·March 27, 2023·2 min read

Strategies for Navigating Career Search with Marginalized Job Seekers

Whether you’re a resume writer or career coach, you will likely work with marginalized job seekers and clients facing challenging circumstances at one point or another.

Perhaps they have been home with children for an extended period of time, were laid off at 60, or their job is now obsolete. Maybe they’re living with depression or caring for a parent or special needs child.

Having a few tricks up your sleeve gives you a competitive edge in winning these contracts/clients and working with your clients effectively and efficiently.

During this interactive 90-minute workshop, you’ll learn how to work with the mindset of clients in this category as well as navigating misconceptions of employers. We’ll also explore how to shift the focus from what the client struggles with to their strongest abilities. And we’ll discuss where to conduct such a job search and how to help clients communicate with potential employers.

What a great event! Attendees scored it a 9.8/10 on the survey and said it was:

Plus 100% of survey respondents said they learned new ways to assist marginalized job seekers!

Some of my fav nuggets from the live event:

Remind clients that their situation is not unique and shouldn’t stop them. For example: one in four people have been diagnosed with a mental illness and one in three people have a criminal record.
Sometimes we are the first person to believe in a client’s capability. The people closest have seen their struggles and failures and may hold them back to “protect” them.
Everyone learns differently!
Today, you have 18 spoons of energy; how will you invest them?
You client “might not have anyone in their life who listens to them”. Exercise the 10 minute rant rule and then put on your coach hat with, “How would you like to go about solving this?”
Help your clients to “take responsibility for their SUCCESSES. Response-Ability – we each have the ability to choose how we will respond.”
Requiring buy-in and accountability, “What do you want to feel good about or have accomplished from this session?”
Katie Byron, author; four questions. Ask, “Is it true?”
I’ve got chicken skin – “Who would you be without that story? What story do you want to tell? Get in the driver’s seat!”
Replace the negative speak with CANS.

Watch now and download the handout for the complete training.

Now available on demand! Free for CDI members!

About our facilitator:

Ari Shaffer is an author, psychotherapist, and career coach. She specializes in helping clients living with special challenges – particularly those living with mental health disabilities but also older workers and full time parents starting back to work. She provides an 8 week class for career seekers as well as 1:1 coaching. A long time member of CDI, she’s served on the board, worked as a mentor, and been part of various committees. You can learn more about her at .