Case study – How to unstuck a customer relationship career and land a brand new managing role in a better company

Sophie Boulanger had been working for more than three years in a Customer Relationship and Sales position. She wasn’t happy with her work at the time, as she felt stuck and she had a lack of direction. Work overload, an unfulfilling position and no recognition for her efforts were causing her a bad time although she was working at a successful software company. Sophie wanted to take a step back and rediscover what made her happy in order to take the next career move.

As a coach, I used all of my experience working with highly skilled professionals and expats to tailor a coaching plan that would help Sophie gain clarity on the next steps to take in her career. After six sessions, she overcame every challenge she was facing.

“I went through a lot of exercises, assessments and steps with Magali: finding out what were my strengths and weaknesses, what was giving me energy, organizing myself better to have time to think. I worked on communicating my needs better to my manager and I also did some networking, reaching out to people to have a coffee and hear about their role and company. 

The networking was a bigger challenge for me – starting a conversation without knowing where it would go and without being clear about what I wanted felt a bit uncomfortable. In the end, though, it was successful. I met a lot of great people and found a new job thanks to networking.”

First steps

After our first meeting, Sophie and I deep-dived into the challenges she was facing and what she was hoping to get. She wasn’t happy with her work – she felt stuck in an unchallenging position that was taking up all her time and energy. Her responsibilities were varying and growing with no focus and she didn’t even have the time to think about what she wanted to do with her career. The only certain thing was that she needed to rethink her future at that company.

Sophie wanted to get clarity on the things she liked to do, and the kind of jobs that would make her happy. She went through a process to gain self-awareness; she needed to know about herself and her true goals before making another career choice.

Although she had no expectations at the beginning, as we went from session by session, Sophie rediscovered herself: she found her strengths and weaknesses, her needs and the things she could offer to others. She was able to identify what gave her energy and how to be better at managing her time and her team.

The uncertainty was gone after a few sessions and Sophie was ready to put into practice a strategy to make her next career move. Together we developed a strategy to use those strengths, weaknesses, and passions in a way that empowered Sophie to meet people from other industries and do serious networking to grow her career choice universe. With a few pushes, she put all her effort into executing the strategy to expand her professional network and identify career opportunities. 

The next thing Sophie knew, she was getting to meet and talk to many different and talented people. Doing this ultimately led her to getting a better and more challenging job.

From advice to actions

“Magali understood me, my personality and who I was very quickly. She knew when to push and when to stop. She adjusted to my timing: I sometimes needed more time between sessions because I needed to reflect on what I was doing but also because of my personal life and the fact that I was preparing my wedding. 

She was also sending me follow-up articles, documents, exercises or just follow-up questions in between sessions. All of those were reminders for me to continue my effort. 

Magali was constantly rewarding me for my efforts which is something that helped me to continue. Getting out of my comfort zone so much was sometimes disturbing, but Magali was there to give me the energy to continue.”

From actions to results

After going through all the coaching sessions, Sophie not only reached an exceptional level of self-awareness, but she also met the right people to make her next career move: she’s now heading the Customer Success Management team of a start-up that provides software services to companies.

“I am where I want to be. I am challenged, I am learning every day, I have freedom to make decisions. My manager trusts me and shows this to me. I want to continue carrying out interesting, impactful and complex projects, building successful, great and diverse teams, and working with trust and open relationships.”