Something I’ve never been very good at is keeping my thoughts to myself...
Which is inconvenient, really, because when you’re starting a coaching business, your whole job is to say the useful thing clearly, kindly, and at the right moment — even when it is not the thing someone most wants to hear.
After a late ADHD diagnosis two years ago, I understand myself a lot better. I understand why my internal voice sometimes arrives in the room before my brain has had time to dress it up in appropriate business speak.
Plenty of candidates and clients over the years have valued that directness. Some employers, admittedly, have found it less charming.
But here’s the thing: honest feedback, delivered with care and context, can be one of the most useful things a recruiter, coach, or advisor can offer.
I once worked with a highly capable, beautifully presented candidate who kept missing out on interviews despite having the skills, experience, and communication style for the roles she wanted — and was qualified for.
I began to wonder whether her surname may have been triggering bias before anyone had even met her.
As the person she had entrusted with her job search, I could see that she was a phenomenal candidate, and I was frustrated for her. I had recruited in that particular neck of the woods long enough to recognise what might be happening, but I also knew that it wasn’t really the done thing to say it out loud.
I could have found a safe recruiter excuse, let her down gently, and left her to keep repeating the same process with most likely the same result.
Instead, we talked about it.
She was flabbergasted. She had been convinced it was her age, her CV, or something she was saying at interview that was getting in the way of her job search.
Two weeks later, she bounced into my office with a bottle of wine and a bunch of flowers.
She’d got the job.
Now one successful application couldn’t prove that her surname had been the problem, but our conversation gave her another possibility to consider – and something practical she could choose to test.
That’s the distinction that matters to me.
It wasn’t brutal honesty for the sake of it. It was useful honesty, offered carefully, because she deserved information that might actually help her make a better next move.
That is the kind of honesty I want to bring into Career Rescue: not brutal for the sake of it, not sugar-coated into uselessness, but clear enough to help someone see what they may not be able to see for themselves.
If you’re stuck in your job search and suspect there’s something nobody is telling you, this may be exactly the conversation worth having.