Karin M.
Do your due diligence on the program.
Career Evolved is a specific type of program that is best suited for true Director, VP and C-Suite level executives. Make sure to read the contract fully and clearly understand what the program includes - online resources, 6 one-on-one coaching sessions to be used in 90 days and weekly group calls. The program is heavily focused on mindset, which is extremely important. It provides specifics on how to work on mindset in the online resources and weekly calls along with daily mindset work. The coaches are good and genuinely want to help. The program focuses on shifting your mindset then doing A LOT of outreach. Not much focus on resumes or LinkedIn profiles as the goal is to outreach and find roles in the hidden market where the resume is not as important. Makes sense, but is not for everyone. My experience with CE started out well. Olivia spent a lot of time talking with me before I signed up. I don’t believe it was a sales pitch. She genuinely wanted to and believed she could help me. In retrospect, I do not think I was right for her program. I met a few others who felt similarly. The mindset work has helped me, but I needed additional support that this program does not offer. I made incorrect assumptions it included more partially based on the cost. That’s on me. In my opinion, the cost is too high for what is received. The initially quoted fee is very high and is then ‘reduced for you.’ I heard the same from others in the program. The difference in program fee between clients was a range of several thousand dollars. The fee is not published. A few months ago I came across another program with the same overall structure that charges a monthly fee of several hundred dollars with the ability to stop at your discretion. In that program one-on-one coaching is paid for separately as each client’s needs are different. In the same timeframe of 90 days, the total would be significantly less with paying the monthly fee and separately for 6 coaching sessions. That program also offered group coaching on specific topics. I did not join so I cannot say it was better, but I know it was very comparable and had good reviews. Olivia is going to respond to this review and say that I wasn’t dedicated to the process, and she is partially correct. I was very honest about my issues and continued to struggle. I also had a family issue I was dealing with. As I did not fully read the contract regarding the number of coaching sessions and trusted in what I was told and subsequent assumptions I made, I did not optimize the sessions. I also started the program a few days before Thanksgiving. If I had known the limited sessions and timeframe I would have waited until after the holidays to start. Later when I was apparently almost out of sessions, Olivia offered to continue to meet with me, but then sent me a harsh message about limits. She later apologized, and I was then relegated to another CE employee (a former CE client turned salesperson/coach who has since left) who met with me while walking her dog then later while putting on makeup. She did try to help me and sent a follow-up recap email, but that was the last coaching I received. I do not know how many clients successfully find a job in 90 days. I attended pretty much every weekly group call for over 90 days due to Olivia allowing me to continue to attend the calls, but only know of a few who landed as a result of the program. Several went out on their own. A few were hired by CE. There’s a list of CE members, but it just has names, titles, location and LinkedIn URL. I know the program can work, but for most I don’t think 90 days is enough time to do the work needed and land a job especially for high level executives in this job market. I’m expecting a negative response from writing this review, but feel it’s important for job seekers to fully understand what they are signing up for. In a recent review on TrustPilot, Olivia responded that they need to vet their clients better, and I hope that is true. I wasn’t the right client for CE, and am out a lot of money I really did not have.
Response from Career EvolvedOct 27, 2024
Karin, and I spent hours together that were well beyond the scope of the client agreement because I truly believe in giving it my all to leave everyone better than I found them. I even allowed for her to continue to leverage the services well beyond 90 days. The challenge is, I cannot execute the process for my clients. All clients who hit our recommended KPIs of job search activity are getting results in terms of interviews and offers. We continue to be more and more selective on who we invite in because we need executives who are ready to take ownership of their results. Karin really did work hard on her mindset, but ultimately the challenges she had to overcome were beyond the scope of what we were able to help her with when it came time to execute the required activities to see results. We continue to get more and more dialed in with who is ready for this kind of work and who is not as our success rate is extremely important to us. I know after being in this business a decade now, that the system works and that it is the most efficient way to land executive job offers. The biggest variable to success is to make sure clients come in ready for the activity and commitment level required to achieve their desired results given the competitive job market for these level of job opportunities. I know that the identity transformation process that we take clients through is ultimately the root cause of most client's problems who are unable to see success. This is a process that no other program does like Career Evolved. Even with the best tactics, if someone is not in the mindset to trust themselves and their value and doesn't fully commit to becoming that version of themselves, then ultimately no tactic or strategy will work because they will never fully commit to the process. They are the ones who must ultimately own their value to be able to convert these opportunities into offers and put the required activity in. There is no one else that can do it for them. This is one of the hardest things about our business and why we continue to get more and more selective on who we choose to invite into our executive community as the demand for our services increase. We will continue to listen to every client survey and feedback and continue to improve to make sure we are serving our clients to the best of our ability and going above and beyond even what is in the contract to achieve success. I wish Karin all the best and I wish we would have been able to achieve that breakthrough together.