What do you count as a 'professional' job?

*damaging our mental health

I hope you find enjoyment in your career going forward.
No job is worth our mental health

Oh I agree. When I'm teaching my students I like to throw in some controversial comments to get them debating!!

It led to how we as a sector can facilitate or support a cultural change.

This debate will be used in my session in professional identity next week 😉

One that requires membership of a professional regulator. I cannot teach without my GTCS registration.

If I'm honest @TheMoops it was fun at University but working life has been painful. The problem is unless we endure it, then women will never be equal in the industry. But my mental health was wrecked trying to endure and protect younger female colleagues at work.

5 of us left in quick succession, unsurprisingly only men remain in that particular business.

It is also regional, I'm in a less diverse part of the UK. 😔

My other skills are STEM - but that has its challenges in this part of the UK too. So I'm focusing on copywriting. If I can.

Anyway, sorry for the derail everyone! X

Of course it’s ethical to encourage women to join any profession. It’s the firms that need to change not telling women not to join them in the first place. Nothing will change if women aren’t encouraged to demand more.

I'm really sorry to hear that.
I had a discussion about this with my students last week, we were talking about women's career development and we discussed women in male dominated professions and the issues they face..... it led to a discussion about how ethical it is to encourage young girls to consider professions/sectors where they'll face sexism and/or harassment.

Thank you, I'll give feedback on the pages 😊 definitely not a dig at you. At all! I think your job sounds really interesting and I'm a little jealous.

I don't work in architecture anymore due to sexual harrassment and constant inequality (and clients telling me how they'd prefer a male architect!) but I wish I stayed in academia somehow. I love learning and teaching young adults, I think it's my fave thing ever.

To me it means a registered professional but everyone I know who works in an office, gets really angry if you don’t class then as “a professional”.

Report any inaccuracies. They're responsive to feedback.

I'm not sure what you mean by your last point? Is that another dig?

The Prospects page on Land Surveyor is wrong as well. 😔

I've just checked Prospects.

And the page on Architect isn't correct. Siiiiigh

Well thanks for the insight, Moops. I can now see why it was virtually impossible to get the the right candidates for the graduate roles at my last firm...
🥺

Yeah but still doesn't mean the people running the clinic and scanning women are qualified and doing a good job.
I know about this personally and there are clinics out there doing really poor quality (and borderline dangerous) scans and their still operating.

There are lots of professions where job titles aren't protected and people are working while unqualified and unregulated.

Does that mean those that hold professional qualifications and are regulated can't call themselves a professional?

My child goes to a tutor. We have chosen a tutor who is a qualified teacher but there are lots of people out there doing the same job but with no teaching qualifications. Does that mean our tutor can't call herself a professional even though she's a qualified teacher?

A job that may require you to act in a way that your boss may not want you to?

As a chartered management accountant I am obliged to adhere to professional accounting standards, whereas I have had bosses who want their whole personal lives expensed through the business..

I'm paraphrasing a bit, but sometimes professions can put you into personal hot, or at least warm, water.

The National Careers Service say you only need 2 GCSEs to become a careers advisor

Off topic but if you do want information on jobs don't use the National Careers Service website. It's shit....careers advisers don't use it. It's written by people with naff all knowledge about careers.

We use Prospects- it's much better. Their information on how to become a careers adviser is more accurate.

But your ultrasound clinic would have to be registered with the CQC.

Yes you could, but you could do that with a lot of other professions too.
Just because a job title isn't protected doesn't mean it isn't a profession.

You could set up a baby scanning clinic with no qualifications in radiography or sonography because sonographer isn't a protected job title either.

You couldn't get a job in a school as a careers adviser as that would mean they weren't meeting the statutory requirements.
A university might employ you if you had lots of experience but they'd expect you to complete a postgraduate qualification almost immediately.

Im classed as professional, spent years training, qualifications ect and im regulated.

However I know some women who are highly skilled in their businesses and have an excellent reputation - I would absolutely class these women as professionals.

I would also class tradesmen that I know who have been operating for DECADES and REALLY know there shit. In fact I would be totally fucked if they wouldn't have come and sorted stuff out for me. They are professional trades men/women who keep society afloat.

People confuse wearing a suit to work as being professional - I know plenty of people that wear a suit to work and they know shit.

The reference to salary was about taking it seriously.

It's a profession because:

• it requires a professionally accredited qualification
• it has a professional body and professional register
• it had an established code of ethics
• the government insist that schools have access to professionally qualified careers advisers.

I could set up a careers advice business tomorrow and market myself as a careers advisor! No one would stop me and if anyone felt I'd given poor advice, they'd have no one to complain to.

So I'm not convinced. But great salary!

My mother in law was a primary deputy head. She did not have a degree. She did a two year teaching certificate in the 50s, at teacher training college. Now Homerton Cambridge. Having said that she is far better educated than most of the primary teachers with degrees and post grad quals than many I have come across. She also managed the children well.

This has maybe been said already but Scottish teachers absolutely do - the GTCS.

Yeah the National Careers Service doesn't have a great reputation.
They notoriously only employ careers advisers with level 2/4 qualifications so they don't have to pay them high wages! Those level of qualifications are there to act as stepping stones to a L6 or L7.

The government statutory guidance to schools and colleges make it clear that a professionally qualified careers adviser should be qualified to at least L6 and to work at a university you need L7.
To be on the professional register you need to be qualified to L6.

The problem is that similar to some other professions careers adviser isn't a protect job title. The professional body is working on making it a chartered profession which will make a difference but it is a long process.

It's funny how people let their preconceptions of a job influence them. PP have made long lists of what they consider makes something a profession and careers adviser meets most of those requirements ( more do than teaching and nursing! ) yet people are insistent it's not a profession.

I'm now a senior academic and actually teach a professional postgraduate qualification in career guidance - this will be a debate for my students next week!

There is a huge problem re nursing in my opinion. Far too many healthcare assistants wearing a dress like a nurse's dress who are referred to as nurses. At my GP practice the Dr's refer to the HCA's as nurse appointments. It really has to stop.

Primary teaching did not traditionally require a degree. Historically they trained in the classroom, then teacher training colleges were set up.
An older relative of mine did her teacher training in the 1970s and she doesn't have a degree