CAREER COACHING

Career Evaluation

An intense analysis of where you are today. Your job is where you spend the majority of your waking hours. Career satisfaction is often key to your professional and personal happiness. Westport Partners offers Career Coaching and guidance as part of our unique bespoke services. We advise clients who are just beginning their careers, who are at a crossroads and are looking to make a change or those who simply want to move to the next level in their chosen field. After an initial consultation in order to understand what you need, we work with you to ascertain your goals and then provide advice and guidance with every step of the way to help you achieve that goal.

Introspective Thinking. We ask you the hard questions. Helping you gain objective clarity of where you are today and tangible action points moving forward. Some of the decisions on which we can help you navigate include the following:

  • What’s the problem: Money or meaning

  • Understanding your goals and motivation: What’s your why, how and what’s next

  • Career change and evolution: Helping you get to your desired career destination

  • The ARC of your career: Your mindset, grit and determination

  • Next Level: Taking your profession to new heights

  • Securing that dream job or promotion

  • Attaining that illusive pay rise

  • Personal interests, executive education, relocation

Career Change

How to start a new career without industry experience. Are you interested to move into a new industry and pivot your career? We can help you distinguish:

  • Your transferrable skills: What are these and how to take stock of how you add value? Once in place, we will then help you define the necessary steps to secure your new career

  • Where to start and take the plunge: How to apply for new roles and engage hiring & HR managers

  • Reflective Action Points: Take the first steps. Break out of being trapped in analysis becoming paralysis

  • Looking for people, not jobs. We teach you how to contact hiring managers and not to look for jobs adverts

  • Getting the job you really want: We give you the tools to develop:

  • Positivity: Adding value. What are your characteristics, USP’s? What can you offer to your future employer?

  • Passion + talent + application + work ethic = a supreme proposition

  • Permission to be happy: Life is too precious to be disengaged at work

  • Preparation: Do your homework, know the competition, find the blindspots - empower yourself to win

  • Packaging: Investing in the way you exhibit yourself will help you fit in and achieve maximum impact

  • Performance: How to showcase how you will deliver

  • Power: How to ask the right and answer the questions and demonstrate how you will go the extra mile

  • Positioning: How do you want the audience to perceive you when you enter and exit the room

  • Perseverance: How to deal redundancy or bounce back from setbacks

Branding & Messaging

Before you commence writing your resume or cover letter, this is the perfect opportunity to convey to the market what your personal branding is. Leaving HR practitioners and potential hiring managers with a positive, lomg-lasting impression will help build your brand.

Increase Your Online Visibility & Engage At Every Stage.

Developing Your Message:

  • Message development and vision statement

  • Become a competent speaker & conversationalist

  • Presentation and speeches

  • Dress for success

  • Developing your branding and message in line with a world-class, tailored CV & LinkedIn profile

  • Commitment to excellence

  • Packaging: How do you want to be perceived when you walk into and exit a room

CV & LinkedIn Optimisation

We help you enhance your CV and LinkedIn profile in tandem. Your CV has to attractively reflect your career milestones and aspirations whilst your LinkedIn profile needs to do this and a great deal more. It provides a window to all current & future employers, colleagues, candidates, associates and clients. We help you build your Personal Brand; positioning yourself as an industry expert and in the process attracting potential recruiters and HR & hiring managers.

LinkedIn: We will teach you how to

  • Create the best profile and background picture

  • Optimise your headline and summary

  • Heighten your workplace information & your skills - detailing what to include

  • Improve your URL

  • Write & share articles: increasing your optics and online search visibility

CV Creation and Review: CVs are often the key that can unlock a myriad of opportunities. A polished and professional CV that makes you stand out from the crowd and will give you the competitive advantage you need. We understand that the creation and updating of CVs can often be time-consuming and tedious. We aim to take that burden from you. Capitalising on years of experience working with leading corporations from a variety of sectors, we provide the necessary insight into what organisations are looking for and will ensure that you differentiate yourself from the pack. We will advise you on all aspects of CV creation and review, including:

  • What should a modern-day CV for your industry look like

  • How to format and ensure effective page distribution

  • What are HR & hiring managers looking for

  • How to make your CV look professional and stand out at the same time

  • What type of content & language needs to be presented

  • How to review your own resume including adding new content or tailoring your resume to a specific role

Compensation Analysis

Understanding how your company values you in relation to the market:

  • How much do your boss and their peers get paid?

  • How much do your peers get paid?

  • How much do your juniors get paid?

  • How much should you get paid?

  • How does the market perceive you?

  • Does your compensation package reflect that you have become a victim of loyalty?

ROI: Understanding what your (1) Peers (2) Juniors and (3) Seniors Earn in the market:

We will help you understand where you sit amongst your peers in competitor organisations and what you can expect to earn as your career evolves. This information will help you get an increment, no matter how small. Working on the premise that you will not earn less in the next 10 years, if you get only a $10,000 annual increment, that equates to $ 100,000 over the next decade.

We provide the following Compensation Analysis so that you are better positioned at your next appraisal or if interviewing elsewhere:

  • 3- year analysis of your compensation:

  • Your base salary, bonus, commission, and shares as compared to your peers

  • Clauses: buy-out clauses, claw-back clauses & non-compete clauses

  • Creating a compensation goal plan

Job Interviewing Skills

Preparation & Role Play

Preparing for the job interview is of paramount importance. The first interview is often the most daunting element of the entire process because it brings home the notion that you may not be happy in your current role and evokes the question – are you really ready for a major change? Whilst the concept of getting a perfect new job with a better remuneration package can be alluring; conversely, the possibility that you will not be shortlisted or offered the job or offered a salary lower than you were expecting, can be intimidating.

We help you take the necessary steps to reduce this stress and increase your chances of success:

  • Research & due diligence: What to know about the organisation

  • Preparation: For the interviews, practice sessions, role play and feedback on your interview techniques

  • Compensation: How to tackle this? Surveys - understanding the market, your competition and how to utilise the information

  • Interview process: How to progress from the first to the final interview and secure the job

  • Value Proposition: How to stand out from the crowd and highlight your unique capabilities and skill set

  • What To Bring With You: Should you bring a sample of your work? Should you bring a copy of their annual report with your notes so that they know if you have studied their company? Should you prepare a PowerPoint?

  • Customised & Personalised Approach

  • Interview Progress: How to advance from 1st to 2nd to XX to the final interview

  • Securing the offer: How to close the deal

  • Exit: How to withdraw from the process without burning bridges (should you wish not to proceed)

Remuneration Review & Negotiation

Negotiating your salary at any point in your career can be a nerve-wracking and uncomfortable experience. At the same time, it is a critical process that reinforces your value to your current or future employer. Westport Partners aims to give you the confidence and skills necessary to achieve remuneration that is truly reflective of your skills and experience. We have extensive experience in negotiating salaries for candidates, including sign-on bonuses, guaranteed bonuses, annual increases, tax implications, how to get an expatriate relocation and conversely how to localise an expatriate package. We will help you understand and deal with all the related clauses. Our knowledge has allowed us to get a real understanding of what the employer is willing to pay and the rationale behind each offer. You will leave with the tools to be confident in negotiating your own salary.

If you pitch yourself too low, you could under-sell yourself. Conversely, if you pitch yourself too high you could become far too expensive and out-price yourself. We help you understand your value to the business, your personal value and how to position yourself.

The core topics include:

  • Why, when and how: The best time to broach the subject with your current/future manager and negotiate

  • Information: What do you need to bring with you into the meeting and how this makes an impact

  • Fair offer: What is deemed realistic and why accepting too low or reaching too high can leave a damaging impression

  • Understanding: Which compensation & benefit clauses can and should be negotiated

  • Due diligence: Helping make fully informed and sensible decisions in the short and long term

  • Advice: Strategic and commercial recruitment acumen

  • Techniques: That will allow you to combat nerves, minimising any negative connotations your line manager may feel

  • Positive outcome: How to put a feather in your manager’s cap - creating a win-win scenario

  • Moving Up: How to help your manager get promoted and assume his/her job

  • Hostile takeover: How to take your manager’s job if they are not supportive and leave you no alternative

Promotion: Appraisal Preparation & Review

Promotion: You want to secure that elusive job promotion, be it to make the move to a more senior level or perhaps you are thinking of shifting to a different division. You have worked all year and know you will have to wait another year if you are not considered for advancement now. We will help you understand all the different angles to explore, what to prepare and bring with you, discussing all aspects enabling you to position yourself in the right way, at the appropriate time in order to secure that pivotal career step.

Focus on What You Do Best: We will help you try a summary of competitive assessments and look at business cases to help you assess what and how to develop your career with your organisation.

Preparing For The Appraisal: Being better equipped for the internal meeting will ensure that you are more confident and at ease, enabling you to better perform in the meeting. Preparation is key and will help you overcome your fears and build your self-confidence.

Research & Due Diligence: We help you understand what due diligence will help get you that promotion: looking at articles, videos and annual reports and speaking to friends that work within the organisation is a must. We will help advise you on the best approach and teach you how to utilise this information and build it into the fabric of the conversation of your review meeting.

The core topics will include:

  • Playbook: Ensuring you have the most successful outcome

  • Clearly defined steps: We help you understand your value to the business, your personal value and how to position yourself

  • Timing: When is the best time to broach the subject to your manager (i.e. if the formal appraisal is too late to make changes)

  • Information: What do you need to bring with you into the meeting and how this makes an impact

  • Techniques: Strategies that will allow you to combat your nerves and best position yourself

  • Managing difficult conversations: Minimise any negative connotations your line manager may be feeling

  • Career Jump: How to help your manager get promoted and assume his/her job

  • Hostile takeover: How to take your manager’s job if they are not supportive and leave you no alternative

  • Blindspots: Identifying angles you may not be aware of and how to discover these

Tools we will provide you with:

  • PowerPoint presentation template - to bring with you for the meeting

  • Script and role-play template - becoming multi-dimensional and prepared for all aspects of where the conversation may lead

Career Coaching: 1 on 1

Crafting your career to head in the right direction requires a road map, which can be an extensive exercise, much like creating a business plan. Sitting down introspectively and reviewing one’s career goals and aspirations is arguably one of the most productive investments of your time and your resources.

The process of thinking and writing your career plan will provide you with the necessary clarity to truly optimise yourself and your business. Just like a potential investor seeking to invest in a new venture, your current and future bosses/partner wants to see your commitment and plan to demonstrate a solid understanding and vision for your career, yourself and your business. You can expect the coaching to be tough and invigorating, addressing tough, thought-provoking questions.

Career plan: Prioritise what is most important to you, distinguishing what tasks are necessary to help you accomplish your goals. Helping you evolve as a professional to define your Career Plan that is understandable, readable and realistic

Advice: Bespoke solutions and strategic professional guidance taking your career to optimal levels

Career architects: Working hand in hand with you to maximise your potential and internal/external opportunities

Professional support & development: Equipping you with the necessary skills to understand and highlight your strengths, with the ultimate aim of maximising your career growth and opening new and exciting opportunities for you

Scientific approach: Understanding the fundamentals - capacity to practice, defining how your work matters, programmed mindset on positivity & proactivity, high-intensity career planning exercises, reducing negativity in your everyday work, increased focus on your medium to long-term future

Getting gritty: It’s the best predictor of how you will make changes and take your career and life to the next level

Toolkit: Built around your goals, we shall help equip you with books, clothes, health-based accessories & bio pic

What’s Next? Beyond My Career & Retirement

We have had the privilege and unique opportunity to work with some extremely high-level and progressive practitioners who, once they have finished their corporate career, have asked themselves “What’s Next?” We help to provide post - Career Coaching to help C-level executives at a crossroads and at different stages of their life and business.

We help you explore all of your options, helping you complete the due diligence in which direction is the best use of your time and resource such as:

Board Advisory: Which Boards should you consider sitting on?

Business & Entrepreneurship: Which businesses you may wish to invest in or become involved with?

Education: Teaching / Professorship roles. Sharing what you have learnt with the next generation

Creating & Supporting Scholarships: Helping professionals take their education and careers to the next level. Leaving a legacy.

Philanthropy & Charitable Funds: Giving back is so important

Community: How to help build and foster the community in which you serve.

Mentorship: Professional and/or Informal

Network: How to leverage your network & alumni to connect to others and take you in the direction you wish to go.

Politics: How to utilise your business and commercial skills in the political arena

We can help you carefully navigate and select which direction you wish to go in. Strategically balancing your time, effort and resource can be a complex task with many moving components.