Flash cards, coloured pens and how to pass the colossal ICF credentialing exam

This article is for you if you’re a coach looking to take The International Coaching Federation’s credentialing exam. It’s also for you if you're thinking of getting a coach and want to know what it takes for a coach to get accredited by The Gold Standard of Coaching, The ICF.

Long story short, it’s slightly less than it took Frodo in “Lord of the Rings.” Slightly. And note, this exam is the very last thing a coach does in a series of assessments before achieving the status of a fully credentialed ICF coach.

So, first up, here’s the TL:DR version: this exam is a bruiser of a speed coaching session: 81 speed coaching sessions to be precise. Prepare well. It’s not one you can cram for in an hour or two. You need to get 76% to pass it.

So, even if you’ve been coaching for a few years, don’t be thinking “Heck, I can just wing it!”

I did the exam at a testing centre and not online and so in this article I’ll only be referring to the test centre. On that note, I visited the test centre a week before the exam to make sure I knew exactly where it was and how long the travel time took. This helped me feel more prepared when it came to the morning of the exam.

The sobering news

In 3 hours, you’ll do 81 multiple choice questions, where you have 2 minutes and 12 seconds on each question to give both the best and worst answer in terms of their alignment with ICF core competencies and ethics. So, 162 answers in total.

Do as much as you can to absorb, and I’m using the word absorb here intentionally, the eight core competencies, the PCC markers which are the behaviours that demonstrate the competencies, and the ICF Code of Ethics.

Ideally, you want to have this information in your bones.

Why? Because it makes it easier to identify the correct answers and not get stuck in analysis paralysis.

An epic journey

Some of the methods and practices I used are free and some cost money. I am sharing these resources because I found them useful. To be fully transparent, I don’t get any compensation, financial or otherwise, in exchange for mentioning resources here.

So, what’s the newish ICF exam like?

🧗 It's like going on an outward bounds assault course in the rain. In a pair of white stilettos. That you’re asked to keep clean.

⛵️ It's like crewing a boat on the ocean when the weather changes dramatically every few minutes.

🏃🏻It’s like running a marathon at the speed of a sprint.

These are all metaphors that reflect my experience.

Get ready to read

Yup, there’s no getting away from it. There’s a lot of reading involved.

I’ve put the pages of these documents below so that you can get an idea of the amount of reading involved.

These are the 5 documents I became very familiar with:

🟡 The ICF Core Competencies (7 pages).

🟡 The ICF PCC Markers (5 pages).

🟡 The ICF Code of Ethics (8 pages).

🟡 The ICF Ethics Interpretative Statements (this one’s 49 pages long). Why am I including this? Because it unpacks what the ICF Code of Ethics means and gives you more information.

🟡 ICF document on when to refer a client to therapy (22 pages).

Get creative

Using colour helps me study and process learning.

You’ll find a variety of ways I did that below.

Summarise and highlight concepts and themes

I got a bunch of coloured index cards.

I took one card per competency and wrote the PCC markers for that competency out in full. So, I had 8 cards with lots of little writing on them.

Then I read through these cards and highlighted key phrases.

Again, in different colours.

I then took more index cards and wrote out the Code of Ethics – there are 28 standards, so quite a bit of writing, here, too.

Mindmap your learning

I distilled the PCC markers into a mindmap. All of these were written in different coloured pens.

I then went back into this mindmap and highlighted important concepts.

And you’ve guessed it.

In different colours.

This helped me become familiar with the nuts and bolts of how the competencies show up in behaviour and be able to capture at a glance the core elements of each competency.

Talk to yourself

After reading The ICF Ethics Interpretative Statements, I highlighted the core points of this, and then made a 30-minute zoom recording of myself reading these out. The following day whilst I was colouring in to chill out, I listened to that recording.

Talk to your coach

I spend a few sessions with my own coach, who’s a more experienced coach than I am, in addition to being an ICF assessor and mentor coach, getting into the weeds of the PCC markers and unpacking coaching behaviours that put these markers into action.

Videos to watch

To balance all of the reading with some listening, I also watched a range of videos.

I’ve popped these below:

ICF Code of Ethics – a series of videos looking at all 28 standards.

Getting really familiar with the competencies is a good idea and I also watched videos by the ICF on the core competencies.

I also watched a series of recorded webinars called “Journey Through the PCC Markers” by Joanna Davis, MCC for the ICF Florida South Florida Chapter.

This is a lot of videos. Don't underestimate the time it takes to watch these and take notes on them.

Sample questions and mock tests

One of the best ways I found to prepare was by doing sample questions and mock tests.

The ones I used are below:

🟡 These are the 8 example questions on the ICF site itself.

🟡 SolutionsAcademy has a video series of short videos that unpack each of these 8 sample questions on the ICF website and explains each answer.

🟡 SolutionsAcademy also has a nice (and free) course to prepare you for the exam and has a set of videos to watch on all of the ICF competencies and a 51-question mock test. I did this mock test the day before my actual exam, set a timer and used it as a bit of a dry run which I found helpful. One thing I would also add is that I found this test easier with simpler scenarios than the ICF credentialing exam.

🟡 Lyssa deHart, LICSW, MCC, BCC has 2 online and self-paced courses she offers to prepare for the exam which at the time of my writing this cost 199$ and 89$. I did the more expensive one: this has more test examples and access to a number of recorded Q& A sessions on the exam and the ability to attend one of those Q&A sessions live. You can find these here.

Acronyms

Acronyms can be great to help you remember information. Feel free to come up with your own. Lyssa shares 2 acronyms and explains them in greater detail in her courses. Check out one of Lyssa's free videos for more on this.

Get your ducks in order

The day before the exam make sure you’ve got the correct ID you need, something high energy and nutritious packed to eat in the break (I took a packet of nuts and raisins) and get your travel arrangements organised to be there at the very least 30 minutes before the exam to do the check in and go to the loo.

Manage your energy

The lead up to any exam can be challenging, as nerves set in.

I made sure that I drank a lot of water in the days before and was properly hydrated and also that I ate a lot of protein.

The night before the exam I had a relaxing bath, some chamomile tea, and an early night. And the day of the exam I was up with the larks, had an omelette for breakfast and then went over my notes one last time before leaving for the test centre.

Be careful about your fluid intake.

If I’d gone to the bathroom at any other time than the 5-minute break halfway through the exam, then that time would have been deducted from my exam.

So, I was very careful about the amount of water I drank the morning of the exam.

The nice-ish news

You get a 5-minute break in the exam. So, 41 multiple choice questions, a little break and then 40 multiple choice questions. And here’s an important thing to remember: you’re in charge of timing the break.

No one calls you back in. It’s up to you.

So, if you’re late back, you’re late and that time is taken away from the second part of the exam.

Finally, you may be eligible for an accommodation: this mean you get extra time, because for example, you may be a nursing mother, have ADHD, or are dyslexic.

For full details of what constitutes an accommodation check out here.

What to do if you freak out

There's a bunch of things you can do to calm yourself down.

🟡 Breathe. Breathe in for 4 seconds, and breathe out for 8 seconds. This will calm down your parasympathetic nervous system and help ground you. This helped me. More on the science of that can be found here.

🟡 Your shoulders might start to creep closer and closer to your ears. During the break do a few stretches. Move your body.

🟡 I also took a paracetamol before the exam to combat any tension headache that might appear.

🟡 Alternatively, if you take Ibuprofen, you could consider taking that before the exam to combat any tension in your shoulders. I do remember that after my exam my shoulders were indeed quite sore.

🟡 It’s highly likely that you might freeze on a question and find yourself reading the same sentence a few times without any meaning registering. This happened to me a couple of times. It’s normal. Nerves can set in a freeze reaction. When that happens you can flag the answer and move on and go back to it later and also perhaps do some focused breathing as I’ve mentioned above.

A note on flagging

Flagging an answer means that once you’ve answered all the questions you’ll then be able to access a sheet that shows you all of the questions you’ve flagged. Then you can go back in and look at these questions again and answer them.

After the exam

Once the exam was done, I left the rest of the day without any appointments to allow my body to come down from the adrenalin high of the test. You will be tired in that “my brain’s just been through a car wash” kind of way. Give yourself the rest of the day off as much as you can.

Pass or practice

“It’s a pass or a practice.” I heard this from a lot from people who’ve sat the exam. The pass rate for the exam is 76% which is a high bar. Current statistics show that 75% people pass it first time with 12% of people passing on their second attempt.

And these statistics might offer comfort, but they can also make people jittery.

If you don’t get the pass result rest assured there are a wealth of resources out there to support you. It does not mean that you aren’t a good enough coach.

It means you aren’t good enough at passing this specific exam.

Yet.

And that word yet will get your over the finish line.

As I mentioned earlier, the credentialing exam is the very last thing to do in a series of assessments that lead up to being an accredited ICF coach.

You’ve done all of that hard work up until now and the exam is the final gate to get through.

And all of the work that you put in will get you beyond that gate.

If you’re a coach - I wish you the best of luck on your credentialing journey!

And if you’re looking for a coach - I wish you success with that!