skills, knowledge, and qualifications you are gaining through your course.
Career coaching encourages introspection, helping you to better understand yourself and overcome mindset limitations that may be holding you back. It allows you to better navigate your relationship with yourself and others, as well as developing skills that are essential for any business leader.
Why career coaching is important in online learning
Christophe Abrial, Director of EDHEC’s Manager Programme, explains why career coaching is critical for any professional or executive, as well as reinforcing the human aspect of online learning:
“In today’s world, a manager with only hard skills is headed for disaster. Coaching aims to develop essential soft skills, and this can only be done in a space that is focused on listening, personal development, and psychological safety. At EDHEC we find that coaching is an obvious solution, and at the same time it allows us to support and encourage group learning.”
Muriel Cauvin, EDHEC Online Career Coach, adds:
“Coaching is, above all, helping someone go from their present state to their desired state. Each of us has limiting beliefs, things that stop us from moving forward or from making the right decisions. Coaching acts as a facilitator that helps people realise that the resources they need are already within them, and that all they need to do is to activate them by asking the right questions.”
The challenge is, how do you integrate this highly personal process online?
Online education presents its challenges when it comes to direct human interaction, and the human element is all too often left behind when it comes to online study. This is particularly true of coaching, but it is possible to include this vital element with the right online career coaching methods.
Individual vs group coaching strategies
When it comes to coaching, there are two main approaches you can take: individual and group coaching. Both have their strengths, and both are extremely valuable in their own way.
Benefits of individual coaching:
- Participants can delve deeper into where their mindsets come from and how to overcome them to break mental constraints that are holding them back.
- It provides a safe space for personal one-on-one development with an experienced, professional coach.
Benefits of group coaching:
- Creates a group dynamic that lets you see that you are not alone.
- Allows students to learn not only about themselves, but also about how they interact with others.
- Makes full use of collective wisdom, as well as sharing experiences, mutual encouragement, and support.
Online career coaching methods: the combination approach
As part of EDHEC’s online Master in International Business Management, we combine these two approaches. This course includes both individual sessions (8 sessions across the year) and group sessions (12 sessions over the year).
The combination of the two strategies allows for a wider spectrum of methods and balances various needs, meaning students benefit from the advantages of both types of coaching.
As Muriel Cauvin, EDHEC Online Career Coach, explains:
“What I really like at EDHEC, and find quite innovative compared to other environments, is that we work with a series of concrete, self-determined challenges. Throughout both individual and group coaching sessions, we ask the students to find various real situations that will make useful challenges. We ask them to share and work on these concrete situations.”
Cauvin acknowledges that online coaching is still quite a recent development, but says that the team at EDHEC have embraced the new way of working. As people get familiar with the online environment, she’s seen emotions coming through more and more easily during sessions.
“I have been coaching online for years, but the digital tools we now have available are really helping to create a stronger experience and genuine emotional connections,” Cauvin says.
What makes career coaching at EDHEC Online different?
Career coaching at EDHEC Online makes use of the latest technology, experienced coaches, and a combination of individual and group online career coaching methods.
“We already have excellent coaching foundations, and we work with coaches that have extensive experience in online coaching. But we are also constantly improving on our methods. Coaches are constantly updating their resources and collective knowledge by sharing best practices and experiences together,” explains Christophe Abrial.
EDHEC’s team has a wide variety of knowledge and qualifications: at EDHEC Online, each coach has extensive experience in management and working in a corporate environment. The average age of our coaches is 50, and each has an average of 7 different certifications, in areas such as non-violent communication, MBTI, and DISC. Their extensive experience allows them to adapt to the wide diversity of student profiles.
This, in turn, means that EDHEC’s online students benefit from a coaching programme that is tailored to their individual needs, and supports them to make the most out of their study in order to progress in their career.
