Career Coach Training for Career Transitions
This career coaching course teaches you to work with layoffs, pivots, returns, and encore moves without drifting into consulting. It is an ICF CCE specialization for coaches, not a separate career-coach credential.
Two lessons from the course
The framework in ten minutes, and what it looks like inside a real engagement.
Lesson 0.1 · Five Doorways, Four Moves
The diagnostic intake: the five transitions clients arrive with, and the four moves you make in every engagement.
Lesson 2.1.1 · The Surface Story
Inside the work: the four ways a laid-off executive presents, and what each one is really asking for.
The rest of the 75 lessons unlock the moment you enroll.
Not a webinar on resumes and LinkedIn
Most career-coaching CCE is a single talk on job-search tactics. Useful for your clients to know about - but it teaches you to consult, not to coach. This course is built the other way.
One talk on tactics, one certificate, one set of templates.
- Resume formats, salary scripts, LinkedIn tips - advice you deliver
- No model for staying in a coaching stance when the client wants answers
- Nothing on three-party contracts when a sponsor is paying
- No artifacts you keep using with the next client
Nine modules, 20 hours, mapped to ICF competencies, with Lifetime Access as defined in our Additional Terms.
- The four moves that keep you coaching through the advice-pull
- Per-unit ICF Core Competency mapping for your CCE packet
- A full module on sponsor and HR contracts, with the requests to decline
- Role-play script packs and a Three-Persona Playbook you keep
What changes in your career engagements after this course
Six practical shifts. Each is something you'll do differently with your next transition client.
Hold the stance through the advice-pull
Name the four drifts that pull career coaching toward consulting - resume review, salary tactics, advice on the offer, network introductions - and recognise the verbal cue that opens each one.
Read which doorway the client came through
Recognise the five most common transition shapes - the laid-off executive, the pivoter, the stuck mid-careerist, the returner, the late-career encore - and the work each one is really asking for.
Pivot from advice back to coaching
Run the verbal pivot that moves a conversation from "tell me what to do" back into coaching, mid-sentence, without losing the client's trust or sounding rigid.
Contract a three-party engagement
Run the sponsor intake, name the four requests an HR sponsor will make that you decline, and hold the disclosure agreement when the sponsor calls mid-engagement.
End every session with an experiment
Career coaching is action-oriented. Close each session on one concrete move the client owns and can run before you next meet - insight without an experiment leaves them looped.
Walk away with your Three-Persona Playbook
Build a working playbook for the three transition clients you expect to coach most - recognition, engagement arc, contracting language, tools, referral map, and discipline scripts you can open in a session.
Nine modules built around the four moves
One module installs the stance. Five work the doorways one at a time. Two integrate. Hours and ICF Core Competency split are documented per lesson in your learner workspace.
00Diagnostic IntakeWhich doorway did the client come through?10 min · 1 lesson
- Five Doorways, Four Moves - the map of the course
- A self-diagnostic that points you to the personas you coach most
- The case for the boundary module before any persona work
01The Coaching StanceWhat career coaching is, and is not2.5h · 6 lessons · CC anchor
- The four drifts - resume review, salary tactics, advice on the offer, network introductions
- The anatomy of the pivot, and what to do when it doesn't take
- The four referral patterns - therapist, attorney, financial planner, career consultant
- How to name a referral without sounding dismissive
02The Laid-Off ExecutivePersona A - identity grief disguised as strategy3.0h · 11 lessons
- How the laid-off executive presents, and what's actually going on underneath
- The identity work when the job was the identity
- The six-to-twelve-session engagement arc
- Tool spotlight - values-sort as re-anchor, not reinvention
- The three referral cases, worked through role-play
03The Mid-Career PivoterPersona B - the "should I do this?" pull3.0h · 11 lessons
- The four pivot shapes - industry, function, sector, scale
- Coaching questions that are not hidden advice
- Designing real-world experiments instead of giving a verdict
- When pivots go wrong - the three patterns that signal a different contract
- Tool spotlight - a decision frame without becoming the decider
04The Stuck Mid-CareeristPersona C - two years of thinking, no movement3.0h · 11 lessons
- The four forms of stuck, and the distinct work each one calls for
- The difference between coaching and encouragement
- Recognising false motion - research and networking that maintain stasis
- Designing a one-week experiment that produces evidence either way
- Depression and burnout wearing career-stuck clothing - the referral move
05The Returner After CaregivingPersona D - identity reconstruction after a gap3.0h · 10 lessons
- The three returner patterns - pre-decided, open, reluctant
- The gap that matters operationally, and why "you have transferable skills" backfires
- Using assessments without becoming an assessment coach
- A reading guide to CliftonStrengths, MBTI, Hogan, Birkman, Highlands
- The referral cases, worked through role-play
06The Late-Career EncorePersona E - between the primary career and retirement3.0h · 10 lessons
- Why encore is not retirement coaching
- The four encore shapes
- The financial-security sub-conversation you cannot skip - held without becoming a planner
- Designing the long-horizon encore arc
- The capstone move - the Encore Statement
07Cross-Persona Case FormulationWhere the moves become an engagement plan3.0h · 9 lessons · CC anchor
- Reading persona blends - because pure-persona cases are rare
- The one-page case-formulation format, with two worked examples
- Tool selection by persona - and when no tool is the right tool
- Building your Three-Persona Playbook, the signature artifact
08Three-Party Contracts in Career CoachingSponsor, HR, coach, client2.0h · 6 lessons · CC anchor
- Why career coaching is three-party by default, and who owns what
- The sponsor intake - what to surface, and what the sponsor will not volunteer
- The four sponsor requests to decline, and how to decline without losing the contract
- The mid-engagement disclosure question, and the renegotiation move
Which competencies this course goes deep on
If you're claiming these hours toward a credential, here's how each of the eight ICF Core Competencies shows up - the ones we go deep on, and the ones we touch in passing.
Deepened means at least one full unit teaches the competency directly - the stance work, the persona engagements, the case formulation, the three-party contracting. Touched means it runs underneath the work: the referral discipline and three-party consent carry the ethics thread, and holding identity grief carries trust and safety. The course documents 3 hours of ethics instruction inside its approved Core Competency total; keep the detailed lesson-by-competency map from your learner workspace because ICF makes the final renewal determination.
Who this course is for, and who it isn't
Two quick lists so you can self-select before you enroll.
- You're a credentialed coach (ACC, PCC, MCC) whose clients keep arriving carrying a career transition
- You take on layoff, pivot, outplacement, or return-to-work clients and feel the pull toward advice and resume review
- You want a disciplined frame for the five transition shapes, not a bag of job-search tactics
- You do sponsor-paid or HR-mediated work and want the three-party contracting discipline
- You want CCE hours that come with structured curriculum, not single-session webinars
- You're pre-credential and haven't been through coaching foundations - start with our Coaching Foundations course first
- You want resume templates, salary-negotiation scripts, or LinkedIn tactics - this teaches coaching, not job-search consulting
- You're after a personality-assessment certification - this teaches how to use what the client already has, not how to interpret instruments
- You only need a short ethics-only course - this course includes the three ethics renewal hours inside a 20-hour career coaching specialization
- You're looking for synchronous live cohort instruction - this is fully self-paced
Authored end-to-end by an MCC who holds the line.
Not "led by" - written, recorded, and reviewed by an active Master Certified Coach who coaches executives and professionals through the transitions this course is about.
Alex co-founded Tandem Coaching and coaches senior leaders through layoffs, pivots, and the move past a primary career. Direct, pragmatic, candid about where coaching ends and consulting begins. Career work is where the most experienced coaches quietly drift into advising - this course is the discipline he uses to stay in coaching with clients who arrive wanting answers, plus the three-party contracting that corporate-sponsored transitions demand.
More about AlexWhat you get when you enroll
Self-paced, on your schedule
75 short video lessons (5 to 9 minutes each). A diagnostic intake routes you to the personas you coach most. Watch on any device, no live sessions to schedule around.
Lifetime access
No 30-day, 90-day, or one-year limit. Come back to a persona module when your next transition client walks in. Three bonus modules are included for depth.
Certificate of completion
Pass the scenario verification quiz and submit your Three-Persona Playbook, reviewed by Alex Kudinov, MCC. You'll get a shareable certificate suitable for LinkedIn and L&D reimbursement.
16 resources to keep
Persona-recognition cards, the four-drifts reference, the pivot phrasings library, five role-play script packs, the case-formulation template, the sponsor-intake worksheet, and the Three-Persona Playbook. Yours to use in client work long after the course.
Enroll and start today
Instant access to all 9 modules, 75 lessons, and 16 framework resources. Your learner account is ready within minutes.
ICF has accredited this course for 20.0 CCE hours, 14 of them Core Competency — the scarce half of the renewal requirement.
7-day free trial available with All-Access ($597/yr)
7-day money-back guarantee, void once your certificate of completion has been issued.
Before you enroll
What does this course cost?
$349 one-time, with Lifetime Access as defined in our Additional Terms. You can also get it as part of All-Access ($597/yr) — all current and future Practitioner Series courses, with a 7-day free trial — or in the bundle ($949).
There’s a 7-day money-back guarantee, void once your certificate of completion has been issued.
Will the hours count toward my ACC, PCC, or MCC renewal?
Yes. ICF has accredited this course for 20.0 CCE hours - 14 Core Competency, 6 Resource Development - and they count toward ACC, PCC, and MCC renewal.
The Three-Party Contracts module documents 3 hours of ethics instruction inside the approved Core Competency total - the sponsor request you decline, the disclosure agreement, and renegotiation discipline. Keep the course documentation because ICF makes the final renewal determination.
What's the framework, in plain English?
Coach the Transition. Four moves you make in every career engagement: Read the Persona (which of the five doorways did the client come through?), Hold the Stance (resist the pull to consult), Contract the Agreement (including three-party contracts when a sponsor or HR is paying), Land the Experiment (end every session with one concrete move the client owns).
The framework is recursive - every persona module runs the four moves through that persona's specific shape.
Isn't career coaching just giving job-search advice?
No - and that's the whole point of the course. Resume formatting, salary scripts, LinkedIn tactics: that's consulting. Your clients may need it, and the course shows you when to refer them to someone who provides it.
What this course teaches is the coaching underneath the transition: holding a stance while the client does the identity work a layoff, pivot, or return demands, and the move that pivots back to coaching the moment they pull for answers.
I'm not credentialed yet. Can I take this?
You can enroll, but the course assumes coaching foundations. If you haven't trained in the ICF Core Competencies yet, start with our free Coaching Foundations module on the ACC certification page - that gives you the grounding this course builds on.
If you're pre-credential but have been through coaching training elsewhere, you'll be fine.
How long does it take?
About 20 hours of structured content. Most coaches complete it across 3 to 6 weeks at 3 to 5 hours per week. There is no current completion deadline while the course remains available under the Lifetime Access terms.
The diagnostic intake routes you to the persona modules that match your clients, so you can go deep where it counts and come back to the others when a new transition client walks in.
What do I actually get at the end?
Three things you keep using:
1. Your Three-Persona Playbook - a working playbook for the three transition clients you expect to coach most, built across the back half of the course.
2. 16 resources - persona-recognition cards, role-play script packs, the case-formulation template, the sponsor-intake worksheet, and more.
3. A certificate of completion - shareable on LinkedIn; suitable for L&D reimbursement; carries the ICF CCE-Approved Program badge and the accredited hour count.
How is this different from Tandem's ACC or PCC programs?
Tandem's flagship programs are ICF Level 1 (ACC) and Level 2 (PCC) - credential-earning programs that take you from no coaching credential to ACC or PCC. Months long, instructor-led, with practice sessions and mentor coaching.
This course is a specialization for coaches who already have foundations. It's narrower in scope (career and transition work specifically), shorter (20 hours), self-paced, and complements - rather than replaces - credential training.
Can I verify this course’s ICF CCE approval?
Yes. ICF lists this course as The Practitioner Series: Career & Transition Coaching. View the official ICF Education Search Service record →
Stop drifting into advice. Start coaching the transition.
$349, self-paced, lifetime access. An ICF CCE-Approved Program for 20.0 hours. Enroll and be in the first lesson today.
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