Career Coaching Intake Form (Free Template + Filled Example)

A career coaching intake form is the document a new client fills in before your first session. It covers where they are in their career, where they want to go, what is in the way and how they like to work. Below you will find a free, copyable career coaching intake form with eight sections written for career coaches, plus the decisions to make before you send it. You also get a filled example for a fictional career changer, a comparison of ways to send and store it, and the mistakes that make intake answers useless.

We make Coachful, the coaching platform where this template can live as intake questions on your booking page. In Coachful the client answers it, signs your coaching agreement before the first call, and both are stored on their client record next to their sessions, goals and invoices. You can still copy the template into a Word file or a Google Form if that suits your practice today; the comparison table further down covers both routes.

If you only want the questions with longer explanations, our guide to career coaching intake questions covers twenty prompts one by one. This article is the working document.

What decisions should you make before using this template?

Decide six things first: who the form is for, when it arrives, how long it runs, what you will not ask, who else sees the answers and where they are stored. Each choice changes the wording of at least one section, so settling them before you copy anything saves a rewrite later.

One practical default for a solo career coach: a short version attached to the consultation booking, then the full version below sent once the client buys, with the coaching agreement signed before session one.

What is in the career coaching intake form template?

The template has eight sections: contact and logistics, current situation, direction, search status, strengths and assessments, constraints, working together, and consent. Copy it as it stands, replace the [bracketed] parts with your own details, and delete any question you would not use in a session.

Career Coaching Intake Form: [Your practice name]

Thank you for booking with [Your name]. This form takes about [15 to 20] minutes. Your answers help me prepare so our first session goes straight to the work. Answer what you can; "not sure yet" is a useful answer. Everything you share stays confidential under the terms in Section 8.

Section 1. Contact and logistics

1. Full name and the name you would like me to use.
2. Email address and mobile number (tell me which you check more often).
3. Time zone and the days and times that usually work for sessions.
4. LinkedIn profile URL (optional).
5. How did you hear about [Your practice name]?
6. Is your employer or another organisation paying for this coaching? If yes, the organisation's name and your contact there: [Yes / No].

Section 2. Where you are now

1. Your current or most recent job title, employer type (for example corporate, public sector, nonprofit, startup, self-employed) and industry.
2. How long have you been in this role, and in this field overall?
3. Your employment status today: [Employed full time / Employed part time / On notice or recently laid off / Between roles / Self-employed / Studying / Returning after a break].
4. In two or three sentences, what does a typical week in your work look like?
5. What parts of your current or last job give you energy? What parts drain you?
6. What has prompted you to look for career coaching now, rather than six months ago or six months from now?

Section 3. Where you want to go

1. Which best describes your goal? [Promotion or bigger role in my field / Same role, different employer / Change of field or function / Starting a business or freelance work / Return to work after a break / Work out what I want / Other: ____].
2. If you have target roles, titles or industries in mind, list them. If not, describe the kind of work you are curious about.
3. Picture a good workday twelve months from now. What are you doing, with whom, and where?
4. What would make our coaching worth it for you? Name one or two concrete outcomes (for example "three interviews for product roles by March" or "a decision on whether to leave teaching").
5. What timeline are you working to, and is it fixed (a notice period, a contract end, a visa date) or your own preference?

Section 4. Your search so far

1. Are you actively applying? Roughly how many applications in the last [three] months, and how many led to interviews?
2. Where in the process do things tend to stall? [Getting noticed / First interview / Final rounds / Offers I do not want / I have not started].
3. Please upload or link your current resume or CV, even if it is out of date. (Optional at this stage.)
4. Have you worked with a career coach, recruiter, outplacement service or mentor before? What helped, and what did not?

Section 5. Strengths, skills and assessments

1. What do colleagues or managers consistently come to you for?
2. Which achievement from the last five years are you proudest of, and what did you personally do to make it happen?
3. Which skills do you want to use more in your next role, and which would you be happy never to use again?
4. Have you taken any career or personality assessments (for example CliftonStrengths, a Myers-Briggs type report, DISC or a values inventory)? If yes, which ones, and may I see the results?
5. Which three values must your next role respect? (Examples: autonomy, stability, learning, impact, flexibility, status, team, creativity.)

Section 6. Practical constraints

1. Location: are you open to relocating, commuting, hybrid or remote work? Any places you will not consider?
2. Hours and flexibility: any caring responsibilities, study or other commitments that shape the hours you can work? Share only what you are comfortable sharing.
3. Compensation: what is the minimum total pay you need for your next role, and what would you consider a good outcome? (You do not need to share past salaries.)
4. Financial runway: if you are between roles, roughly how many months can you search before money becomes the main driver? [Under 3 / 3 to 6 / 6 to 12 / Over 12 / Prefer not to say].
5. Anything else that limits your options right now, such as a non-compete clause, a training bond or a required credential? (I am not a lawyer; flag it and we will decide if you need legal advice.)

Section 7. How we will work together

1. How do you prefer to receive feedback? [Direct and blunt / Direct but gentle / Ask me questions first].
2. Between sessions, would you like [weekly check-ins / a shared action list / reminders before deadlines / to be left alone until the next session]?
3. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much time and energy can you give this process each week at the moment?
4. Is there anything happening in your life right now that might affect our work (for example burnout, a recent loss, health or stress)? You can leave this blank, or tell me in person.
5. Is there anything else you want me to know before we meet?

Section 8. Confidentiality and consent

• Coaching is a partnership focused on your career goals. It is not therapy, legal advice, financial advice, recruitment or job placement, and [Your name] does not guarantee a job, promotion or salary outcome.
• What you share stays between us, except where the law requires disclosure or where I believe you or someone else is at risk of serious harm.
• [If sponsored:] Your sponsor, [Organisation name], will receive only [attendance / a summary of goals agreed with you / nothing beyond invoices]. I will not share session content without your written permission.
• Your answers and any documents you upload are stored in [where you store them] and kept for [period, for example 24 months after our last session], then deleted. You can ask for a copy or deletion at any time by emailing [your email].
• I confirm the information above is accurate to the best of my knowledge and that I have read [Your practice name]'s privacy notice: [link]. [Checkbox] [Name] [Date]

If you want more ideas for the questions themselves, 15 coaching intake form questions with practical examples covers prompts that work across coaching niches, and the career coaching intake questionnaire article shows a longer, assessment-heavy variant.

Why does each section matter, and what should you watch for?

Each section earns its place by changing what you do in session one. The table below gives the reason for each and the warning signs to look for when the answers come back.

For a structured way to read answers in bulk, how to automate coaching intake form scoring explains how to tag responses by readiness and fit before calls.

What must career coaches add to the template?

Career coaches need to add four things the generic coaching form leaves out: a clear scope line, a plan for distress, rules for sensitive data such as resumes and pay, and checks for the laws where you and your client live. None of this is hard, but skipping it is how intake forms create problems later.

Scope of practice

Career coaching sits close to several regulated or specialist fields. Say plainly on the form and in your agreement that you are not giving legal advice on contracts, non-competes, severance or discrimination; that you are not a financial adviser for questions about pensions, equity or loans; and that you are not a recruiter placing candidates. The ICF Code of Ethics asks coaches to be clear about the nature and limits of coaching and to refer clients when another professional would serve them better (ICF Code of Ethics). If you also run a recruitment or placement business, disclose it, because it creates an obvious conflict of interest.

Safety and wellbeing

Job loss and long searches are stressful, and some clients arrive with burnout, depression or a crisis behind the career question. Question 35 gives them a chance to tell you. Decide in advance what you will do if the answer worries you: pause the coaching, suggest the client speaks to their doctor or a licensed therapist, and keep a short list of local services to hand. In the United States, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is reached by calling or texting 988; check the equivalent service for each country you work in.

Sensitive data

Resumes contain home addresses, dates and sometimes photos. Pay expectations, redundancy details and health mentions are personal, and some are special category data under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (overview of the GDPR). Collect the minimum, store it in one place, set a retention period and honour deletion requests. The template asks for target pay rather than salary history on purpose: you rarely need the history to coach, and clients are more comfortable without it.

Local law and sponsors

Data protection, consumer contract and cancellation rules vary by country and by US state. Sponsored coaching also adds a third party: the employer pays, but the client owns the content of the sessions. Write the sponsor's reporting rights into a three-way agreement before the first session. Our coaching contracts page explains how agreements and e-signatures work in Coachful.

What does a completed career coaching intake form look like?

Here is a filled example for a fictional client, so you can see the level of detail that helps you prepare. Priya is invented; the names, numbers and employer are examples only.

Example only: fictional client

Section 1. Priya Raman, "Priya". Email preferred. Time zone US Central; Tuesday and Thursday evenings after 6pm work best. LinkedIn: [link]. Heard about the practice from a former colleague. Paying privately, no sponsor.

Section 2. High school chemistry teacher, public sector, eleven years in teaching, four at her current school. Employed full time. Typical week: five teaching days, two evenings of grading, a robotics club on Fridays. Energised by building lab sequences and coaching the robotics team; drained by grading volume and parent email. Why now: her contract renews in June and she wants to decide before signing.

Section 3. Goal: change of field or function. Curious about instructional design, learning and development roles and science education technology companies. Good workday in twelve months: designing training with a small team, mostly remote, some time with learners. Outcome that makes coaching worth it: "A clear yes or no on leaving teaching by April, and if yes, three interviews for instructional design roles by June." Timeline fixed by the June contract decision.

Section 4. Not applying yet. Process stalls at "I have not started". Resume uploaded: the teaching CV from 2019. No previous coach; one informational call with a friend in corporate training was "the most useful hour this year".

Section 5. Colleagues come to her for lab setups and for help with new teachers. Proudest achievement: rebuilt the grade 11 lab curriculum and trained four colleagues to run it. Wants to use curriculum design and coaching skills more; would happily never grade 150 essays again. Has CliftonStrengths results from a district workshop and will share them. Values: learning, autonomy, stability.

Section 6. Open to remote or hybrid; will not relocate because of a partner's job. No caring duties. Minimum total pay matching her current salary; a good outcome is 15% more. Runway: 3 to 6 months if she leaves without a role, so she plans to stay employed while searching. A teaching contract with a notice clause; no non-compete.

Section 7. Feedback: direct but gentle. Between sessions: a shared action list and weekly check-ins. Capacity: 6 out of 10 during term, 9 in summer. Nothing else affecting the work. Extra note: "I worry that eleven years of teaching will look like nothing to hiring managers."

Section 8. Checkbox ticked, name and date entered.

What the coach takes from this before session one: the real deadline is the June contract, so the first month should test the instructional design option quickly (informational interviews, a sample project) rather than open-ended exploration. Her stated fear in Section 7 tells you the translation of teaching achievements into corporate language is the second priority. Capacity of 6 out of 10 during term means small weekly tasks, not long assignments. You might use public occupational data, such as the US Department of Labor's O*NET OnLine, to compare tasks and skills across the roles she is considering.

How should you send and store a career coaching intake form?

You can send this template as a file, as a free online form, through an e-signature tool or inside a coaching platform. The main difference is where the answers end up: in an inbox you have to file by hand, or on a client record you will open before every session.

A short note on the other tools, from their own pricing pages and documentation as listed in October 2026. Paperbell is a single-plan admin tool for solo coaches covering booking, packages, payments and contracts, with no courses, community or habit tracking documented. Practice Better is built for wellness and nutrition practitioners, with charting and telehealth. Dubsado and HoneyBook are client-management tools for service businesses in general, without coaching delivery such as programs, habits or check-ins; HoneyBook also requires payments through its own processing. Satori is a coaching practice tool whose tiers cap active clients. Each can hold an intake form; the question is what happens to the client after the form is done. For more detail, see coaching intake and agreement software.

How do you run this intake form in Coachful, step by step?

In Coachful the intake form is one step in a connected client journey: questions on booking, an agreement signed before the first call, then programs, check-ins, habits and invoices on the same client record. Here is how the template fits, and what the client sees at each step.

Coachful is a coaching platform with one subscription for booking, payments, contracts, programs with habits and check-ins, courses, community, a website with funnels and email, and an AI assistant called Michelle. It suits career coaches who deliver structured programs as well as single sessions, and solo coaches replacing four to six separate tools. It is not HIPAA-certified and is not meant for clinical records, it does not take PayPal, and it has no permanent free plan. You start with a free trial, and the Coachful team can build your setup for you.

This short walkthrough shows the Intakes area in Coachful:

Step 1: Put the short version on your consultation booking page

Booking pages in Coachful support intake questions, along with availability rules, buffers, minimum notice and time-zone detection. Add Sections 1, 2 and 3 (about ten questions) to your free consultation booking. The client answers them while choosing a time, and the call link is created automatically through built-in video, Zoom, Google Meet or Teams. Reminders go by email, and by SMS and WhatsApp once messaging is enabled. See scheduling software for coaches for the booking side.

Intake calls are tracked on the Intakes page (upcoming, converted and conversion rate), and the Prospects page lists leads with the form or resource they came from and their stage.

Step 2: Send the agreement and the full form after purchase

When a client buys a package, send your coaching agreement for e-signature before the first call. The signed agreement is stored on the client record. Put Sections 4 to 8 of the template into a form, either as part of the paid session's intake questions or as a worksheet in the client's home. The client completes both inside your branded app before session one.

Step 3: Read the answers on the client record

Intake answers sit on the client record with goals, check-ins, habits, notes, tags, payments and sessions. Before the call, Michelle can give you a briefing on the client from that live data, so you see the June deadline and the "eleven years of teaching" worry without scrolling through a spreadsheet.

Step 4: Turn intake answers into goals, check-ins and habits

Section 3's outcome becomes a goal with a progress bar. Section 7's preferences decide the rhythm: weekly check-ins for clients who want them, morning or evening check-in flows for clients in an intensive search, and habits such as "two outreach messages a day" for clients who need consistent action. Streaks show whether the habit is holding.

Step 5: Enrol them in a program

Many career coaches sell a structured offer, such as a twelve-week transition program with weekly goals, daily tasks and lessons on resumes, outreach and interviews. Coachful runs multi-week programs and courses with drip and completion tracking, and creates cohort groups automatically when clients enrol in a group program. There are more than 40 ready-to-film program templates to start from. See coaching program software for how programs are built.

Step 6: Invoices and payments

Payments run through your own Stripe Connect or Razorpay account, with one-time payments, subscriptions, payment plans and coupons. Each transaction gets an invoice, and you can create manual invoices for sponsored clients whose employer pays by bank transfer. Coachful charges a 0% platform fee; only the processor's fees apply.

What the client sees

The client sees one branded home inside the Coachful app: their next session, the forms and documents to complete beforehand, their programs, progress and goals. They do not juggle a separate form link, a separate signing email and a separate invoice portal.

Career coaches who want ICF credentials also get credential tracking: Coachful counts coaching hours and distinct clients against ACC, PCC and MCC thresholds and exports an ICF client coaching log (ICF hour tracking). More on the niche setup is on our page for career coaches.

Why Coachful stands out: a free white-glove service. On every plan you can open Create and choose "We'll build it for you", describe what you need, and attach up to 8 reference links and 10 files. For a career coach that could be this intake form built from your Word file, a consultation booking funnel, or a twelve-week transition program outline. The Coachful team builds it inside your own account, usually within about 24 hours. Nothing is invented: if a credential, testimonial or price is missing, the gap is left for you to fill. It does not include recording videos, logo design, ad management or ongoing marketing. Read more about the free white-glove service.

Prefer to draft the form yourself first? The intake form generator produces a starting version you can paste into Coachful or any other tool.

What are the most common career coaching intake form mistakes?

The most common mistake is asking for information you never use. Every question costs the client time, and unused answers teach them that the form was a formality. Watch for these as well.

• Asking for salary history. You need the client's target and floor, not their past pay. Asking for history makes clients uneasy, and in some places pay history questions are restricted in hiring, which colours how clients hear the question.
• No "why now?" question. Without the trigger you cannot judge urgency, and you may spend weeks on exploration with a client who has six weeks of savings.
• Treating the resume as the intake. A resume shows what the client did, not what they want. Keep the uploaded resume optional and let the questions do the work.
• Ignoring the sponsor. If an employer pays, the client will wonder what their manager will see. Answer that in writing before session one.
• A single, very long form before a free call. Thirty-five questions to book a consultation loses people. Split it in two.
• No safety plan. If a client writes that they are not coping, you need to know your next step before you read it.
• Answers scattered across tools. Form answers in one inbox, the signed agreement in another account and session notes in a document means nothing is in front of you when the call starts.
• Never revisiting it. Reread the intake at the midpoint of a package. Clients often find their goal has shifted, which is progress worth naming.

For a full review process, see the coaching intake audit checklist, and for what happens after the form, our guide to client onboarding forms.

Is this template legal, medical or financial advice?

No. This template is a practical starting point for career coaches, not legal, medical or financial advice. Data protection, consumer contract and cancellation rules vary by country and state, so have a local lawyer review your intake form, privacy notice and coaching agreement before you use them, especially if you work across borders, take sponsored clients or store resumes for long periods. If a client's answers point to a mental health concern, refer them to a licensed clinician; if they ask about contracts, severance or pensions, refer them to an employment lawyer or a qualified financial adviser.

Frequently asked questions

How long should a career coaching intake form be?

A pre-consultation version should take about five minutes, which is roughly ten questions. The full form for paying clients can run to 30 or 35 questions and 15 to 20 minutes. Splitting it in two keeps booking easy and still gives you depth before the first paid session.

Should I ask career coaching clients for their resume on the intake form?

Ask for it as an optional upload. A resume helps you prepare, but some clients have not updated theirs in years and feel embarrassed sharing it. Make it clear that an old version is fine and that you will work on it together.

Is it OK to ask about salary on a career coaching intake form?

Ask about target pay and the minimum the client needs, not their salary history. Target and floor numbers are what you use to judge options and negotiation. Leave a "prefer not to say" option, because some clients would rather discuss money in person.

What is the difference between an intake form and a coaching agreement?

The intake form collects information about the client: situation, goals, constraints and preferences. The agreement sets the terms: fees, session count, cancellation, confidentiality and scope. Send both before the first session, and have the agreement signed.

How do I handle intake forms for employer-sponsored career coaching?

Add a sponsor question in Section 1 and a sponsor clause in Section 8 that states exactly what the organisation will receive. Agree the reporting arrangement in a three-way agreement before coaching starts. Keep the intake answers between you and the client unless the client gives written permission.

Can I send this intake form through Coachful?

Yes. You can add the questions as intake questions on a booking page, put the full version in a form or worksheet in the client's branded home, and send your agreement for e-signature before the first call. The answers are stored on the client record with sessions, goals and payments.

What is Coachful's free white-glove service?

It is a build service included on every Coachful plan. You describe what you want, such as a website, funnel, program, form or email sequence, attach references and files, and the Coachful team builds it in your account, usually within about 24 hours. It does not invent credentials or testimonials and does not include video recording, logo design or ad management.

Is Coachful HIPAA-compliant for storing intake forms?

No. Coachful is not HIPAA-certified and does not sign a BAA, so it is not for clinical record-keeping. Career coaching intake answers are not clinical records, but if a client shares health information, keep only what you need and refer clinical matters to a licensed professional.

How often should I update my career coaching intake form?

Review it every six months, or when you change your offers. Remove questions you never use in sessions and add ones that would have saved you time with recent clients. If your privacy notice or agreement changes, update the consent section at the same time.

Where can I find more career coaching intake questions?

See our articles on career coaching intake questions and the career coaching intake questionnaire. For general coaching prompts, the coaching forms and questionnaires page shows how forms work in Coachful.