Career Transitions Center of Chicago

The Career Transitions Center of Chicago is an amazing organization. Helpful for both people currently out of work, and those thinking of making job changes, they provide comprehensive services. For a $ 300 fee for 3 months, clients can participate in a wealth of career searching activities, from weekly coaching from professionals, to peer groups, to high quality seminars and workshops. The staff is warm, friendly, and supportive. I’ve enjoyed meeting many people also on the «job searching journey.» Participating in the CTC has been an anchor in my job transition.

If you’d benefit from professional seminars on the five keys to effectiveness within a job search, then this is a superb place to go.
The huge benefit is a weekly 1-​hour coaching session for free. The volunteer coaches are awesome and incomparably concerned and effective. The coaches are talented volunteers that are in between very high-​powered positions.
Since the CTC is privately funded, the overall costs for a client are tiny; At least 16 times times more affordable than an outside coaching professional. I can say that based upon several hours spent with chief alumni coaches from Kellogg, and from Wharton.
The personal coaches are not providing you with the professional office cubicles to use. I have been extremely pleased with the continuity and personal concern found at

I enthusiastically recommend CTC to friends, family, and anyone questioning whether they might be of greater use and service in their current or future work.
Though staff at the Career Transitions Center (CTC) of Chicago told me at my orientation, I took a few weeks as a client to fully understand what they meant by saying CTC was not a job placement center. It truly has been a place to seek purpose within myself myself and in the world through meaningful work. The job stuff sorted itself out. CTC offered me value in two distinct areas of my transition: direct service and concrete tools.
There was no better remedy for the isolation and discouragement of seeking work than regular, face to face contact with like-​minded peers and a network of coaches dedicated to serving us. It was a relief to hop on the Metra and head downtown several times a week for skill-​based workshops, one-​on-​one coaching appointments, and dedicated work time. CTC became my office and the staff and other clients my team.
My coaches helped me design a regimen of small, manageable actions I could take every day to move me closer to purposeful work. My coaches introduced me to the idea of informational interviewing — basically, buying interesting people coffee and asking them to tell me the story of their path to purposeful work. Leaving education, I was fearful of losing all the skills I had built. To my relief, my coaches showed my how to leverage the skills I had honed to service my search: presentation, facilitation, planning, and execution. I learned language to use when negotiating salaries, ways to set and meet progress goals in my first 90 days on the new job, and how to create and utilize an online presence (LinkedIn, Web 2.0, SquareSpace, etc.). Perhaps my favorite course on offer was StrengthsFinder, a five week course written by Gallup and customized by CTC coaches, the results of which spoke to my heart and guided much of the subsequent search process.

I was referred to CTC from a very expensive private career coach I have used over the years because right now I need a more resource intensive process. I have been very pleasantly surprised by the quality and quantity of their offerings. The private coaching sessions and the workshops are very useful. I haven’t tried the peer groups but will eventually.
While they may have started out with funding from religious organizations, this is NOT a religious organization AT ALL (per the one star review). I’m only about a month into the process but it’s not only useful, it’s enjoyable which is a lovely surprise! They are able to offer value to clients who are starting from scratch and clients who are very well positioned already. I need more tweaking and nudging and feedback but some clients need everything from resume to cover letter to head shots to LinkedIn profiles and CTC is still valuable for everyone. I wish I had known about CTC years ago during my last job transition.

Okay, I read a bunch of stuff on their website, and spoke to a woman at the center who was really very nice. But once I see stuff like «Where is God in your job search» on a website I back away.
Well, nowhere, thanks. No faith based orgs. need apply.

This place has career counseling, classes, coaching, peer group meetings and it’s very reasonable. Sign up for three months and it’s $ 100. When you aren’t working you need every excuse to make you get out of bed, comb your hair and say ‘HELLO WORLD!’ This is that excuse. Plus I learned that lots of cool people don’t have jobs for at least some time in their lives. I should warn you young ‘uns that the average age here is at the high end of the Unilocal bell curve, but I think that part of job search success is realising that new jobs can come from anyone, anywhere at anytime.