The impact of education, experience, and certification on the perceptions of potential coaching participants

After significant expansion of the coaching profession, there is still little understanding of the factors that contribute to a successful coaching relationship. The initial phase of the coaching relationship is the selection process, which is the most understudied area of the coaching lifecycle. The selection process refers to a potential client making a decision regarding hiring a coach and establishing a formal coaching relationship. Based on research on the selection of therapists (Hoyt, 1996; Strong, 1968) the potential client uses reputational cues as a means to establish credibility and ultimately, select the coach. Because of the paucity of research in this phase of the coaching process, the current study explores the impact of credibility factors of education, coaching experience, and certification on the perceptions of potential clients. An experimental design was employed, varying the coach characteristics (i.e. education, certification and experience), and measuring important outcome variables: likelihood of selection, and perceptions of coach credibility. This study contributes to the understanding of the coaching process by empirically testing factors used in the selection process thereby making it clearer for coaches and researches the factors most salient for potential clients.