What do people think of Careers Advisors?

[Somethingkindaoooo]

So, for people who work in education... what are your thoughts?
I work in a few places atm, so secondary, college level, and adult work.
I generally love my job. I have many many years of experience, and I believe I do help people.
But dealing with academic staff is sometimes so challenging. I get spoken down to constantly. People don't seem to understand the role , so when I do my actual job, people often get a bit shirty.
So, I'm curious- do academic staff value careers advisors at all?

My careers advice at secondary school (I’m 40 now) was dire. Very prescriptive and didn’t take my opinions into account at all.

However, I still see great value in the idea of careers advice if done well.

oliversmumsarmy there's a difference between 'not decided on a career yet but I know what subjects I like and I'm good to at' and complete indecision and no direction.
The first is fine but the second isn't ideal. This is where careers guidance is vital as it can help a client find direction even if it's just for the next step.
There are lots of 16 year olds who don't have a clear career idea and that's fine. Telling them it's not fine is making them feel like they've already failed....this isn't something that should be forced or heavily influenced by others.

If someone is thinking they want to be an electrician then they have a career idea and they don't fall into the category of students that I'm talking about.

Incidentally, history ( and other similar subjects) are actually great subjects for those undecided students as the transferable skills developed are valued highly by employers across a whole range of sectors.

I received careers advice at school and 2 universities - school CG advisor was focussed solely on getting as many kids to uni as possible so not very useful. She gave no advice on alternative education or career paths and provided a lot of outdated information.

University was a little better but their advice on CVs was outdated - got feedback from a professional that it was not in line with expected standards.

I think the best careers guidance is going to always come from people actually working in the field. A CG advisor isnt likely to be able to give up to date, in-depth advice across multiple fields. I'd expect the role of CG advisors should be to put their clients in touch with relevant mentors or industry professionals rather than give actual advice themselves. So working as "facilitators" rather than "advisors".

There's also the issue that "careers" as such are no longer as prevalent as they used to be - there's a lot more flexibility and focus on transferrable skills in the current job market. But this wasnt mentioned by any of the advisors I met with. I feel for the more directionless students it would be better to focus on how to upskill in line with cross-industry trends and gain work experience until something "clicks", rather than pushing towards particular paths or routes.

In most universities nowadays careers consultants are linked to particular faculties so they can give that subject/industry specific advice and guidance.
Many universities have a set of graduate attributes - these are attributes linked to employability that all graduates should leave with. Many of them are linked to sector/commercial awareness.
There is also greater emphasis on employer engagement now - there are teams of people working on linking students to employers.

Links with employers is also a key focus for schools and colleges and features heavily in the statutory requirements.

One of the main roles of a careers adviser is to be impartial. This also created one of the biggest ethical issues - particularly in schools and colleges. Schools can put pressure on advisers to push particular options (university for example) and sometimes they ask them not to talk about certain options - college or apprenticeships. While an adviser should be impartial it can be difficult if the school is paying your wages and is applying pressure.

I think by not having a clue at the very least by 16 is really just funnelling pupils into A levels and the degree route and just putting off the question till a later date.

I know a lot who have finished the degree course and still not have a clue what to do and then been told by the careers advisor at their uni to maybe look into doing a masters.

I know several who have left university and are either doing something that doesn’t require a degree and have no idea what they really want to do and are just going through the motions or those that have fallen into management training and it isn’t what they really want but it is a job.
Some who don’t do anything and a couple who have severe depression and one who is on antidepressants because he decided what he wanted to do after he left university but then found he was too old to begin the training and you didn’t need any qualifications

I think there should be at least a year of lessons in careers before GCSEs get chosen and it continues till school ends

Ds did a lot of different careers tests. After each one we went through and printed out list upon list of jobs associated with the areas that were coming up as of interest from his tests.

He then went through them from time to time crossing out what he didn’t fancy, what he had looked up and realised he didn’t have the qualifications until he was left with 2 distinct areas.
A really sensible area and a really precarious career

He chose the sensible option and we thought he was on the right path till the rules were changed and despite having a near perfect average test score he wasn’t allowed to go to the next level and had to leave the college as there wasn’t really anywhere he could go.

Now he is doing the precarious option which he loves doing but work is really thin on the ground and he had only done 3 days paid work this year.

There are careers lessons in schools. The Gatsby Benchmarks are statutory and schools have to demonstrate what they are doing for each year.
Benchmark 4 is careers in the curriculum. All subjects have include careers related content in them. The problem with this though is that when careers is embedded it's not a distinct subject so students don't always know they've been taught it.

However, you will still get some 16 year olds who don't know what they want to do. It doesn't mean they're clueless - they probably know what subjects they enjoy and what they're good at. For those students a generic option like A levels isn't a bad thing. It's keeping options open.

My son is one - in Scotland though. He has a degree and specialist postgraduate qualification. He is school based most of the time but as a pp said also provides advice and support both to individuals and organisations around retraining and redeployment after redundancy etc.
He has always had excellent feedback from the teaching staff in his school, and spends ages researching options that would suit the individual pupil. He loves his job.

It is a wonderful job. Just undervalued!
I wonder how those that are quick to criticise would feel if every time they told someone what they did for a living they had to listen to people slate their profession and call it completely pointless 🤷

My sons career advisor was useless. She told him to go to college and do a plumbing or bricklaying course. She has no idea who he is what his likes and interests are and dismissed his interest in doing a btech in subjects he is doing really well at in gcse. She took no notice of him telling her he has hemiparesis and would be unsuitable in any kind of physical job as he has fine motor skill problems. She told him he could try harder 😡

You should complain. If they are a member of the CDI they have not adhered to their professional standards or code of ethics.

@SueEllenMishke people are just answering op's question - if experiences and perceptions are generally bad then the industry needs to change and the role of careers guidance needs to be better communicated with the public.

My career has a generally positive perception from the public due to their experiences dealing with members of my profession. We are seen as informed, technically adept and useful across multiple industries. That having been said, some individuals in related fields to mine do critique it as being too diverse and unfocussed. I take this feedback on board in my practise to help maintain/improve the professional standards of both myself and my colleagues.

Agree that in the internet age it's a very outdated concept.

SueEllen for every career adviser who is feeling upset by this thread, there are hundreds, if not thousands of children who looked to them for some sort of guidance and were either confused or made to feel inadequate or useless by their input.
Being thought of as pointless, surely that should be the point at which reflecting on your own practice should happen? To ask why that perception is so widespread? How it could be altered?
Job Centre Advisors have the same, usually valid criticism made of them.

But most people are drawing upon experiences from years (sometimes decades) ago. That's not current or accurate. Yes it's not perfect but it certainly doesn't warrant the negative press it gets.

The schools sector was dire - but that was, in the main, due to poor government policy. Over the last 3 years this has changed dramatically. I've been involved in the careers sector for 20 years - both in schools and universities. What I'm seeing schools now is fantastic (not across the board yet but it's getting better) The implementation of the Gatsby Benchmarks and the role of the career leader is making a huge difference.
Universities on the the other hand are already leaps and bounds ahead. The work in HE is innovative and exciting. And it works. Of course there are still pockets of poor practice but the sector as a whole is world leading.

The vast majority of poor careers guidance taking place is being done by unqualified 'advisers'. Teachers in particular are not the best people to be offering careers guidance.

It still doesn't stop people slagging it off or claiming it isn't a real subject

It's really not pineapple
It's needed more than ever

I wonder how those that are quick to criticise would feel if every time they told someone what they did for a living they had to listen to people slate their profession and call it completely pointless

As a teacher I can confirm that MN provides this experience fairly regularly! With the greatest of respect to you and your colleagues, there are over a hundred posts on this thread and and a great majority of them have had a direct experience of poor careers guidance for either themselves or their children. There is a lot of food for reflection.

The sector does reflect on its practice but unfortunately lots of the practice is dictated by government policy which is often made without consulting the sector.
Thankfully that has changed and the sector is helping shape the future of careers guidance

I don't think it's an outdated job because of the internet. There's more than just googling what a job is surely? You need someone to help you join up the dots with a career plan, maybe suggest similar jobs you hadn't thought of etc etc. But that would need lots of appointments where someone really gets to know you and that's probably unrealistic if services are underfunded.

My career advice was largely computer questionnaire, with questions like "would you rather work with fish or children?"

DD's uni careers advice was rubbish: "decide what you want to do". She had no idea. Ds's has not, and probably never will now,happened as it's his final year and coronavirus has intervened.

I observe 100s of advisers every year and can confirm there's some fantastic practice going on.
But as in many situations people are quick to criticise and slow to compliment

I have acknowledged that the schools sector has been poor for years. That is changing but it will take a while for that to filter through to wider society and change perceptions

I deliver a lecture every year on society's perceptions of career guidance and careers advisers. This is to practitioners embarking on their training. I encourage them to reflect on what they can do to change this perception. But it's also preparing them for the fact their entering a career that everyone criticises.

What people should really be criticising is the coalition government's 2011 education act which removed pretty much all finding for career guidance in schools.
So many schools couldn't afford a careers adviser or just didn't prioritise it. It absolutely decimated the sector and we've still not recovered.
There is a huge skills gap for level 7 advisers at the moment. The universities can't train them quickly enough.

*funding

I wouldn't say it's outdated because of the internet. Infact I would say the internet makes it more confusing and complicated. I have a few ideas of jobs/careers that I would maybe like to get into but researching online just makes it so baffling. There seems to be so many different qualifications on offer - some official and you really need to have for that specific job, some are essentially just a certificate which shows you have learned some information but you aren't actually qualified. It's very difficult to figure out sometimes which are which.

So in the last three years, which seems to be what you are now discussing, have careers advisors got accurate, relevant information on the paths available that aren’t university? Like high-level apprenticeships? Paid internships?
Do they have understanding and training on treating interviewees as individuals? What about those with additional needs, not always learning difficulties?
Or do they still just hand out questionnaires with outcomes involving hat design? You may feel frustrated and angry, but you need to listen to people’s complaints to refute them. Preferably with evidence.

No questionnaires, but there are interest guides which can help identify relevant areas of interest.
Again, in Scotland, where we are linked to schools but are independent professionals, the national organisation employing careers advisers, Skills Development Scotland, also oversee apprenticeships, including graduate ones.