Meet the Coach: Interview with Senior Career Consultant, Andrea Abernethy

As a Senior Career Consultant at Careerminds, Andrea Abernethy helps participants in our outplacement programme to navigate their career transitions. By providing advice, guidance, and encouragement, she ensures they find new, fulfilling roles.

In addition to extensive experience in the education sector, Andrea built her own business from the ground up and then transitioned into career coaching. Since she joined Careerminds as a Career Consultant, Andrea has helped 100s of programme participants through the retrenchment and outplacement process, supporting them into roles in numerous different industries. 

We interviewed Andrea to learn more about her coaching experience, tap into her career transition advice, and gain insights into her role, the outplacement industry, and Careerminds services in particular. 

As a Career Consultant, I support individuals with their job transitions when they experience retrenchment. Their employer pays for this service as part of their severance package. The Careerminds programme includes one-to-one coaching with me or another coach, as well as access to our innovative technology platform. As a coach, I provide encouragement, support, and tools, enabling them to be successful in their career transition. 

When I start coaching a Careerminds programme participant, I usually start by learning about their mindset. Have they accepted the layoff? Do they feel anger or resentment about it? If they have a positive mindset, I suggest resources to get them ready to begin their job search. If they’re not quite ready to start their search, I usually start talking to them about their career goals, to determine what their transition will look like. Then we start working on their personal and professional brand, usually by updating their CV and LinkedIn profile. 

After that, I support them wherever needed – such as with strategic interviewing and mock interviews, networking support, salary negotiation, job search tips, leveraging LinkedIn, and more. The Careerminds technology platform that I mentioned previously has great webinars, lessons, videos, podcasts, and other resources to support participants, alongside my coaching. I often suggest different resources on the Careerminds site to reinforce my advice and the suggestions from my coaching sessions.  

Most of my background before I joined Careerminds was in educational leadership. Having a teaching, training, and leadership background is very helpful in coaching participants through their career transitions. 

I have always enjoyed helping individuals to grow and learn, whether that’s by gaining education and skills, or developing in their careers. I enjoy building relationships with people and learning about their career experience and goals. 

Careerminds has a wonderful team of experienced coaches and professionals. Individuals working with a Careerminds consultant can expect to be paired with an experienced and knowledgeable coach who truly cares about supporting them, and providing the tools necessary for them to land a rewarding job much faster than if they’d been searching on their own. 

As Career Consultants, we coach a lot of people in transition so we know what works and what doesn’t in the job search. Careerminds provides training and stays on top of hiring trends in the marketplace as well. 

If you’re interested in learning more about what it looks like to use our industry-leading outplacement service, and how we stack up against other providers – including our comprehensive list of programme services, competitive participant-to-coach ratio, low fees, superior responsiveness, professionalism and results, click below to download our free outplacement comparison sheet. 

I enjoy helping clients ask themselves the right questions to determine what would make them happy in their next role and find a job they love. I’ve been fortunate to have jobs that I love, like working at Careerminds, and it is my goal to help individuals to find jobs that they find meaningful and are happy in. When individuals find a job they love, they often excel in their careers. We all spend too much time working to not love what we do at work.

I also help clients to ask important questions in interviews about company culture and team collaboration, so they can find an organisation that they will enjoy working in. A good company culture and a collaborative, supportive team are so important for career satisfaction. 

I’ve been working with Careerminds for over 10 years, and was with the company in its early years. It has been very exciting to see it grow and to be part of the team when the company acquired additional companies. It was exciting when it expanded into global markets as well. 

I have been fortunate to coach 100s of clients with Careerminds. I generally enjoy working with all of my clients. The ones that stand out the most to me, and are the most rewarding to work with, are those who started out sceptical about the value of working with a career coach and participating in a career transition programme and, in the end, are so thankful for the help and support. They tell me how they appreciated the Careerminds programme, and the support I’ve given them, and say that they don’t think they’d have been as successful in the job search without it. 

Careerminds provides individuals with support and tools – such as an updated CV, LinkedIn profile optimisation, and more – that are necessary to be successful in the job search. Participants get one-to-one personalised coaching, along with resources, webinars, and customised learning plans on the Careerminds platform. 

So many of my clients tell me that the job search has changed so much since they last looked for a job, and that there is so much conflicting information out there on the internet. It is very stressful and confusing for them to sort legitimate information from the rest. They find it helpful to have an experienced coach to work with, who knows from experience what is working and what isn’t working in the current job market. 

I believe that Careerminds is very selective with the coaches they bring on board. They hire dedicated, experienced consultants who are passionate about what they do and about supporting their clients to be successful in their job search. 

Careerminds has a very collaborative, knowledgeable team and a wonderful, welcoming, and empowering culture. That starts with our fantastic President, Raymond Lee. Raymond, the coaches, the technical team, the operations team, and the marketing team all work together to provide the best possible experience for participants in job transition. As I said before, our coaches truly care about helping our clients to land jobs that they enjoy. 

I have seen the outplacement industry increasingly turn to new technology features and online coaching options to support participants, including using AI alongside one-to-one coaching sessions, to provide the best possible suite of tools to ensure success. 

From a coaching perspective, I regularly have clients who are in transition from many different companies – some that I’ve worked with before, and some new companies as well. So I believe companies are now seeing how important it is to provide outplacement services to their displaced employees. I assume that many of our returning companies are hearing from their displaced employees that the Careerminds programme was very helpful for them and made a positive difference in their job search results. 

When I talk to a client who is upset or anxious about their career transition, I start by building a relationship with them. I listen and I get to know them, to learn how they are feeling about the transition and what their mindset is. Then, I decide if they need some more time to process their feelings before diving into the job search, or if they are ready to start their career transition right away. 

I often share that I’ve been in a career transition myself, that I coach clients in career transitions every day, and that – most of the time – my clients find a job that is even better than the one they’d been retrenched from. That could be due to a better work-life balance, a closer commute, the ability to work from home, a higher salary, more challenges, increased growth potential, or any number of other benefits. 

I try to build their confidence and help them to start thinking about their own accomplishments, unique value proposition, likes, and dislikes, which I hope gets them excited about their next career move. Everyone gets to this point at different times, based on their personality, life experiences, and other variables. 

I tell clients that, if they work hard in the job search and use the support and tools I provide, alongside the resources on the Careerminds site, then I’m confident that they will find a great job soon. I also share that my current clients are landing fantastic jobs every day.

Many clients are worried that there aren’t any jobs available, but there will always be new job openings as employees retire or move to new positions and companies create new roles. I also explain that, sometimes, a career transition is just the push a person needs to try a new career or a more challenging role – which happens often!

I would suggest that companies strongly consider providing an outplacement programme for their retrenched employees – preferably with Careerminds as, in my mind, they provide quality support for employees and truly care about their job placement outcomes. 

Retrenched employees feel a range of emotions after a layoff, and really need the support and guidance of an experienced, qualified coach. This helps them to navigate a difficult job market, build a brand with their CV and LinkedIn presence, and speak about their unique value proposition to set themselves apart from others in the market. This helps them, ultimately, to land their dream job and pursue successful careers. 

Here at Careerminds, our industry-leading outplacement services offer incredible results for your retrenched employees. With an 80% engagement rate, 95% placement rate, and huge 99% satisfaction rate, they’ll be in safe hands. If you’re interested in learning more about our outplacement programmes, click below to speak to an expert, and find out if Careerminds is the right outplacement partner for your organisation. 

Jen David

Jen is a careers writer and CV specialist, with over 13 years' experience in the job search sector. Find out more by connecting with her on LinkedIn or visiting her website.