"How much time does a typical member spend with a career coach?"

People who don't know what they want to do with their lives typically spend two to five sessions with a coach--providing they have already done the Seven Stories Exercise and the Forty-Year Vision (which are in our books). Doing the exercises will save you a lot of private coaching time.

After the "assessment," most people have a tentative career direction (a few fields or industries to research), a resume and perhaps a cover letter.

At this point, members who are near a Club attend the Club weekly and see their private coach every few weeks.

Members who are not near a physcial location of the Club can attend the Virtual Branch of The Five O'Clock Club for the very same Five O'Clock Club program and service in the same kind of small groups we have at our physical Clubs. Meetings are held by  telephone conferencing with a senior Five O'Clock Club consultant.

Because we do not have a package rate, which would bind you to a career coach, the typical member will spend very little time with a coach, but it is important time.

For your part, make sure you are willing to make the necessary commitment. If you work with a coach for only a one-hour session to help you handle an emergency, do not expect that coach to come to know very much about you. If you decide to meet with a coach for a number of sessions, you are likely to learn more about the wonderful person you are, so you can figure out how you fit into this changing world. You will have increased self-esteem and increased effectiveness.

"How much will a typical member spend at The Five O'Clock Club itself?"
The average attendee has a new job within just ten weekly sessions. The average cost for those sessions is only $400, while career counseling firms charge $5000 to $7000. In addition to the seminar fees, each attendee must be a member of the Club, which costs $35 a year. For this, they get a subscription to The Five O'Clock News and a beautiful Beginner's Kit that gets them up-to-speed quickly. They will need our books, but many people already own one of our books because we have been around a while. They do not have to buy our new books if they already have one.

"How does this fit in with what my college career development office or other association offers?"
Your alumni or other association probably offers excellent career-development help. But they cannot possibly help the hundreds of thousands of members that they have in their local geographic area, let alone those who are in other parts of the country. Our services supplement what they already offer--at no cost to the association.

"Who are your competitors?"
This is a big country and there is plenty of room for other career counseling services and approaches. We always want to do what is in the best interest of the client. That's you. Therefore, if another service is better for you, we would prefer that you go there and do what is in your best interests. In fact, if we think another service would be better for you, our Branch Heads will refer you to free or almost free services in their geographic areas.

Such services may include free government career counseling services, low-cost services offered by some universities, free church and synagogue support groups, and the like.

Other fee-paid career counseling services are offered by traditional retail career counseling firms. These firms deal with individuals instead of corporations--just as we do--and usually charge much larger fees. For example, many have to charge $5000 to $7000 up front, or $1500 for a two-day seminar. They have to charge high prices because of their office space and advertising costs.

The Five O'Clock Club can keep its prices low because:

• we have no advertising expense. We depend on you to spread the word about us so we can continue to charge low fees.
  
• we spend very little on office space because we rent space only for our two-hour weekly meetings, and we get the least expensive space that we can find. Of course, our career coaches look for very inexpensive space for your private meetings--or you can consult with your career coach by phone.

In everything we do, you will find the highest possible quality at the lowest possible price. Keep telling your friends about us so we can continue providing this worthwhile service.

"How do you keep your expenses down?"
As explained, we have no advertising expense and low rental expense. But the biggest reasons we are able to keep our expenses down are:

• Our Guild of certified career coaches promotes and delivers our services.
  
• You.You tell others about us and spread the word about our services. That way, we don't have to advertise and we can keep on doing our good work.

Thanks for your continuing help.

"What kind of training do
Five O'Clock Club coaches get?"

Five O'Clock Club coaches are already highly qualified by the time we meet them--most have 10 or more years of experience in the field.

Yet they each must go through a stringent Five O'Clock Club certification program--including:

• attending our training program, which is restricted to only the best coaches
  
• studying our books,
  
• observing other Five O'Clock Club coaches at work if they are near a Club,
  
• passing an extensive written test,
  
• passing an audition,
  
• and passing our reference checks.

In addition, each coach must master our 200-page Career Coach Training Manual, which focuses on The Five O'Clock Club approach.

This is quite a bit of training and many of our coaches had already received more training than most of the counselors in America before they came to us. The Five O'Clock Club training is in addition to what is required elsewhere.

The Five O'Clock Club is a research-based organization committed to providing affordable, ethical, high-quality career coaching/counseling to everyone who needs it. This means we do not charge individuals heavy up-front fees, nor do we offer one-day seminars with no follow-up counseling. We teach sophisticated strategies not taught anywhere else, and coach people until their situation is resolved. In addition, we notice trends and keep records, so that our information and coaching are fact-based. Thus we are in a better position to help the next person who comes along.

When I began the Five O'Clock Club, I envisioned "a Club in every living room" so that everyone--even people in small towns--would have access to this help. In such nurturing surroundings and guided by employee advocates, job hunters would learn our methods, realize their career goals, and enjoy a more fulfilled life.

As the Club grew, however, we needed to find a way to allow more career professionals to get involved. Hence, the Guild was established. Most of our career coaches--even highly experienced ones--have gone through an apprenticeship process of one year or even longer to become a fully accredited Guild member. The Guild allows more people like you to get involved more quickly, and serves as a pool of prospective Five O'Clock Club coaches and Branch Heads. It also brings the message to more people, thus increasing the need for more Five O'Clock Club coaches and branches.

Those involved with the Guild learn one of the first skills in building a business: how to get the word out--representing our methodology to the public, while promoting the Club and increasing his or her own visibility and private practice.

At The Five O'Clock Club, it has always been our policy to allow counselors or those interested in the profession to observe our coaches at work (with a few restrictions). We always felt that our openness would, at the very least, contribute to improving the career coaching skills of the profession as a whole. Where else can a counselor observe another counselor at work?

While we cannot allow just anyone to actually represent The Five O'Clock Club, that same spirit of openness and serving the profession is at work here. At a minimum, those who become an active part of the Guild will improve their own skills and visibility while making the methodology better known.

Counselors who ally themselves with The Five O'Clock Club find that they have a powerful tool for marketing themselves. Career coaching/counseling is an easy-entry field: anyone can get in. But not every counselor can be associated with The Five O'Clock Club. One of my original goals--for myself and for the coaches working with us--was to develop a prestigious brand name that would separate us from the competition. In fact, that is happening. All across North America--and beyond--we get calls from people who want to work only with a Five O'Clock Club coach. Our goal in the next few years is to make that brand name--and what it stands for--even stronger. You can be part of this movement.

Those associated with The Five O'Clock Club are employee advocates. As part of this network of employee counselor/advocates, you would be furthering our goal of providing the most effective programs at the most affordable prices. Those who hear you talk about The Five O'Clock Club approach are helped in their mindsets and in their searches--even if they never attend The Five O'Clock Club. This is part of our commitment to helping the community at large. As an employee advocate and member of The Five O'Clock Club Guild, you are empowering more job hunters by teaching people how to succeed in today's workplace. And as an employee advocate, you will start the process of guiding people toward goals that they may not even know they had.

Many people suffer in a volatile job market. Most are surprised and relieved to learn that there is a methodology that they can follow. Until they heard our approach, many were simply answering ads, going to search firms, and doing the best they could on job interviews. Most did not know that there was a defined approach they could use for planning their campaign and their interviews, and following up in an intelligent way.

It is our goal to be known in our local communities as professionals who represent an organization that cares--one that helps people in the community to find jobs. Community members in general, as well as job hunters, appreciate that commitment. As David Dinkins said when he was New York City Mayor, "On behalf of eight million New Yorkers, I commend and thank The Five O'Clock Club. Keep the faith and keep America working!"

I created The Five O'Clock Club to meet the needs of working men and women. In affiliation with The Five O'Clock Club, your job, like mine, is to help all the job hunters, career changers, consultants and freelancers you meet to achieve their goals and realize their potential. By accomplishing this, you and I will have a revolutionary impact on the American workplace in one of the most challenging periods in its history. In addition, we will have helped thousands to pursue their own American Dream.

Sincerely,
Kate Wendleton

New York City, 1999

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What is The Five O'Clock Club?
The Five O'Clock Club is America's premier career counseling network. Founded in 1978, it offers individual career counseling as well as career development and job search programs, primarily to the consumer market. In the group programs, the same format is used at every branch of The Five O'Clock Club across the country.

The Five O'Clock Club process is a targeted, strategic approach to career development and job search. Our approach evolves with the changing job market. We synthesize information from thousands of Five O'Clock Club members across the country and in specific markets, and come up with new approaches for our members. For example, we discuss temporary and consulting assignments, how to handle voice-mail and other electronic media, and the latest trends in their targeted industries.

Many clients also see coaches privately--for assessment, resumes, interview practice, or salary negotiation strategy. All of our coaches are full-time professional career coaches.

The methodology has been developed over the course of 12 years of research into who gets the good jobs fast and why. The Five O'Clock Club has helped over 1000 people in Manhattan find jobs in the past three years alone.

That methodology has been documented in The Five O'Clock Club series of career development and job hunting books by Kate Wendleton (which replaces the best selling Through the Brick Wall series):

• Targeting the Job You Want tells the job hunter or career changer, consultant and freelancer where to look for a job. It is a relatively painless way to think about the career-planning process. In addition, it contains the most comprehensive job-search bibliography available anywhere.
  
• Job-Search Secrets tells the reader how to look for a job--part-time or full-time, freelance or consulting--and how to negotiate. In addition, it contains extensive worksheets.
  
• Building a Great Resume is quite simply the best resume book on the market. It uses the resumes of real people and tells the reader their stories, and covers over 100 industries and professions.

The Five O'Clock Club is so unique that it has been featured on The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, CNN, The Larry King Show, and National Public Radio and in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, and other media.

For more information, email us with your name, address and telephone number

Lexicon Used at
The Five O'Clock Club

The Five O'Clock Club lexicon is a shorthand--a way to quickly analyze your search and to clearly speak about your search to other Five O'Clock Clubbers. We all speak the same language so we can help each other. Our coaches across the country also speak the same language.

Whether you are in a group or working privately with a Five O'Clock Club career coach, you can learn our language and analyze your search. After you read the summary below, study our books "as if your were in graduate school." You will learn to better express where you are in your job search, and be better able to figure out what to do next.

The average person who attends The Five O'Clock Club regularly has a new job within just ten weekly sessions--even those who have been unemployed up to two years. Follow our method and you will increase your chances of getting a better job faster.

The following questions will help you to pinpoint what is wrong with your search.

I. Overview and Assessment

How many hours a week are you spending on your search?
Only two or three hours a week, you say? The good news is that you have not yet begun to search. That's why you're making so little progress. To develop momentum in your search, spend 35 hours a week on a full-time search; if you are employed, spend 15 hours a week for a solid, part-time search.

What are your job targets?
If your job targets are wrong, everything is wrong. A target includes:

• industry or organization size,
  
• the position you want in that industry, and
  
• your targeted geographic area.
  
  

For example, let's say you want to target the health care industry. That's not a good target. It needs to be better defined. For example, perhaps you would consider hospitals. In the metropolitan New York area, for example, there are 80 hospitals. Let's say you're a marketing person, and you would consider doing marketing in a hospital in the NY area. That's one target: Hospitals is the industry, marketing is the position, and NY area is the geographic area. You could also target HMO's. Let's say there are 15 HMO's that you consider appropriate in the NY area. You could do marketing for them. That's a second target. You could also work for a consulting firm in the NY area that does health-care consulting. That's your third target.

But let's say you and your spouse have always loved Phoenix. You think you may like to investigate all three of those industries in the Phoenix area. That's three more targets. The reason you divide your search into targets is so you can have control over it, and tell what's working and what isn't. You make a list of all of the organizations in each of your targets--we call that your "Personal Marketing Plan." Then you find out the names of the people you need to contact in each of those targets--the hiring managers of the departments or divisions you are interested in.

That's the start of an organized search. At the very beginning of your search, you can assess how good your targets are and whether you stand a chance getting a job within a reasonable timeframe. Take a look at "Measuring Your Job Targets" in our books.

How does your resume position you?
The average resume is looked at for only ten seconds--regardless of length. When someone looks at your resume, will they pick up the most important information that you want them to know about you? The summary and body should make you look appropriate to your target. We recommend that the first line of your summary tell the reader exactly how they should see you, e.g., as a "Accounting Manager" or whatever. They will want to stereotype you anyway, so why not help them see you the way you want to be seen?

The second line should differentiate you from your competition: How are you different from all of those other Accounting Managers out there? Your second line could say, for example, "Expert in Lotus Notes."

That is followed by three or four bulleted accomplishments--the most important things you want them to know about you. That way, if they spend only 10 seconds on your resume, they will see what you want them to see. For the complete Five O'Clock Club approach, see our books. Building a Great Resume contains summaries related to over 100 industries and professions.

What are your back-up targets?
Decide at the beginning of the search before you start your first campaign. Then you won't get stuck later when things seem hopeless.

Have you done the Assessment?
If you have no specific targets, you cannot have a targeted search. Do the Assessment exercises in our books. You could see a coach privately for two or three sessions to determine possible job targets. When a person joins the Club, we want them to do the exercises even if they are perfectly clear about what they want to do next. Doing the assessment helps a person to do better in interviews and helps them to have a better resume. Do not skip the assessment, especially the Seven Stories Exercise and the Forty-Year Vision.

II. Getting Interviews

How large is your target area (e.g., 30 companies)? How many of them have you contacted?
When you know your targets, you can research them and come up with a list of all of the companies in your target areas. Figure out how large your target market is. If you have contacted only a few companies in your target area, contact the rest. If you haven't contacted any, contact them all. That's a thorough--and fast--search.

How can you get (more) leads?
You will not get a job through search firms, ads, networking or direct contact. Those are techniques for getting interviews--job leads. Use the right terminology, especially when speaking to someone who has already landed a job. Do not say: how did you get the job, if you really want to know where did you get the lead for that job. In our books, you will find cover letters and approaches for each of these techniques. A good search does not rely on just one technique. We want our members to consider all four techniques for getting interviews in your target markets.

Do you have 6 to 10 things in the works?
When a job hunter is going after only one position--and hoping they will get an offer--that is a weak search. Our research shows that a good job hunter has 6 to 10 things in the works at all times. This is because five will fall away through no fault of your own: Maybe the company decides to hire a finance person instead of a marketing person, or maybe they decide to hire their cousin!

Do not put all of your eggs in one basket. When one offer falls through, you will have lost months in your search because you have to gear up all over again. To avoid losing momentum, make sure you have 6 to 10 things in the works at all times--through search firms, ads, networking or direct contact. It's not as hard as it sounds. Just follow our approach.

If you have 6 to 10 things going at once, you are more likely to turn the job you want into an offer because you will seem more valuable. Don't go after only one job.

How's your Two-Minute Pitch? (Who shall we pretend we are?)
A Two-Minute Pitch is the answer to the question, "So, tell me about yourself." Practice a tailored Two-Minute Pitch. Tell the group--or a friend--the job title and industry of the pretend hiring manager. You will be surprised how good the group is at critiquing pitches. Do it a few weeks in a row until you have a smooth presentation.

Practice it again after you have been in search a while, or after you change targets. Make sure your pitch separates you from your competition.

You seem to be in Stage One (or Stage Two or Stage Three) of your search.
Know where you are in the process. If you are in Stage One--making initial contacts you will recontact later--make lots of contacts so at least 6 to 10 will move to Stage Two: the right people at the right levels in the right companies. You will get the best job offers in Stage Three--talking to 6 to 10 people on an ongoing basis about real jobs or the possibility of creating a job.

Are you seen as insider or outsider?
Are people saying: "I wish I had an opening for someone like you." You are doing well in meetings. If your target is good, it's only a matter of time.

III. Turning Interviews into Offers

Want to go through the Brick Wall ?
The brainiest part of the process is turning your job interview into an offer. First, make sure you want the job. If you do not want the job, perhaps you want an offer, if only for practice. If you are not willing to go for it, the group's suggestions will not work.

Who are your likely competitors and how can you kill them off?
"Kill the competition" does not mean dirty tricks, but reminds you that you have competitors. You will not get a job simply because "they liked you". The issues are deeper. Ask: Where are you in the hiring process? What kind of person would be your ideal candidate?

What are your next steps?
The "next step" means: what are you planning to do if the hiring manger doesn't call by a certain date, or what are you planning to do to assure the hiring manager does call you.

Can you prove you can do the job?
Most job hunters take the "Trust Me" approach. Instead, prove to them that you can do the job, often by doing additional research or by writing a "proposal" of how you would handle the job.

Which job positions you best for the long run? Which job is the best fit?
Don't decide only on salary. Since the average person has been in his or her job only four years, you will have another job after this. See which job looks best on your resume, and makes you a stronger candidate next time. Take the job that positions you best for the long run.

In addition, find a fit for your personality. If you don't "fit", it is unlikely you will do well there. The group can give feedback on which job is best for you.