When Karel Anne Tieszen's supervisor asked to see her in his office in 30minutes, she picked up her telephone and made an 811 call.

The number is a signal she's worked out with her career coach, Doug Sokolosky. Left on his voice mail, it means, “I need to talk to you soonest.“

“I had just 30 minutes to get my act together, put my game face on and do it right. I wanted to run it by Doug, make sure it sounded all right, before I ran down the hall,“ she said. By the way, things worked out fine.

Welcome to the new world of career coaching. Some executives and professionals have begun hiring their mentors, spurred by increasing competition for fewer positions and a fast-changing corporate world in which mentors are hard to find.

"It's here. It's not talked about, and it's prevalent," said Kay Kienast, in charge of strategy and planning for multivendor customer services at Digital Equipment Inc. in Stowe, Mass., and another of Mr. Sokolosky's clients.

Coaching is on the increase, said Dr. Dale Thompson, vice president in the Dallas offices of Personnel Decisions Inc., which evaluates and coaches managers at employers' request. In 1982, when Personnel Decisions started the coaching side of its business, most assignments involved "fixing" an executive who was valued but flawed. Now more than half are "pro-active" assignments aimed at getting an executive up to top performance quickly, Dr. Thompson said.

Mr. Sokolosky's new niche is women executives- specifically, helping women executives adapt to the largely male culture of large corporations. With experience at IBM Corp. and CompuCom, among others, he's learned about large company cultures.

"Their success is going to come through their efforts, not mine. But they have an opportunity to lay questions at my feet for which there are no repercussions," he said. Clients pay roughly $2,000 per day or $250 an hour for his advice.

It's worth the money, said a midlevel marketing executive who is one of Mr. Sokolosky's clients. The woman, who asked that her name not be used, credits her coaching sessions with giving her the confidence to push hard for her current job.

She had developed a marketing program so successful it was going to be applied companywide. But upper management was going to recruit from outside for the new, broader position. She wasn't going to have a shot at it.

"I was getting messages from my management to be a good team player, not rock the boat," she said. Mr. Sokolosky asked her what she really wanted, and she answered that the new job was her dream and that she thought she could do it.

"If it hadn't been for Doug, I would have given up. He said, 'Get in the ring. It's OK to bloody up their noses.'"

Their boxing strategy was to throw some punches in the form of conversations with key players.

"Some of the conversations I needed to have were, 'If not me, why not?' I'd had nothing but good feedback on my performance. Another was, 'If not me, who?'" she said. She discovered management had no one specific in mind, they just thought she wasn't ready.

The strategy worked. "They acquiesced real rapidly after those conversations started happening," the marketing executive said.

The most common issue for his female clients is learning how to promote their accomplishments, Mr. Sokolosky said. Another point he works on is understanding the corporate hierarchy and pitching ideas that conform to the personalities of the decision-makers.

Ms. Kienast has worked with him to structure a presentation that she knew would send a tough message-- that Digital needed to hire more people for her project during a time the firm was cutting staff.

"There are ways to present information that is positive, and there are ways that cause you to lose ground," she said.

Why not just have an internal mentor? Ms. Kienast said she has several. Mr. Sokolosky provides that unbiased, outsider's view, she said.

"There aren't that many senior positions, and you need all the help you can get in getting there and staying there. It's not enough to do good work," she said.

The advantage of an outsider, said Personnel Decisions' Dr. Thompson, is perspective.

"No matter how hard internal coaches try, one of the filters they look through is the filter of the organization itself. You essentially become color blind to the culture of the organization," he said.

The disadvantage: "As outsiders, they may underappreciate what the organization is up against. The coach could become too much of an advocate," he said.

If you decide to invest in a career coach, do some diligent shopping. Dr. Thompson said, "Interview at least three coaches. Ask about their philosophy and methods. Get references.

"Develop your own Consumer Reports of coaches. I really advocate demanding, savvy users. With all the people going through this now, there's some pretty good word-of-mouth information," he said.