Interview coaching
Mock panels, real questions, the bits hiring managers actually score on.
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PCC-credentialled coach with International Coaching Federation
For people who came up the long way round.
Career coaching for the interview stage, the shortlist stage, and the offer stage. Most career advice assumes you went to a Russell Group university and got a graduate scheme. Mine doesn't.
What this practice is, in plain numbers.
- 13 years coaching, full-time
- 750+ people in the middle of their working lives worked with
- PCC credentialled with International Coaching Federation
- three sectors mostly: creative industries, public sector, technology
Format and pricing.
Every engagement is online or in person in Manchester. There is no half-day workshop, no group programme, no upsell.
£200 per single session
Sixty minutes. Used most often as a one-off CV review or interview debrief.
£1,200 per six-session programme
Six sessions across 8 weeks. The standard shape for a full job search.
Four things I work on, and only those.
I don't do executive presence. I don't do leadership development. I don't take corporate retainers. The work below is what I'm useful for, and it's where I've put 13 years.
CV review
A proper rewrite, not a polish. Most CVs need restructuring before they need formatting.
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Profile review
Your professional online profile, written so a recruiter can read it in fifteen seconds.
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Salary conversation
What to ask for, when to ask, what the answer probably means before you reply.
See how this works →Three people, three different problems.
"I'd been doing exactly the thing she warned me about: over-preparing for the interview and under-preparing for the conversation afterwards. The cost of getting it 'right' was that I was rehearsing in front of the mirror at half past nine the night before, which is not when good answers turn up. After two sessions I stopped. The third interview I went into without rehearsing in the mirror was the one I got."
, Sarah M., operations lead at a public-sector arm's-length body, Manchester
"There is a useful distinction between coaching that gives you advice and coaching that gives you better questions. The work I did with this practice was the second of those. I came in with a fairly straightforward problem (three internal applications, no offer) and left with a sharper view of what I was actually competing for, which turned out not to be the role I'd been applying for at all. The literature on internal mobility is mixed; the practical experience was unambiguous."
, Daniel O., senior data engineer at a digital broadcaster, Cardiff
"Here's what we covered: six sessions, fortnightly, 60 minutes each. The inputs were a printed CV, three recent rejection emails, and a list of five companies I'd been told to apply to. The outputs were a redrawn CV, a shortlist of two of those five companies, and a working interview script. Cost £1,200. Time to first offer was a few weeks after the last session. Worth it. Would book again, in due course."
, James K., commercial lead at a regional creative agency, Leeds
How an engagement actually runs.
You're not buying a programme. You're buying a fixed amount of attention over an agreed amount of time. Here is the shape of it.
- The discovery call (twenty minutes, no pitch). You tell me what you're trying to do and what you've already tried. I tell you whether I'm the right fit, and if I'm not, who is. Roughly a third of these calls end with me suggesting someone else.
- The first proper session (sixty minutes). We map what's actually in your way. Half the time the answer isn't what you walked in thinking it was. That's a useful session in itself.
- The middle sessions (four to six, fortnightly). The work itself. CV redrafting, interview rehearsal, profile copy, negotiation script (whichever applies). You do most of the work between sessions; we use the time together to read and edit it.
- The closing session (sixty minutes). We review what worked, what we got wrong, and what comes after. If you want a follow-up six months later, you can book one.
Questions I get on the discovery call.
Are you the right coach for me if I haven't got an elite CV?
Probably yes. Most of the people I work with came up the long way round: apprenticeships, evening courses, lateral moves from non-graduate roles into professional roles in their thirties and forties. The things I'm best at are the bits of a job search that don't reward an elite-track CV: the interview itself, how to frame a non-linear career history, what to ask for in a salary conversation when you don't have a peer group benchmarking the same band.
Will you tell me to network more?
No. Most people don't need a coach to tell them to network. The actual question is how: what to say in the message, what to ask for in the meeting, how to follow up without sounding desperate. I'll work on those specifics with you. I won't tell you to "build your network" as if that's a sentence with practical content.
How quickly can I expect a result?
That depends on what counts as a result. Sharper interview answers in two sessions is realistic. A new CV that earns more first-stage interviews after two sessions of revision is realistic. An accepted offer within a month or so is sometimes realistic and sometimes not, depending on the role you're chasing, who else is in the running, what a hiring manager decides on a given Tuesday. I'll give you my honest read on the discovery call.
Do you do CV writing as a service on its own?
I do CV review, which is closer to editing than writing. You bring a CV, we work on it together for one or two sessions, you leave with a version you can defend in interview. I don't sell a "we write your CV for you" package because in my experience the resulting CVs read like CVs that someone else wrote.
What if I'm not actually job-searching yet?
That's the most common starting point, in fact. A lot of clients come to the discovery call with a question that sounds like "should I move?" rather than "I'm moving, help me move well". The earlier conversation is a different shape, and I'll say so on the call. Sometimes one session is enough; sometimes the work is bigger than I'm the right person for.