Pros
ASH was a great place to get my foot in the door working in a pseudo health-care position. If you have a degree and want to help people without becoming a nurse or mental health professional, working as a health coach is a great option (almost all of the health coaches that work there have bachelor's degrees in psychology). The health coach training was ~3 months and mostly hands-on, so you feel really prepared for the job once you're on your own taking coaching calls all day.
Cons
If you've passed through the required interviews you'll have to perform your own background check, possibly including sending copies of your W2's and personally contacting your references so they can call the agency who does the background checks. This was incredibly stressful, as ASH was trying to put together a "class" of new hire coaches and gave us all a few days to tie up the loose ends before we were officially hired. Personally, I'd use a new background check company. The pay was OK, you can't buy a house or anything based on your hourly rate. You also won't get paid more money for bringing specialized knowledge as a coach, although you'll be expected to dispense it. As for the coaching aspect itself, you have no choice over who you get assigned to coach. If your schedule is empty, it'll get filled with a new member. If ASH honestly wanted to make a difference it would make sense to assign members based on their coaches expertise and coaching style, not just a time slot. The biggest con of all would have to be getting laid off a mere 6 months after starting the job, along with all the other coaches who were recently hired. You see, we were told all throughout orientation that ASH NEVER laid people off, our jobs were secure, and the company was growing....growing so quickly that they had to hire handfuls of coaches every few weeks. All 20-30 of us were fully trained, excited to make a difference, and then we were dragged through the muck of incompetency for two months until our "agreements" ran out. Toward the end of the agreement we were all forced to work in a call center while we were phased out of the coaching job. We had no choice, no say, and no input in this decision yet we were praised by the call center department for being "team players". This can be taken as sarcasm or blatant lack of communication between departments. The icing on this bittersweet cake had to occur when I saw a group of smiling new hires being given a tour of the building, as we were chained to the call center's phones.
