CPC CPC Career & Life Transition Coaching 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: How should a life coach approach a client experiencing burnout?
- Immediately refer the client to a therapist without having any coaching conversation
- Explore contributing factors, assess severity, and collaboratively design recovery and sustainable work strategies while monitoring for clinical signs requiring referral (Correct answer)
- Tell the client to push through and stay focused on their goals
- Diagnose the client with a burnout disorder
Correct answer: Explore contributing factors, assess severity, and collaboratively design recovery and sustainable work strategies while monitoring for clinical signs requiring referral
Coaches can help clients identify burnout causes, reclaim boundaries, and rebuild sustainable routines, while remaining alert to signs that clinical intervention may be needed.
Question 2: What is the 'Holland Code' (RIASEC) theory and how does it support career coaching?
- A privacy law protecting career coaching client data
- A model categorizing people and work environments into six types to predict career satisfaction and fit (Correct answer)
- A coding language used to build career coaching software
- A proprietary coaching framework trademarked by a US coaching organization
Correct answer: A model categorizing people and work environments into six types to predict career satisfaction and fit
John Holland's RIASEC model—Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional—helps match a client's personality type to compatible careers.
Question 3: What is a 'portfolio career' and how might a coach support a client pursuing one?
- A career in financial portfolio management
- A non-linear career involving multiple income streams, projects, or part-time roles rather than one full-time job (Correct answer)
- A strategy for building a career from a strong investment portfolio
- A coaching package that includes multiple coaching service types
Correct answer: A non-linear career involving multiple income streams, projects, or part-time roles rather than one full-time job
Portfolio careers are increasingly common; coaches help clients design, prioritize, and sustainably manage multiple professional activities.
Question 4: What is 'the gap analysis' technique in career coaching?
- Identifying gaps in a client's resume to avoid during interviews
- Assessing the difference between a client's current state and their desired career goal to create a development roadmap (Correct answer)
- Analyzing the competition gap between job seekers in a market
- A technique for identifying gaps in a coach's service offering
Correct answer: Assessing the difference between a client's current state and their desired career goal to create a development roadmap
Gap analysis maps the skills, experiences, and connections a client needs to acquire to reach their career target, turning an abstract goal into a concrete development plan.
Question 5: How might a life coach help a client navigate a major life transition such as retirement?
- By providing financial planning and investment advice
- By helping the client explore identity, purpose, and new structures for meaning and connection after leaving full-time work (Correct answer)
- By referring the client only to a financial planner and ending the coaching engagement
- By advising the client to delay retirement until financial goals are fully met
Correct answer: By helping the client explore identity, purpose, and new structures for meaning and connection after leaving full-time work
Retirement coaching addresses identity shifts, loss of professional structure, purpose, relationships, and the design of a fulfilling next chapter—not just finances.
Question 6: What is 'decision fatigue' and how can a career coach help clients experiencing it?
- Exhaustion caused by having too many career options, impairing the quality of decisions over time (Correct answer)
- A condition caused by a client making too many appointments with their coach
- Fatigue caused by reading too many career books
- A coaching technique that overwhelms clients with choices to test resilience
Correct answer: Exhaustion caused by having too many career options, impairing the quality of decisions over time
Decision fatigue degrades choice quality as the day progresses; coaches help clients prioritize decisions, simplify options, and create decision-making frameworks.
CPC CPC Career & Life Transition Coaching 2
How should a life coach approach a client experiencing burnout?