Our Expertise in Career Guidance - Paddy Mahon

Paddy Mahon will provide you with expert career advice, personal insights and helpful tips and skill sets to give you the edge on your job search. Having initially held the post of H.R. Director in one of Irelands largest organisations for 10 years, Paddy formed a recruitment, coaching and training company in 2001. He has extensive experience in providing career advice and guidance, operating in both a private and corporate capacity. He has also worked as an executive coach assisting employees at all levels, in planning and making career and job transition.

Paddy is the Irish International partner for the Birkman Career Plus Method and has been a Senior Birkman Career Coach for the past 12 years. He is also qualified to administer a suite of psychometric and reasoning tests.

Operating as a director of his sister company Mahon Kelly Associate Ltd, he has gained extensive experience in working with small start-ups and large corporations, helping them to improve their recruitment, hiring and development procedures. This has included managing assessment centres and providing interview and selection skills training for recruiting managers. He has also worked extensively providing on boarding coaching and interpersonal skills training for hundreds of new employees.

Working with many of Ireland’s most successful indigenous and global organisations, gives Paddy keen insights as to how the job market is currently changing. His training and coaching work with scores of H.R. and operating managers, give him first-hand knowledge of exactly what recruiting managers are looking for today and on how they make their selection decisions. With his professional qualifications and practical business experience, he is uniquely positioned to offer advice and coaching to undergraduates on career and course selection on a personal basis. He is also ideally positioned to provide support and insightful coaching on CV and interview preparation, for those entering the job market for the first time, or those going through a job transition. He has formed MK Career Guidance and Coaching Ltd for that purpose.

Testimonials from Private Clients

Undergraduates and Graduates. References will be provided on request.

I met up with Paddy when I was about to complete my BA degree and really did not know what career direction to take. I was quite confused and did not really understand how to weigh up the different factors that would help me make a decision. The profiler he used help me to understand myself better and to work out the type of work and working environment that would best suit me. He also helped me to develop new perspectives and consider different options. I found the exercise using the criteria rating form really useful in that it helped me to work out a pattern of what was most important to me. It helped me to establish some facts upon which to decide on what career to pursue. I now had a clearer picture of my real strengths, potential and desires. I successfully applied for a graduate management programme in a retail multinational and am presently working as an assistant buyer. The role is full of variety, activity and change involving people, processes, finance, and technology and it suits me perfectly.

Having completed a business degree I was quite confused and really didn’t know what position to go for. I was moving towards the finance and accountancy streams but wasn’t really excited by the thoughts of spending a career doing this type of work. I went through the Birkman process with Paddy and got some great new insights that opened up my thinking. From the test results and Paddy’s coaching I could see that my deep interests and preferred work environment pointed to the H.R. Coaching / Training & Development professions. He also gave me some great coaching in interview and influence skills. I enrolled on an evening post grad H.R. course and gained employment in a junior H.R. role. That weas 5 years ago and I haven’t looked back since. I have worked in several areas of H.R., completed a Masters and have received two promotions. I love the variety and challenges of the work and know I have chosen the right profession. My experience with Mahon Kelly was extremely worthwhile and I would highly recommend Paddy’s services.

In my last year of my Leaving Cert I was not sure what third level course or career to pursue and like most of my class mates I was trying to gain as many points to give me a good range of courses to choose from. I had always been very interested in Physics but the high level course was very time consuming, eating into my available study time for other subjects. I couldn’t make up my mind whether or not to drop to the lower level Physics pass course and play it “safer”. I was thinking that by having more time to study other subjects I would get more overall points and have more course options to choose from. I went through the Birkman career guidance session with Paddy and the process helped me to make up my mind beyond any doubt that my passion was to have a career in science and to focus my energies in this area. This included keeping up the higher level course. His coaching and feedback really helped me to get clarity and make my decisions. Following my Leaving Cert I successfully continued my third level studies in Physics and for the last two years I have been working in High Tech Research. Loving it!

Clients going through Job Transition. References will be provided on request.

“Having worked with Paddy on the process of changing to a new executive role, I found the guidance, approaches & insights that Paddy provided invaluable. This equipped me with new perspectives that enabled me to challenge & approach situations in a more comprehensive and flexible manner, which led to a successful outcome for me.”

“Following a successful, 16-year career at one of Ireland’s largest plc’s, I found myself working in quite a specialised niche; I was keen to refocus and return to my core professional competency as a finance professional. Following several recommendations, I did a series of coaching sessions with Paddy which included psychometric profiling that allowed me understand my own personal attributes, my motivations and crucially the type of work and organisation I was best suited to. When searching out my subsequent role, I was able to do so with great clarity which not only benefited me, but equally my target audience who responded positively to the process and training that I had undergone with Paddy. I found the job I was looking for within the desired time-frame and culturally I adapted very quickly. This was due to the fact that as a result of Paddy’s coaching I was able to tease out and influence the issues that were important to me, during the job interviews”

“I worked with Paddy following an unexpected redundancy. Paddy’s approach was exactly what I needed, when I did not know what I needed. He was empathetic to my current situation and continuously challenged me to evaluate my needs/wants going forward to ensure I would be heading in the right direction.

During the program, Paddy used many tools and techniques from Birkman profiling, examining work styles, Influencing and interview techniques that allowed me to gain valuable insight to myself, my transferable skills, strengths, needs and values. Most important of all he helped me to clarify what I wanted from a future role. But it was his expert knowledge and insights in the job industry that really was one of the key stand out factors during the program. In hindsight I realised that I had allowed my career to drift without any real future focus. Now I consider having a career coach as critical as having a pension, its something you need to do to invest in your best future. Working with Paddy was a great investment in my career and myself.”

Examples of Corporate Clients include:

Examples of Corporate Referrals

We have used the services of Mahon Kelly Associates when recruiting senior managers. Their assessments enable us to make informed decisions and have been an important factor in our success rate in appointing high performers that are a good fit for the Organisation.

Tom Fleming, H.R. Director,

Paddy Mahon has supported many aspects of the Group Procurement Development Journey in the CRH Group from recruitment to personal development and career coaching with scores of our employees and managers. The length of our professional relationship, over 12 years, is testament to the excellent support he provides.

John Mc Keon, Head of Procurement,

As we have grown over the years we have continually used Paddy Mahon to assist us select high potential retail managers. Our success rate has more than doubled during this period and their services will be an important resource for us as we continue to expand our chain.