A 43-year-old man is weary of teaching high school but has no clue how else to make a living. A 67-year-old man wants to leave banking but does not want to retire before leaving a more positive mark on the world. A 52-year-old woman is an emergency room doctor who loves her work but yearns for more downtime.

All of them took part in a workshop in Boulder, Colorado, recently that was led by a career “intuitive” named Sue Frederick -- a former career counsellor who draws upon her dreams, ancient numerology and conversations with spirits to “see your dream job.”

As the economic slump continues, many workers, even those who hate their jobs, are reluctant to look for more satisfying work. But others are turning to non-traditional career counsellors and coaches to help them navigate transitions in their lives and careers.

Luckily for them, there are as many flavours of career counsellors, and more recently coaches, including “psychic” and “intuitive” ones -- as there are careers. Career counsellors, like therapists, tend to explore psychological undercurrents with clients, and they often have a master’s degree in counselling. Coaches typically come from the corporate world and focus on goal-setting with their clients.

Career camps

It is not just residents of Boulder, a mecca for all things organic and spiritual, who flock to Frederick’s “career intuition boot camp” and individual sessions with her in person or over the phone.  “I don’t want to come across as a new age-y kind of guy with my head in the stars, because as a New Yorker type that’s the last thing I am,” said Gary Purnhagen, 55, who started his own management consulting business in Manhattan a few months ago after spending 20 years working for companies. “But going to Sue was probably the best decision I’ve ever made in terms of reaching out.”

Several months ago Purnhagen left a financial printing company that was laying people off. He trolled the Internet for counsellors and coaches. When he came across Frederick’s website he was drawn to her big smile and her message that your dream job should make you giggle when you speak of it.

Then, call it coincidence or destiny -- a consultant friend of his in New York suggested that he check out a career coach named Sue Frederick, and Purnhagen tossed his scepticism aside. Four one-hour phone sessions and $500 later, he said he is more focussed, confident and trusting in his ability to build a lucrative clientele.

Frederick, 58, is trained as a career counsellor in the 1970s at the University of Missouri. She worked at the university and later in the private sector for many years. But she yearned to add to her repertoire her self-described clairvoyance, which she says she discovered when she was a child who would dream about things that would often happen later that day.

Frederick said her husband warned her that she would lose her corporate clients if she called herself a career intuitive, but she did it anyway.

“Soon I had more clients than I knew what to do with,” Frederick told the group of 29 at her recent workshop.

Increasing repute

When career coaches jumped onto the scene a decade ago, they were looked upon suspiciously by career counsellors as inexperienced, brash interlopers. But since 1999, when the International Coach Federation began offering certification training for coaches, their reputation has risen steadily.

But anyone can call herself a coach; in fact, roughly 30,000 people do just that, estimates Diane Brennan, president of the federation. Hundreds of organisations offer some form of coaching certifications. “A lot of people call themselves coaches because it’s the hot thing to do,” Brennan said.

This factor is reflected in the rates coaches charge -- up to $400 an hour. For many clients, seeing a coach feels, and is perceived by others to be, far more upbeat, even more upscale, than working with a counsellor.

Seven secret steps

Simply put, a coach is more like a personal trainer, one who coaxes clients to set and meet their job or career goals. A sure sign that you are talking to a coach is “five steps to” or “seven rules for.” Indeed, the cover of Frederick’s 2004 book, “Dancing at Your Desk: A Metaphysical Guide to Job Happiness,” promises “The 7 Secret Steps to Finding Work You Love.”

Joel Garfinkle, a career coach in Oakland, California, said his seven-step formula to finding a dream job sets him apart. “It’s all about aligning your natural gifts and talent to your passions that will equal a career that is 100 per cent about fulfilment,” said Garfinkle, with the turbocharged delivery of a football coach.

What draws people to a career counsellor or coach depends on their age, their location and the industry they work in.

For instance, even though Silicon Valley has averted the worst of the economic slowdown, some people who have lost their job are stepping back and asking whether the long commute and the gruelling workdays are worth it before they start interviewing for a new job.

Meaningful ideas

“I’m seeing more people looking for quality of life, balance and a change that will give them something that’ll be more enduring and more of a natural expression of who they are,” said Norm Meshriy, a career counsellor in Walnut Creek, California, who works with companies and individuals. “Many of them are just burnt crisp from all the pressures of corporate life and the treatment out there.”

Career counsellors and coaches also say they are seeing more college students and recent graduates who fear their education will not translate into a meaningful or lucrative job. At the other end of the career lifeline, a small but growing number of baby boomers are summoning career counsellors and coaches. Some of them are approaching official retirement age, but for economic or personal reasons are not calling it quits.

Keyren H Cotter, 67, is a loan officer at Omni Bank in Denver, Colorado. With a doctorate in materials science, Cotter, known as Casey, worked for many years in engineering before moving into mortgage banking. But it was not the mortgage crisis that recently sent him to Frederick’s career workshop.

“I ask myself, What’s my legacy? Why am I here?” Cotter said. “I’m at a period where I’m no longer motivated by money. I’m looking for something with more substance and more meaning.” In the weeks since the workshop, Cotter saw Frederick for a one-hour session. He recalled that when he walked into her office she said, “I’ve been meditating on you. I think you should make movies.” Now he is considering combining his interest and experience in financing with documentary film making.

“It's too early to know,” Cotter said. “But I know I’m getting unstuck.”

New York Times News Service