Ten Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Coach
Most People Skip This Step
You would not hire a new faculty member without an interview. You would not accept a position without asking hard questions about protected time, promotion criteria, and departmental culture. But when it comes to hiring a coach, most physicians skip the due diligence entirely.
They find someone online. The website looks professional. The discovery call feels pleasant. They sign up. And three months later, they wonder why nothing has changed.
I do not want that for you. Whether you end up working with me or someone else, these are the ten questions I would ask any coach before committing your time and money.
1. What Is Your Experience With Academic Medicine?
This is not gatekeeping. It is practical. Academic medicine has a specific set of pressures that most coaches have never encountered. The promotion committee process. The tension between clinical, research, and education missions. The politics of a department that has not changed leadership in twenty years.
A coach who does not understand this world will spend your first several sessions just getting oriented. That is expensive orientation. Ask them directly what they know about your environment and listen to whether the answer sounds lived-in or rehearsed.
2. What Does a Typical Engagement Look Like?
You want specifics here. How often do you meet? How long are sessions? What happens between sessions? Is there a defined arc, or is it open-ended?
A good coach should be able to describe their process clearly without reading from a script. If they cannot tell you what the first month looks like, they probably have not thought about it. And if they have not thought about their own process, they are not going to help you think clearly about yours.
3. How Do You Measure Progress?
This question separates serious coaches from feel-good conversationalists. Coaching should move you somewhere. Not on a spreadsheet necessarily, but in ways that you can name.
Some coaches use formal assessments. Others track progress through the quality of the questions you start asking. Either approach can work. What does not work is a coach who shrugs and says, "You will just feel different." You deserve more than vibes.
4. What Happens When I Get Stuck?
Everyone gets stuck in coaching. There will be a week where you did not do the thing you said you would do. A month where nothing seems to be shifting. A moment where you want to quit.
Ask the coach how they handle that. Do they push harder? Do they step back and explore what is underneath? Do they pretend it is not happening? Their answer will tell you a lot about their coaching philosophy and whether it matches how you respond to challenge.
5. Can You Tell Me About a Client Who Was Not a Good Fit?
This is one of my favorite questions. Any coach who says they are great for everyone is either lying or lacks self-awareness. Both are disqualifying.
A thoughtful coach will be honest about who they work best with and who they do not. Maybe they are not the right fit for someone in crisis. Maybe they do not work well with people who want a lot of direct advice. The specifics matter less than the honesty.
6. What Is Your Coaching Training and Background?
Notice I did not put this first. That is intentional. Credentials matter, but they are not the whole story. An ICF certification tells you someone completed a program. It does not tell you whether they can sit across from a frustrated associate professor and ask the one question that changes the trajectory of the conversation.
Still, you should ask. Understand their training. Know where their approach comes from. A coach who cannot articulate the foundation of their work has a shaky foundation.
7. How Do You Handle Confidentiality?
This one is non-negotiable. If your institution is paying for your coaching, ask who gets access to what. If your coach is going to report back to your department chair, that changes everything about what you can safely say in session.
The best coaches are explicit about this upfront. They draw bright lines around confidentiality and they do not cross them. If a coach is vague on this point, that is not a gray area. It is a red flag.
8. What Do You Do When a Client Needs Something Beyond Coaching?
Coaching is not therapy. Coaching is not mentoring. Coaching is not consulting. A great coach knows where their lane ends and is willing to refer you when you need something they cannot provide.
If a coach tells you they can handle everything, be cautious. The best coaches I know have a network of therapists, mentors, and other professionals they refer to when the situation calls for it. That is not a weakness. It is integrity.
9. What Is Your Cancellation and Refund Policy?
This is a business relationship. Treat it like one. Know what happens if you need to cancel a session because a patient codes or a grant deadline moves up. Know what happens if you realize two sessions in that this is not working.
Reasonable coaches have reasonable policies. Rigid ones tend to be rigid in other ways too.
10. Can I Talk to a Former Client?
Not every coach will be able to offer this, and that is okay. Confidentiality makes referrals complicated. But a coach who has no one willing to vouch for their work should give you pause.
If they cannot connect you with a former client, ask if they have testimonials, case studies, or published work that shows how they think. You are looking for evidence that this person has helped someone like you get from where they were to where they wanted to be.
The Question Behind All the Questions
Here is what you are really trying to figure out: Can I be honest with this person?
Coaching only works if you can say the thing you have not said to anyone else. The doubt about your career. The resentment toward your department. The quiet fear that you have been performing instead of leading.
If the discovery call feels like a performance — theirs or yours — keep looking. If it feels like the most honest conversation you have had about your career in months, pay attention to that.
One More Thing
Do not rush this decision. A coaching engagement is a real commitment of time, money, and emotional energy. The right coach will not pressure you. They will give you space to decide because they know that a client who chooses them freely is a client who does the work.
Take the time. Ask the questions. Trust what you find.
If you are in the process of evaluating coaches and want to see what working with someone who specializes in academic medicine looks like, schedule a discovery call. I am happy to answer every one of these questions myself.
