Sharon Graham has an idea for the perfect gift for a new high school, college or university graduate.

Forget watches, trips to Europe or indeed anything transitory. Instead invest anywhere from $50 to several thousand dollars and line them up with a professional career counsellor.

That $50 might buy them a professionally produced resume; several thousand dollars can provide career coaching, interview coaching and a step-by-step plan on how to land a rewarding job now and in the future.

“On graduation, people have been taught certain skill sets but no one has taught them how to find a job where they can make the most of them,” says Graham, president of Graham Management Group of Milton and head of the Career Professionals of Canada, a national organization that certifies career counsellors.

Finding a job, especially one that leads to a rewarding career, demands its own set of specific skills.

“People are willing to spend upwards of $40,000 to get an MBA but then don’t spend a penny on learning how to get the job they want,” she says.

In times when people are willing to lay out money for financial advice or tips about how to improve their personal life, why do few spend money on career planning? Rewarding careers, after all, are the source and foundation of personal wealth and a main pillar of well being.

“It may be the cost,” says Jerry Fisch, president of Marberg Staffing in Toronto, which for 30 years has provided counselling and recruitment services to corporations. “It may also be the difficulty in finding bona fide counsellors. I have seen resumes drawn up by so called counsellors, which had very little practical value indeed.

“I think perhaps people think finding a job or moving up the promotion ladder is as simple a matter as answering an ad,” says Hanna Dunn of Dunn People Strategies in Mississauga. “In truth the process of recruiting is much, much more complicated and sophisticated these days.

“Almost anyone can benefit from a professional to coach and guide them through.”

Even crafting an effective resume relies on insider knowledge of how corporate human resources professionals work and make their selections.

The resume is not a simple list of what a job seeker has done, but rather a marketing tool to says what the applicant can do for the employer, says Fisch.

“Never start by saying you have 30 years experience doing this or that,” says Dunn. “The recruiter may say we don’t need someone with that much experience; we need someone we can shape to our processes.”

If you have spent the past five years doing accounting for an employer, do not list jobs back to high school when you earned pocked money cutting lawns, says Fisch.

“What a resume should do is set out very quickly what you can do for an employer. The best way to do that is briefly explain specifics of what you achieved from previous employers,” he says.

Creating an effective resume, which can cost anywhere from $300 to $1,000, says Graham, is only a starting point on the menu of services career counsellors offer, she adds,

Most people could also benefit from coaching in interview skills. That can range from what to wear and how to sit right to the best way to answer questions. The cost of coaching can range from $75 to $150 an hour.

“Employers don’t want funny anecdotes; they want specifics on performance,” says Dunn. “Their sole interest is what can you do for them and can you do it better than other candidates.”

Graham notes the main reason people get hired is for their skills and the main reason they are terminated is for their personality.

“One of the overriding things employers look for are people who can fit easily into the corporate culture,” says Fisch. “Effective counsellors can help you figure that out.”

Does coaching pay off? Fisch says his company has enjoyed an 80 per cent success rate with job applicants it has referred to employers.

“It is not enough to have the skills to do the work. You also need the skills to land the job,” says Graham.