Career Coaching Secrets

The Power of Vulnerability in Career Coaching with April Calkovsky

• Davis Nguyen

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Join Rexhen Doda and April Calkovsky, a career coach and social justice advocate at Eastern Michigan University. April shares her accidental discovery of career coaching, her unique university-based practice, and her future goals, including pursuing a doctorate and potentially launching her own business. She emphasizes the transformative power of authenticity and vulnerability in coaching, highlighting how her personal growth and focus on social justice enhance client connections.

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April Calkovsky :

What I learn every single day from my interactions with my clients, and I do call them my clients, you know, because they were developing a relationship. It's just been a really big journey over time that to like allow myself to be more authentic and vulnerable with my clients. And I never thought that that was, I did not know that. I didn't know that before. I didn't know that that would be a good approach. I thought I was just supposed to teach them how to do a resume, how to

Davis Nguyen:

write a cover letter, how to interview, how to network. Before Purple Circle, I started and scaled several seven and eight-figure career coaching businesses myself and consulted with two career coaching businesses that are now doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or just building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Rexhen Doda:

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Series. podcast. I'm your host, Rexhen, and today's guest is April Kalkowski. She is a career coach and a social justice advocate at Eastern Michigan University. She supports students and professionals in defining success on their own terms using a holistic and inclusive approach that honors intersecting identities. Passionate about breaking system barriers, she specializes in career coaching, MBTI, and CliftonStrengths facilitation, and promoting equity in education and the workplace. It's my pleasure to have you on the podcast today. Welcome to the show, April. Thank you so much. It's great to be here. Always an honor. And interesting for this podcast episode, April is with a different perspective. So working as a career coach in Eastern Michigan University, and before that, you were also working at another institution What was that called?

April Calkovsky :

Ohio State University.

Rexhen Doda:

Ohio State University. So it's been actually many years. Can you tell me a little bit more about what inspired you to become a career coach?

April Calkovsky :

Yeah. So honestly, I didn't even know that this was a career. Okay. I had no idea. I discovered it completely by accident. Basically what happened is that I returned to college to complete a bachelor's degree when I was 31 years old. I had been laid off from my job and I didn't really have any other options. And I thought, well, I guess I'll just back to college and finish that degree I started back in like 1990. And so I enrolled at Ohio State University. And in 2007, I took a career exploration course, which connected me with a career counselor. And I'd never visited a career counselor before. She asked me the question that I still use with clients today, which is, what have you loved and hated about every job you've ever had? And that question allowed me to really examine all the jobs I'd ever had. I'd had so many different types of jobs. I've been in clothing retail. I've been in small business. I've been in medium business. I've I've been in large corporation, nonprofit, and in state government. And so allowing myself to examine my entire journey really allowed me to see that I actually love, first of all, that I have actually contributed to society and I've actually done good. But it allowed me to know that I really like working with kind of young and being kind of that second auntie or mom or like counselor, advisor, advocate to help them. And then I also love writing. And so then the counselor suggested I interned with the career services office for my college at Ohio State University. And the very first day of training, it was like a lightning bolt hit me. And I knew that I was meant to be in career coaching. I just, it went through me like a lightning bolt. And it was the best feeling ever. And I'm never, ever going to forget that moment. I even still tear up when I think about that because it was just such an impactful moment. And I hope that I can help everybody get to that

Rexhen Doda:

moment. Well, yeah, most coaches actually, that I've interviewed do love doing their coaching. So no doubt about that. Now, so you started at Ohio. Now you moved to Eastern Michigan University. So you've been there for about five years and a few months, if I'm not mistaken, Ohio. And here about 11 years and five months in Eastern Michigan University. Now, how does the journey look like as someone working in the university? Now, excuse my ignorance, but initially, when I haven't interviewed someone working for a university before. So I used to think that you're generally working with students only. How does it work that you're, how do you also get professionals to work with?

April Calkovsky :

So through the Ohio State University, my position there was called an internship advisor. And so I actually was able to work with employers. And sometimes those employers would say, you know, I have someone that I could, I'd need you to work with. You know, would you work with this person? Can you help us think about how to support our interns better or things like that and it's more of like coaching them on working individual not so much their own career coaching but in my life I have absolutely had people send their friends their family members to me kind of consistently and I will take on people once in a while I have the capacity but most of the time I'm very focused on my job in my full-time position and working with the student so it just kind of will happen and in a random way. And I don't necessarily pursue looking for clients or things like that because I have the clients come to, you know, at the university. So it's really easy to have the conversation and do that. I

Rexhen Doda:

got to tell you, there's two ways that that can happen. One is if you worked as a career coach in the university. The other is if you work as a contractor coach for some other company, in which case you don't have to do marketing and sales. Basically, they would send people your way. So that's also another way of looking into coaching his business. Now, we did talk about this at the beginning as well, but I want to give you the space to talk about this more. What are some of the goals that you're working towards for the next one to three years?

April Calkovsky :

Yeah, so I am actually a doctoral student at Eastern Michigan University. It's a doctoral program in educational leadership. So my goal is to finish that by December of 2026. And so that's my big goal right now, right? Right. And it takes a lot of time. And that's yet another reason why I haven't started my own coaching business, because like between working on my PhD and working full time and then just family obligations, I don't have a lot of bandwidth. Once I finish my PhD, then I will either be seeking out a higher level position here at Eastern Michigan University, or if that doesn't materialize, then I will start my own coaching business and or contract myself out for speaking engagements, teach as an adjunct lecturer wherever I can. Along the way, I'm going to be obtaining the National Career Development Association Certified Master of Career Services credential. Probably going to look into a couple other coaching credentials as well because I'm very, very interested in life design, human design, and even how our DNA can impact which career directions we might be well-suited for. I'm really excited about the next few years because I feel like I'm going to go through a lot of change. And I think that my professional life is going to go through a lot of

Rexhen Doda:

change. Cool. And I'd love to see that because obviously we do want to have these success stories that have broken through the, because there's a lot of coaches, like I mentioned in the beginning, there's a lot of coaches, career coaches working for the university that have a lot of potential to also open their own business. So you could be that example that typically share if you managed to go through that. And I'm excited for you to have that goal. Is there, now working as a career coach, there's also, you mentioned some coaching programs, masterminds or communities that you are a part of that typically get information. Would you like to share some?

April Calkovsky :

Yeah, sure. So I was really fortunate at Eastern Michigan University when I came on to this position, they immediately enrolled me in the global career development facilitator training. So I have that certification. And then they also sent me on for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator certification. And so I have that certification as well. The most important organizations that I've been a part of and that I maintain my memberships in are the National Career Development Association, or NCDA, and the Michigan Career Development Association, or MISHCD. And so those two organizations I'm a member of. Through my job, I'm a member of NACE, the National Association of Colleges an employer. And then another organization that the university has membership with that I have found really, really important is Career Leadership Collective, led by Jeremy Padon. And so we are all working in universities and colleges across the country and things like that, but we have our own challenges in that environment. And so I have gained so much knowledge and networking opportunities and learning opportunities through all of these organizations. But during my doctoral coursework, I took a couple of courses, diversity and leadership, cross-cultural counseling, eco-justice education. These classes completely changed the way that I do my work as a career coach because I was very aware of my privilege as a white woman in education, but I was not fully aware of how my unconscious bias was still perpetuating systems of oppression by teaching and expecting students to comply with the competitive demands of a capitalist individualistic So society like we have in the United States. And so I started doing my own research because I was kind of confronting myself with like, oh, my gosh, what am I doing? I'm actually am I causing harm? And, you know, I need to do things differently and throw. So through the research I did and through my connections with NCDA. I connected with Brian Hutchison, a.k.a. the Global Career Guy. And then he connected me, Brian, with David Blustein. And David Blustein wrote The Psychology of Work. And that's all about helping people get decent work. And really started focusing on this kind of career development work as social justice work. And so that's how that came. And so then I started paying attention to the works of Tristram Hooley and Rhea Thompson and the late Ron Seltzer. And following their blog very closely. And their blog is all around critical guidance. for social justice and career development. And so the blog is called Critical Perspectives on Career and Career Guidance. And then there's this Canadian organization that's Canadian Education and Research Institute for Counseling, SERIC, and they are doing fantastic work. And so I pay a lot of attention to what they're doing because I really feel that, you know, we need to support our clients, our students in their authentic versions of themselves and supporting them, knowing how to navigate the barriers that do exist and to try and break them you know and so i just i try to gain as much knowledge information as i can by doing my own research reading and things like that but absolutely participate in as many conferences and webinars and all those different types of things it's like i would say

Rexhen Doda:

that you have so much information that you're totally ready to do this on your own when it comes to coaching obviously you do have a lot of information so i feel like you have already a good um like foundation to get to get ready that all you need to figure out next is like marketing sales or if you were to do that or you could just work for companies as a contractor and that would get you going at the beginning so yeah i feel like uh there's a lot here that you shared and uh when i say that i do i have interviewed a lot of coaches now and this answer to this question has not been this thorough before so i really like that thanks for sharing all the information now what is something that you wish you had known before you started working as a career coach in the university? Is there something that was kind of like unexpected for you? That's a good question.

April Calkovsky :

So I guess I really didn't know how much I would be changed by my students and the people that I work. I really thought that I had, like, I knew what I knew and that's all I needed to know. But I learn every single day from my interactions with my clients. And I do call them my clients, you know, because they were developing a relationship. It's just been a really big journey over time. that to like allow myself to be more authentic and vulnerable with my client. And I never thought that that was, I did not know that. I didn't know that before. I didn't know that that would be a good approach. I thought I was just supposed to teach them how to do a resume, how to write a cover letter, how to interview, how to network, how to use LinkedIn, like just teach them how to do. And so in my almost 17 year journey here, like it really has been this evolution of myself along with helping other people. And it's all because I recognize that the richer coaching session comes when I am authentic and vulnerable. with the client and we're sharing together and we're like building together and transforming together yeah

Rexhen Doda:

I feel like a lot of people will remember how you made them feel versus like the information that was shared so like another advantage to you is that in the future some of these clients that you've had are going to come back when they need a career change when they probably already have

April Calkovsky :

but

Rexhen Doda:

you might get some people for the second time which I feel like would also be helpful for you whenever you move on to starting your coaching business. So there's like good signs everywhere from what I see. Is there any advice you'd like to give to other coaches who are looking to scale their impact?

April Calkovsky :

Yeah, I think the biggest advice is the thing that I learned in these last like probably six years, which is to be authentic and be willing to be vulnerable. People want customization and not just functional instructions. That is the biggest transformation that I've personally had as a career coach is to be more honest and forth and authentic in my practice and my ability to be a little vulnerable with a client creates a connection that inspires safety and trust and I don't take that lightly it's very serious when someone is trusting me with their story and so I had to go through my own self-examination of my beliefs my biases my all of those things I had to really serious and examine those things for myself in order to understand what I might you know kind of interpreting differently or what I might be putting on somebody that doesn't belong there and so I had to do that work so that I could be a better career coach that I could be a coach that invites clients to be vulnerable and authentic with me because they can tell that I'm showing up for them in the same I think that's one of the most important things is human to human recognizing each other in our humanness

Rexhen Doda:

you know totally agree with that well it's been a pleasure having you on the podcast today in the future where everyone wants to find you they can obviously reach out to you on LinkedIn April Kalkowski you have your information there so anyone can reach out there uh is there any other way that could connect with you in the future uh right now apart from linkedin obviously later on there's going to be other methods

April Calkovsky :

yeah linkedin is the best way um and yeah i'm i'm there and i'm on there every day so very

Rexhen Doda:

willing to thank you thank you so much april and yeah

Davis Nguyen:

this was lovely

April Calkovsky :

yes thank you so much it's been really wonderful

Davis Nguyen:

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe to YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This conversation was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to seven and eight figures without burning out. To learn more about Purple Circle, our community, and how we can help you grow your business, visit joinpurplecircle.com.