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.

20 hours, self-paced 10 modules, 71 videos Lifetime access

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Career & Transition Coaching - Coach the Transition

Alex Kudinov, MCC

Instructor

ICF CCE-Approved Program 20.0 hours - 14 Core Competency + 6 Resource Development

Watch before you enroll

Two lessons from the course

The framework, and what it looks like inside an engagement.

Lesson 0.1.1 · Five Doorways, Four Moves
A map of the course: the five doorways clients come through, the pull each one puts on you, the four moves, and how practice, the scenario quiz and the capstone lead to your certificate.

Lesson 2.1.1 · The Surface Story and What’s Beneath
Inside the work: the four ways a laid-off executive presents, and what each one is really asking for.

The rest of the 71 videos open the moment you enroll.

How this is different

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.

A typical career CCE webinar

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

This course

Ten modules, 20 hours, mapped to ICF competencies, with Lifetime Access as defined in our Additional Terms.

The four moves that make it possible to stay in coaching when everything in the room is pulling toward consulting
Every CCE hour, unit by unit, in the Course Syllabus and Hour Claim Map you keep with your certificate
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 you'll be able to do

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 when the conversation pulls toward advice

Name the four drifts that pull career coaching toward consulting - résumé review, salary tactics, advice on the offer, introductions as a deliverable - and recognise the verbal cue that opens each one.

Read which doorway the client came through

Recognise the five doorways - the Laid-Off Executive, the Mid-Career Pivoter, the Stuck Mid-Careerist, the Returner After Caregiving and the Late-Career Encore - and the work each one is really asking for. The doorways are engagement shapes, not types of people.

Pivot from advice back to coaching

Run the pivot - acknowledge, offer, invite - that moves a conversation from "tell me what to do" back into coaching, without losing the client's trust or sounding rigid.

Contract a three-party engagement

Run the sponsor intake, name the four sponsor requests to decline, and hold the disclosure agreement when the sponsor calls mid-engagement.

Land the experiment

Close the work on something the client designs, tries in their own life between sessions, and reports back on. Every session ends with the client designing what they will think about, reflect on or do before the next one. It need not be an action: a question to sit with counts.

Walk away with your Three-Persona Playbook

Build your playbook for the three doorways you expect to meet in your practice over the next twelve months, six sections each: Recognition, Engagement Arc, Standard Contracting Language, Committed Tools, Referral Patterns and Discipline Scripts. You finish with a Three-Persona Playbook and the formulation of a case you haven't seen, both reviewed by Alex Kudinov, MCC.

What's inside

Ten 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.

20h

Approved ICF CCE

Video lessons

Resources to keep

Modules

Hours shown are the totals ICF accredited for this course: 20.0 CCE hours, 14 Core Competency and 6 Resource Development. Three bonus modules, outside the 20 hours and not required for the certificate: The Founder Exit, The High-Cost-of-Staying Engagement and The Sector-Line Transition, 18 videos of optional depth.

Diagnostic Intake

Which doorway did the client come through?

1 video

Start here. Meet the five doorways clients come through and the four moves of Coach the Transition, see how the course and its Practice Workbook work, and how you earn your certificate. Modules 0 to 9 all count toward it.

Five Doorways, Four Moves - the map of the course
The Practice Workbook front page: the doorways your clients come through or that you expect, and a first guess at the three your playbook will cover
How practice, the scenario quiz and the capstone lead to your certificate

The Coaching Stance

What career coaching is, and is not

8 videos

Career clients pull the coach toward advice. This module names the four drift patterns, teaches the pivot that turns a drift back into coaching, and sets out where coaching ends: four referral situations, the referral conversation, and the safety question asked in the session it is needed.

The four drifts - résumé review, salary tactics, advice on the offer, introductions as a deliverable
The anatomy of the pivot, and what to do when it doesn't take
Four referral situations - a doctor or a licensed mental health professional; an employment lawyer or the public employment advice service; a regulated financial adviser or the free public guidance service; a career consultant
How to name a referral without sounding dismissive
The safety question, asked in the session it is needed

The Laid-Off Executive

Identity grief disguised as strategy

9 videos

A client who has lost a senior role often tells a clean story about it. This module teaches you to hear what is beneath that story, to work with the identity loss alongside the search, to use Bridges' transition model as he published it, and to contract an engagement arc from session one.

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

The Mid-Career Pivoter

The "should I do this?" pull

9 videos

A client weighing a change of career asks the coach to judge the move. This module teaches the four pivot shapes, questions that surface evidence without leading, experiments the client runs in real life, the sunk-cost conversation, and a decision frame the client builds and owns.

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 - three patterns in which a pivot conversation carries other work
Tool spotlight - a decision frame without becoming the decider

The Stuck Mid-Careerist

Has wanted a change for a long time and has not made one

10 videos

Stuck is not a slow pivot. This module teaches the four forms of stuck, coaching instead of encouragement, the question that unsettles, the one-week experiment, a naming exercise for what holds the pattern in place, and what to do when stuck may be depression or burnout.

The four forms of stuck, and the distinct work each one calls for
The difference between coaching and encouragement
Recognising false motion - research instead of experiment, networking instead of deciding, and a waiting condition that keeps shifting
Designing a one-week experiment that produces evidence either way
Depression and burnout wearing career-stuck clothing - the referral move

The Returner After Caregiving

Identity reconstruction after a gap

9 videos

A client returning to work after years of caregiving brings a gap, an identity in transition and often a partner in the decision. This module teaches the three returner patterns, identity beyond the caregiving role, confidence built on evidence, and how to use the assessments a client may bring without becoming an assessment coach.

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
The Assessment Reading Guide to seven instruments a client may bring: CliftonStrengths, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Hogan assessments, The Birkman Method, the Highlands Ability Battery, the Strong Interest Inventory and Everything DiSC
The referral cases, worked through role-play

The Late-Career Encore

The work that follows a primary career

8 videos

Encore coaching is not retirement coaching. This module teaches the encore window and its shapes, the financial-security conversation a coach cannot skip, the "I Cannot Coach This" move for when the financial reality is the actual work, and the encore statement the client writes for the long horizon.

Why encore is not retirement coaching
The four encore shapes
The financial-security sub-conversation you cannot skip - held without becoming a financial adviser
Designing the long-horizon encore arc
The Encore Statement the client writes as the engagement's closing piece

Cross-Persona Case Formulation

Where the moves become an engagement plan

8 videos

One client can fit more than one doorway. This module teaches you to read a blend, write a five-section case formulation, watch it run through two worked cases, choose tools by doorway, and assemble your Three-Persona Playbook.

Reading persona blends - the dominant and secondary doorway, and the re-read when the work changes
The five-section case formulation, with two worked cases
Tool selection by persona - and when no tool is the right tool
Building your Three-Persona Playbook, the signature artifact

Three-Party Contracts in Career Coaching

Sponsor, HR, coach, client

9 videos

Career coaching is often paid for by someone other than the client. This module carries the course's three hours of ICF Code of Ethics application: who owns which agreement, the sponsor intake and the three-way kickoff, four requests to decline, what a sponsor may hear, and the sponsor who calls mid-engagement.

Why career coaching is often three-party, and who owns which agreement
The sponsor intake - what to surface, and what a sponsor may not volunteer
The four sponsor requests to decline, and a decline in three steps: name the constraint, state the reason, offer the alternative
The mid-engagement disclosure question, and the renegotiation move

Course Completion

The steps to your certificate

text lessons

Every course resource in one place, a short feedback form, and the steps to your certificate, including where to submit your Three-Persona Playbook and your formulation of an unseen case.

Course Resources - every resource in the course in one place
Your Feedback - the course feedback form
Course Completion - the three steps to your certificate, the unseen case, and where you submit your capstone

ICF Core Competencies

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.

Demonstrates Ethical Practice

Deepened

Embodies a Coaching Mindset

Deepened

Establishes & Maintains Agreements

Deepened

Cultivates Trust & Safety

Touched

Maintains Presence

Deepened

Listens Actively

Deepened

Evokes Awareness

Deepened

Facilitates Client Growth

Deepened

Deepened means at least one full unit teaches the competency directly - the stance work, the doorway engagements, the referral discipline, the case formulation, the three-party contracting. Touched means it runs underneath the work: holding identity grief carries trust and safety. Three of the Core Competency hours are ICF Code of Ethics application, carried by Module 8. Keep the Course Syllabus and Hour Claim Map with your certificate, because ICF makes the final renewal determination.

Is this course for you?

Who this course is for, and who it isn't

Two quick lists so you can self-select before you enroll.

For you if

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 résumé 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

Not the right fit if

You're pre-credential and haven't been through coaching foundations - start with our Coaching Foundations course first
You want résumé 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

Your instructor

Taught by an MCC who holds the line.

Taught by Alex Kudinov, Master Certified Coach (MCC), who coaches executives and professionals through the transitions this course is about. He reviews every capstone.

Alex Kudinov, MCC

Co-founder & Managing Partner, Tandem Coaching

ICF MCC

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 coaching pulls hard toward advice, because the client's problem looks like one an expert could solve. 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 Alex

Format and certificate

What you get when you enroll

Self-paced, on your schedule

71 short video lessons. Every activity comes with its own cases, so you don't need a current caseload. 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 doorway module when your next transition client walks in. Three bonus modules are included for depth.

Certificate of completion

Your certificate rests on three things: lesson completion; the scenario quiz; the capstone, which is the Three-Persona Playbook plus a formulation of an unseen case, reviewed Satisfactory or Revise by Alex Kudinov, MCC. The scenario quiz draws 24 questions. You need 20 correct to pass, and you have three attempts. Your review comes back within 5 business days of your submission. You'll get a shareable certificate suitable for LinkedIn and L&D reimbursement.

10 resources to keep

The Practice Workbook, with the Pivot Phrasings Library, the Referral Map Template, a solo role-play in every doorway module with keyed answers, the reading guides, the Sponsor Intake Worksheet and your playbook drafts; the Doorway Recognition Cards, the Four Drifts Reference Card, the Blend Reading Card, the Four Requests to Decline Card, the Crisis Protocol Card and the Encore Statement Template; the Capstone Submission Template and Rubric; and the Course Syllabus and Hour Claim Map. Yours to use in client work long after the course.

ICF CCE-Approved Program

ICF has accredited this course for 20.0 CCE hours: 14 Core Competency and 6 Resource Development. The Three-Party Contracts module provides 3 hours of ethics instruction inside the Core Competency total; keep the course documentation because ICF makes the final renewal determination. The approved hours count toward ACC, PCC, and MCC renewal, and your certificate carries the ICF CCE-Approved Program badge.

Enroll and start today

Instant access to all 10 modules, 71 videos, and 10 course 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.

Instant access Lifetime access 3-day free trial

Career & Transition Coaching

Self-paced · 20 ICF CCE hours (14 CC + 6 RD) · Lifetime access

$349

3-day free trial, then one payment

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Every course: All-Access ($597/yr), 3-day free trial.

Free trial: cancel within 3 days and pay nothing. Your certificate is issued after the $349 payment, which is not refundable.

Frequently Asked Questions

Before you enroll

What does this course cost?

$349 one-time, with Lifetime Access as defined in our Additional Terms. You can start with a 3-day free trial: we charge $349 when the trial ends unless you cancel first, and that payment is not refundable. No certificate is issued during the trial. You can also get it as part of All-Access ($597/yr) – all current and future Practitioner Series courses, with a 3-day free trial – or in the bundle ($949), also with a 3-day free trial.

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 the coach makes in every career engagement. Read the Persona. Read which doorway, or blend of doorways, the client is coming through right now, from what they say, what they avoid and where their energy goes, and keep the read open to revision. Hold the Stance. Stay in coaching when the conversation pulls toward advice: notice the pull, pivot, and leave the decision with the client. Contract the Agreement. Agree with the client, and with any sponsor, what the coaching is for, what it is and is not, and how it runs; go back to the agreement when the work changes. Land the Experiment. Close the work on something the client designs, tries in their own life between sessions, and reports back on.

They recur through an engagement; they are not a strict sequence. The doorways are engagement shapes, not types of people, and each has its own module.

Isn't career coaching just giving job-search advice?

No. Resume formatting, salary scripts, and LinkedIn tactics are consulting. Your clients may need that help, 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 pivot that turns a drift back into coaching.

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. Fully asynchronous. There is no current completion deadline while the course remains available under the Lifetime Access terms.

Modules 0 to 9 all count toward your certificate. Modules 2 to 6 each take one doorway. Later you choose three of the five doorways for your Three-Persona Playbook.

What do I actually get at the end?

Three things you keep using:

1. Your Three-Persona Playbook - for the three doorways you expect to meet in your practice over the next twelve months, six sections each: Recognition, Engagement Arc, Standard Contracting Language, Committed Tools, Referral Patterns and Discipline Scripts. You draft all five doorways in the Practice Workbook as their modules run, then complete three of them in Module 7 for your capstone.

2. 10 course resources - the Practice Workbook, with its role-play packs and Sponsor Intake Worksheet; the Doorway Recognition Cards, the Four Drifts Reference Card, the Blend Reading Card, the Four Requests to Decline Card, the Crisis Protocol Card and the Encore Statement Template; the Capstone Submission Template and Rubric; and the Course Syllabus and Hour Claim Map.

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 →

The Practitioner Series

Stop drifting into advice. Start coaching the transition.

3-day free trial, then one payment of $349. Self-paced, lifetime access. An ICF CCE-Approved Program for 20.0 hours. Start today and be in the first lesson in minutes.

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Or Buy now for $349.