Your career is one of the most important parts of your life. It shapes how you spend your time, how you feel about yourself, and what you are able to achieve. Yet most people navigate it without any real support, relying on guesswork, luck, or advice from people who have never worked in recruitment or coaching.

At Coach 1st, we think you deserve better than that. Our career coaching programmes combine over 35 years of insider recruitment knowledge with qualified, ICF accredited coaching. We help you get clear on what you want, build a plan that works, and go after it with confidence.

Career coaching is a structured, one to one process that helps you understand where you are, where you want to go, and how to get there. It is not counselling. It is not a careers advice service. It is a practical, forward looking process that puts you in the driving seat.

A good career coach asks the right questions, challenges your assumptions, and helps you see options you may not have considered. They hold you accountable and keep you moving forward when things feel difficult or unclear.

At Coach 1st, our coaches bring something most career coaches cannot offer: direct, senior level experience of how employers think and how hiring decisions are made. That knowledge changes the conversation entirely.

Our career coaching programme is tailored to each individual. There is no off the shelf package and no one size fits all approach. Every programme starts with a full discussion of where you are now and what you are trying to achieve.

Depending on your situation, your programme may cover:

• Getting clear on your strengths, values and what genuinely motivates you

• Identifying the right roles, sectors or career paths for where you want to go

• Building a CV and personal profile that accurately reflects your value

• Navigating the hidden job market and making direct approaches to employers

• Preparing for interviews and performing at your best under pressure

• Negotiating job offers and making informed decisions

• Managing a career transition into a new sector or type of role

• Developing a longer term career strategy that keeps working beyond our sessions

Sessions are available face to face in London and Hereford, or remotely by video. We work around your schedule and at a pace that suits you.

Our career coaching is for anyone who wants to move forward professionally and wants proper support to do it. We work with people across all sectors, at all levels, and in all kinds of situations.

We regularly work with:

• Professionals who feel stuck and are not sure what to do next

• People who know what they want but cannot seem to make it happen

• Those looking to move into a new sector or type of role

• Ambitious individuals who want to accelerate their career progression

• People returning to work after a break and needing to reposition themselves

• Anyone who has been job searching for a while without the results they expected

If you are unsure whether career coaching is the right fit, the best thing to do is have a conversation. We will be straightforward with you about whether we can help.

CONFIDENCE COACHING

Lack of confidence is one of the most common things that holds people back in their careers. Not a lack of ability. Not a lack of experience. Confidence. The belief that you are good enough, that your views are worth sharing, that you deserve the opportunities you are going after.

We see it constantly. Talented, capable people who undersell themselves at interview, stay quiet in meetings, avoid going for the jobs they actually want, or feel like an imposter in roles they have already earned.

Our confidence coaching programme is designed to change that.

Confidence coaching is a structured coaching process that helps you understand where your lack of confidence comes from, challenge the thinking that holds you back, and build new habits and behaviours that serve you better.

It is practical and grounded. We do not trade in vague motivational language. We work with you on the specific situations, conversations and challenges where confidence is costing you, and we give you tools that actually make a difference.

Our approach draws on established coaching frameworks as well as insights from our Achieve programme, which has helped hundreds of people build the self belief they need to move forward in their careers.

Every confidence coaching programme at Coach 1st is built around the individual. We start by understanding what is getting in the way and work from there.

Your programme is likely to explore:

• Understanding where your confidence patterns come from and how they show up

• Identifying the specific situations where confidence holds you back most

• Challenging the internal narratives that are not based on fact

• Building a clearer, more accurate picture of your own strengths and achievements

• Developing practical techniques for managing nerves, self doubt and pressure

• Preparing for high stakes moments such as interviews, presentations or difficult conversations

• Building longer term habits that sustain confidence beyond our sessions

Many clients find that confidence coaching has a positive effect well beyond their career. How we feel about ourselves at work tends to connect to how we feel in other areas of life too.

Coach 1st has developed a confidence framework built around one core idea: that confidence is not a fixed personality trait. It is a skill. And like any skill, it can be learned, practised and strengthened.

Our founder Stuart Blake is currently developing a book on this subject, drawing on decades of experience coaching people through career transitions and the confidence challenges that come with them. The framework behind that book underpins our confidence coaching work.

ADHD COACHING

Adults with ADHD are often highly capable, creative and driven people who have spent years feeling like they are working twice as hard as everyone else for half the recognition. Not because they lack ability, but because the world of work was not built with how their brain works in mind.

ADHD coaching at Coach 1st is not about fixing you. There is nothing to fix. It is about understanding how you work best, building practical strategies around your strengths, and removing the friction that gets in the way of you performing at your best.

ADHD coaching is a specialist form of coaching designed for adults who have been diagnosed with ADHD, or who suspect they may have it. It focuses on the practical, day to day challenges that ADHD can create in a professional context, and helps you develop strategies that actually work for the way your brain operates.

It is distinct from therapy and from general coaching. A good ADHD coach understands the neurological basis of ADHD and works with it rather than against it. The goal is not compliance with systems that do not suit you. The goal is performance, on your own terms.

At Coach 1st, our ADHD coaching programmes are tailored to each person. We do not apply a generic framework because ADHD presents differently in every individual and affects every career differently.

Your programme may cover:

• Understanding how your ADHD specifically affects your working life

• Managing focus, attention and energy across the working day

• Building structures and routines that work with your brain, not against it

• Dealing with procrastination, task avoidance and overwhelm

• Improving time management without relying on systems that do not suit you

• Navigating workplace relationships and communication

• Building confidence and addressing the impact of years of being misunderstood

• Career planning that takes your strengths and working style fully into account

• Preparing for job searching, interviews and new roles with ADHD in mind

Many of our ADHD coaching clients find that they have spent years developing coping strategies that mask the challenges but do not resolve them. Coaching gives you the space to look at things properly and build an approach that actually works long term.

Our ADHD coaching is for adults who are managing ADHD in a professional context, whether they have a formal diagnosis or are still working through that process. You do not need a diagnosis to benefit from ADHD coaching.

We work with:

• Adults with a formal ADHD diagnosis who want practical strategies for work

• People who have recently been diagnosed and are making sense of what that means for their career

• Those who have not been diagnosed but recognise the patterns and want support

• Professionals who are struggling with focus, organisation or consistency and have not found the right support elsewhere

• People who are job searching or changing careers and want to approach it in a way that works for them

We work with complete confidentiality. Many of our ADHD coaching clients have never discussed these challenges with anyone in a professional context before. That is fine. This is a safe, practical and entirely non judgmental space.

Most coaches offer one thing: coaching. We offer that and something more. Our team brings direct, senior level experience of the recruitment industry. We know how employers think. We know what they are looking for and what puts them off. We know how the market works and where most people go wrong.

That experience sits alongside our coaching qualification and ICF accreditation. The result is a coaching service that is both rigorous and grounded in the real world.

• ICF accredited coaching practice

• Over 35 years of senior recruitment experience

• 94% client satisfaction rate

• Proven outcomes across career, confidence, ADHD and employability coaching

• Based in London and Hereford, with remote coaching available nationwide

A conversation costs nothing. If you are ready to take your career seriously, we are ready to help. Get in touch today or visit coach1st.co.uk or achieve.coach1st.co.uk to find out more about our programmes and how to book your first session.