I think career coaches can be helpful but you have to pick the right one. Just a data point on my experience being coached by someone with less intellectual de

I think career coaches can be helpful but you have to pick the right one. Just a data point on my experience being coached by someone with less intellectual depth and experience than I had: there was some value in the general feedback I received (everyone benefits from having their blind spots pointed out), but in truth I really didn't learn very much overall. I think there are good coaches out there -- I tend to think the better ones are those who've had real world experience in the area they're offering coaching in. For instance, many executive coaches are former executives so they speak from experience and have had skin the game. I would somewhat distrust coaches who've merely taken coaching classes, whose resumes indicate that they've never done anything truly difficult in their lives in terms of career. The advice you get will likely not comport with reality -- you're much better off reading books and talking to senior people in your industry. Ultimately I benefited more from learning from multiple sources -- I picked the brains of the best in the industry by reading and arguing with books like High Output Management, Hard Things about Hard Things, etc. I may never have had the opportunity to be coached by the late Andy Grove, but at least I got to see things from his perspective a bit.