05.05.17
Bringing Strength Coaching to Students
Myself and my colleague, Nader Beshara, had the pleasure of visiting a university in Brighton last week to share with some of the students the Positive Psychology and Strength Coaching that we use here at Bailey & French. We conducted the visit in the university’s Career’s Centre, where a group of enthusiastic students signed up to learn about what we do at Bailey & French, and how they can discover and use their strengths to help them with their future career choices. Nader and I firstly presented to the group of students to share with them what Positive Psychology and Strengths really mean, and how being self-aware of our own strengths leads us to feel happier and more motivated at work. We then moved on to giving one-to-one Strength based interviews with 6 of the students, to help them become self-aware and to (hopefully!) help them in choosing a career path that’s right for them.
The presentation included an overview of what we do as an organisation and how we incorporate Positive Psychology and Strengths Coaching at Bailey & French across the organisation, no matter what individual roles we have. As Strength-Based Consultants, we conduct a strengths coaching interview with all of our candidates before we pass them onto a client, as we understand the importance of ensuring a candidate is both energised and will thrive in the company we am putting them forward for, and not just in matching their skills to another job description.
After the presentation, we proceeded to conduct our one-to-one Strength based interviews with 6 of the students, where we asked them several questions to find out what they are good at, what excites them, and what they are truly passionate about. We then asked them to identify what they consider to be their own Strengths from a selection of Strength words on cards, before sharing with them the Strengths that we identified in them, and the reasons why. Nader and I identified the same Strengths that the student chose for themselves, meaning that we had fulfilled our purpose and created in them a sense of awareness in what their own Strengths were, without us telling them what we thought they were. This was incredibly gratifying and it was brilliant to hear the students looking so in awe at this new method of learning about themselves, and the new approach they could now use in considering their career options.
One thing we took away from it was how valuable we would have found that type of advice when we were their age, ready to embark on the first steps in our career. Having awareness of ourselves and what really energises us means you we likely to choose a career path that aligns with our strengths and that we enjoy. We hope the students enjoyed the day as much as Nader and I did, and certainly wish to return soon to deliver another session for more of the students.