For many workers, the desire or the need to change jobs is commonplace. Whether brought about by downsizing or a growing dissatisfaction with the trajectory of their careers or industries, many people have made a job switch or want to.

That has led to a boom in the number of career and life coaches, whose mission is to help those unsure of their next career step to examine their aptitudes and get back on a career track.

Intimate-apparel executive Nancy Fox decided to start her own home-based coaching business, Fox Coaching Associates, in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

After some early struggles, Fox learned she had a talent for bringing people together.

"I found a way that makes it enjoyable and painless," says Fox, who works with attorneys, accountants and other professional-service providers who, she says, don't like to sell.

"They hate it, and so do I," Fox says.

Coaches in the U.S. earn an average of $52,478 a year and account for slightly more than half the $1.5 billion in revenue generated worldwide by coaching, according to the International Coach Federation (ICF), a trade organization.

The ICF has about 7,000 members in the U.S. and more than 13,000 worldwide. Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates there are 30,000 coaches worldwide.

Typically, coaching is a second or third career for many people, ICF says. Workers may have been an executive, consultant, trainer or teacher, or in counseling or a health-related field; the majority, 53 percent, hold a master's degree.

One critic of career coaches says they often miss the mark when it comes to providing realistic career-transition services.

"In other words, they're very pie-in-the-sky," says Barry Miller, manager of alumni career programs and services at Pace University.

"You have to translate it into people's financial needs; what is available in the marketplace; and how accessible that marketplace is to that transition," says Miller, who is also a private career consultant.

He says many people go into coaching because they have expertise in a given field.

But that doesn't always mean that they are aware of all the resources available to job seekers or those professionals looking to build their business or careers.

A good coach needs more than empathy, Miller says.

Though not as critical as Miller, Fox agrees.

"A good coach knows not only what's going to assist a client in terms of what they are looking for," Fox says, "but also put them on the right path to find structures to help them fulfill their goals."

Copyright &\; 2008 The Seattle Times Company