3 Questions I Ask Prospective Clients: You can ask yourself these questions, too!

As a certified career management coach, resume writer, and LinkedIn profile writer, one of my goals is to “meet clients where they are” in their job search. Additionally, I like to use a “co-active” coaching approach that involves asking a lot of questions to help jobseekers find their own answers. A career coach, like a sports coach, is there to bring out the best in you, rather than to do it for you.

Consequently, I’ve given a lot of thought to the initial questions I ask prospective clients. Here are three of those questions:

1. What is your job target,
2. What is your target salary, and
3. What do you consider your greatest business accomplishment?

Now, I am not disclosing any “trade secrets” here. You may want to ask yourself these questions, among others, as soon as you consider starting a job search. And you may be asked the same questions on a recruiter’s screening call or online screening form. So, whether you are a “fired fed,” May 2025 college graduate, or you want a promotion at your current job, it’s a good idea to think about your responses first.

What is your job target?

Perhaps the most important question you will ever be asked in a professional context is “what job do you want?” Like many new graduates, I had no idea what to say when I told friends, acquaintances, and professors that I wanted a job. This was one of the reasons I spent nearly a year looking for a meaningful job.

A resume writer needs a job target to know what information should be emphasized on a resume and LinkedIn profile. Career coaches and employment specialists that are helping you will want your answer so they know where you are in the job search process.

It is critical for you to have a response when employers and recruiters ask for your job target. And the job target you give them will have to match their needs, and not just what you dream of doing. Employers want to know whether you can do their job, will do their job, and that you will do the job the way they want it done.

Coaches, recruiters, and employers have tools at their disposal to address the job target question. Prospective employers can test “hard” skills in fields such as accounting, finance, spreadsheet analysis, word processing, and software coding with relative ease, so make sure your skills match your job target.

Career coaches and resume writers don’t test hard skills although many offer formal or informal assessments that will help you decide whether your personality or communications style matches your job target. (Some public employment programs and schools do test hard skills, though.)

A resume writer may either offer coaching services first if you lack a job target or ask you to come back when you know what job you are applying to fill.

What is your salary target?

It is important to articulate a realistic salary target. Employers will ask you what salary range you expect for at least two reasons. First, they want to know whether they can afford to hire you. Hiring managers may also see salary as a proxy for your career level because job titles can mean different things in different organizations.

As a coach and career advisor, I’ve encountered clients with poor results because they had unrealistic salary expectations. As a result, they remained unemployed for many months or even years.

Low salary expectations can also be an issue. You may be taken advantage of if you are willing to accept a salary that is below market rate. Or, you may wind up in a job that does not challenge you.

Those moving from the public sector to business will find that salaries are not a matter of public record as they are in the government. Nonetheless, a plethora of salary information is available online from sites such as Glassdoor.com, so you can do some research. Private-sector salary data was expensive and difficult to get when I graduated college.

What is your greatest business accomplishment?

Resume writers and interview coaches spend a great deal of time working with jobseekers to identify accomplishments that can be highlighted on resumes and discussed at interviews. Think about your past achievements at work when you are starting a job search. What was your greatest achievement in your view?

The answers I’ve gotten to this question have been fascinating. Years ago, a civil engineer I was working with pointed out the window at several buildings when I asked for her greatest achievement. She pointed at three specific buildings and said “I built those.”

An aerospace electronics engineer told me he built an experiment for the Space Shuttle 40 years ago. An updated version flies on the ISS today. Although his experiment happened decades ago, it is so unique we found a way to include it on his resume and profile without “aging” him.

While I don’t expect prospective clients to have accomplishment stories ready-to-go when they initially contact me, I do ask them for one example of an accomplishment. Your answer will help determine how much work we need to do together for an accomplishment-based resume.

Employers will ask this question, too, because they will want to know what achievements you consider most important from those discussed on your resume and LinkedIn profile. And they will want to know whether you focus on accomplishments that benefited you or achievements that benefited your employer.

Concluding comments

Based on my experience these three questions are a great starting point for your job search process. You may land an unsatisfactory job, or no job at all, without a feasible job target. It will take longer to get a job if your salary request is too high. You could get taken advantage of when your target is too low.

Last, but not least, you will not market your skills effectively without touting your achievements. Employers know your job description and the daily tasks you performed at your last job. They do not know the unique value you brought to the job.

That’s why coaches ask you questions instead of supplying answers..