Recently there has been something of an explosion in all kinds of scams being offered as a means to 'Get the job of your dreams' or 'Secure that £150k per year job today', but their claims are very ambitious and, most likely involve you handing over some good money for something that will not actually secure you that dream job or get you 100 % in a career placement test.

Coaching can help in the sense that it can help you to prepare for a career placement test. It can encourage you to think about the interview process, the job itself, how you could do the job and what kinds of things are likely to come up as part of the career placement test. But coaching cannot actually do the placement test and that is where any 100% guarantee has to be subject to at least partial failure.

Only the job candidate can do the test and candidates can experience stress, nerves, even, when giving a presentation, stage fright. So you have been coached, you know your subject, you feel at ease, then you stand up and everything goes wrong. You can barely remember your name and the sound of your heart beating is literally drowning everything else out of your brain.

You may well have been extremely well coached, but on the day, nerves, not the coaching won! So treat any offer of coaching for a career placement test with a little scepticism. It may help and it may simply polish off some of your rough areas. But if you are asked to part with a significant amount of money, remember that it can only help you in the process: you have to do all the hard work, so be prudent about being parted from your money. A good friend or colleague or someone you trust may be equally able to help coach you, rather than some internet scam!