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?

Yes they do - those that are qualified to a level 6 or 7 absolutely do. I run an accredited level 7 course - one of only 7 in the UK and I'm an external examiner for another. As a group we work closely so I'm confident that this is all being taught. Plus all the recognised level 6 and 7 courses are validated and moderated by our professional body who update their learning outcomes regularly.

I can't vouch for unqualified advisers though.

No they don't ' just hand out questionnaires' and shouldn't have done that anyway. They're next to useless without the guidance to go with it. So while those questionnaires have their place they shouldn't be used on their own.

What we can't control is who schools choose to employ. If they choose the cheap route and get unqualified people to offer career guidance then the chances are it's going to be poor quality. As a sector we are pressuring the government to make it statutory that anyone offering personal guidance in schools or colleges should be qualified to a minimum of level 6. At the moment it's only a recommendation. Unfortunately some schools will always choose the cheaper option and that can be at a detriment to their pupils.
If I had a child in secondary school this is something I would be checking.

If you want evidence of the of the progress made in schools and colleges over the last few years then there is a report published annually by the Careers and Enterprise Company called The State of the Nation.

The Career Education Standard, developed by SDS and Education Scotland (Scottish Ofsted) lays out exactly what young people should expect in terms of CIAG in schools and colleges. We also undertake a lot of CPD for teachers, colleges and other partners to help them understand career management skills.

education.gov.scot/nih/Documents/dyw23-learning-resource-3-career-management-skills.pdf

Sounds like careers advisors have the same issue as health visitors - lots of unqualified people claiming to be careers advisors, of varying amounts of usefulness, and also never building a relationship with the kids in order to be useful.

My school like many got in some terrible software which told me to do one of over 200 options, followed by an 'analyst' who came from the software company who told me to be a psychiatrist (after I'd had.to shut her up about medicine by saying I hated sick people...)

Luckily a couple teachers posted.lots of posters about events in their fields, and one gave us a quiz about what we might like to do in a job, day to day, as a timefiller when they had a hangover. Most useful part of school, that was.

@tobee your DS's careers service will almost certainly be operating remotely at the moment and will continue to offer him support after he graduates. I don't know a single one that doesn't do this already (although I think far fewer offer the lifetime support that a pp mentioned, it used to be more common). There's a lot of talk about extended graduate access due to Corona virus so he might find it's open to him for a few years yet.

@HeffalumpsCantDance

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? They absolutely should and if they don't, you and/or DC should complain. And no, you shouldn't have to complain! In an ideal world you'd have a good service as standard but @SueEllenMishke says part of the issue is people who don't understand what careers advice is (or should be) putting up with underqualified staff and poor practice. If you're employed as careers adviser it's part of your job to stay up to date with labour market information (not an in depth knowledge of every job but common career pathways and trends) and yes they should be providing support for all children, including with AN.

Thank you for the info PlumpkinPete.

,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?

Yes!!!!!
I think I've done a quiz with a student once. I don't believe in them. I think you should gain skills in a careers interview that should help you re-calibrate your career with who you are at every stage of your life. Quizzes don't do that. Even if they were excellent ( which they aren't), I still don't think they are useful for longer term career learning.

@SueEllenMishke I would love to hear your lecture. I suspect I would need to play it often when I'm feeling defeated!

My experience; a long time ago (mid-90s) was doing questionnaires on a computer programme called ‘Kudos’. It came out with train driver or librarian. I was given no advice whatsoever into how to get into these careers. Our school careers advice consisted of doing this questionnaire and the taking it to the appointment with the CA. If, like me, you were predicted decent GCSEs it was ‘go to college and do A levels in your favourite subjects’ if you were predicted less good GCSEs it was a YTS. I’d actually have been better learning a trade as I’m not academic at all and only got decent GCSEs as I found them easy, A Levels were a whole different ball game and I dropped out after two terms as I knew I’d never be able to manage A levels then uni (and couldn’t afford uni either).

When I’ve been on JSA (again, a long time ago), no advice whatsoever and just expected to take any admin job.

I do now work in the rail industry (not as a driver) and have done on and off for ten years or so but it was never mentioned as an option which is strange as there is a vast range of careers within it.

When I mentioned about being a librarian, again no information about how to do it. I didn’t even know until fairly recently (last 15 years) that they are chartered. Advice from school? Have you thought about working in a book shop?

somethingkindofoooo it's good remind ourselves what a useful profession it is!

It's the first lecture I deliver to my students and I do it because I know that when they will have told family and friends that they are going to university to study career guidance they will have been met with ' my careers adviser was rubbish' or 'is that a real subject?'.......yet despite those comments they've still committed to the course and paid thousands to be there so along the way they must have found something good about the profession.

misscharley jobcentre staff aren't careers advisers so shouldn't be giving you careers advice anyway.

No, I agree SueEllenMishke but I wanted to ask about re-training and what courses I could do. Sorry, should have made that clear. As it was at the time they wouldn’t look at re-training and courses unless you were classed as “long term unemployed” which, IIRC meant 6 months and above. Long time ago (around 20 years) and I guess it’s all different now.

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

But for some those extra 2 years in school could actually cut off opportunities.

I agree taking one test is useless.

Ds took many.
Different styles of questions giving options. Eventually a few different areas started to come up again and again and from that came lists and lists of different types of jobs in those areas which we looked into a lot of them

oliversmumsarmy

So what do you suggest a careers adviser should do with a 16 year old who doesn't have any career ideas?

Other than what I've already suggested - exploring their skills, interests and abilities and using this information to help the client plan their next steps?

Ds started doing these tests at 13/14. He was really behind academically.

Reading had only just clicked at age 12

His “skill set” academically was very limited. I knew what he was good at but he didn’t see it.

He did these tests, just ones off the internet and it kept coming up with areas that none of us had even considered.
A couple of areas were coming up as top again and again we also put down even the minor areas. We got list after list of jobs associated with those areas

It must have worked because as soon as he did his GCSEs which he failed with Us in everything apart from Maths which he passed he started at college.

From someone who in virtually every subject got between 9-14% in exams in school and trailed by a substantial margin from his peers he was suddenly top of the class on his college course with either perfect or near perfect scores.

Problem was the college changed the entry requirements and was insisting on English and Maths GCSE for level 3 and level 2. He tried a level 1 course but finished the terms work in one part of course in one lesson and he knew everything else they were teaching because he had already done it either in college or at a job where he helped out once per week.

So if I was advising a 16 year old I would say to do a lot of these tests and make a note of each of the areas that come out on top.

Then find the lists of jobs associated with all of these areas then go through them crossing off things that they are just not physically qualified for or really really don’t fancy.

Then look into what is left.

Eventually it will narrow down and they can make their decision from there.

Personally I think 16 is too late to start.

Well yes, 16 is too late which is why careers education starts much, much earlier that this....ideally I primary school. I used age 16 as an example because that's when I young person has to make their first really big career related decision ( after options). They have to decide what to do after GCSEs.

Just telling young people to complete loads of quizzes isn't great advice. While they certainly have their place they aren't career guidance and shouldn't be used to replace it. Without someone to help a young person interpret the results that can do more harm.

You're clearly an engaged parent - what about those young people who don't have that support? Research shows that parents and teachers aren't the best people to offer career guidance. Parents in particular tend to refer to careers that were popular when they were young and tend to want their young people to follow a similar education path to them..... obviously this isn't all parents but it does apply to a large proportion.

I haven't thought about my careers advisor in years but he was very uni focused. Although that could have been because of the overall ethos of the school.

I think people have a natural tendency to want to blame others if their career doesn't live up to their expectations.
Conversely, people like to take full responsibility if it's all gone well, and forget people that helped along the way.

I had downloaded Growing up Gifted and watched it tonight. The programme about the boys started with the boy from Hartlepool asking a clueless woman about Astro Physics. It was painful to listen to. She had tried to find out something but as she assumes the boy didn’t want to leave Hartlepool it was a bit of a problem as he needed a degree. If this is representative of what DC can expect, it was woeful.

Schools with DC who need more help realky must ensure they either employ people who know something or buy in a decent service. Otherwise it’s not surprising these DC remain disadvantaged!!!

Maybe its just on mumsnet where noone found them useful or useful for their child.

It could be the demographic - I imagine careers guidance could be v useful if you dont have an invested parent?

You're very right something

Bubblesbuddy of course that's not what should be happening and that's not what a good, well qualified adviser would do....... however, that wouldn't have made for good/controversial TV would it?

I think once you know your skills, interests and abilities then that is where a good careers advisor could advise.

It is trying to get a 13 year old boy to acknowledge that he is good at something or he is interested in anything.

The tests did start to show a pattern and 2 areas were coming out top each time
1 was a very sensible industry and he narrowed it down to one particular career which he pursued.
The other was the riskier option but this was where he had the skill set but would never believe in his ability or he was any good at it so wouldn’t have probably mentioned it to anyone

I am wondering how a careers advisor who was faced with someone who had no interest in anything and no skills or abilities would go about getting someone to open up about the one thing they might be good at or come up with a career that not even the people who know him would have thought of.

oliversmumsarmy

A good careers adviser is trained to work with all different types of people and has a range of tools to help people open up and discuss their skills and interests.
A good careers adviser will not default to questionnaires and quizzes immediately. They should spend time talking to the client and exploring their interests, skills and abilities first.

Occasionally you do come across the ' I don't know' client. One who can't/won't identify skills, interests or abilities and has no career ideas. Again, there are a few things advisers can do before a quiz ( scaling, miracle questions, looking at what they don't want to do). Good, well qualified advisers are trained to deal with these clients. It's certainly not 'one size fits all'. Effective guidance is client centered and client driven.
However, quizzes and questionnaires can be very useful for this type of client. But we need to remember that a quiz isn't career guidance I really can't emphasize that enough.

I think once you know your skills, interests and abilities then that is where a good careers advisor could advise

Actually, alot of the conversations I have with people revolve around identifying skills they have and skills they want to develope. Even if a careers appointment starts the process off, that's a step forward.

I am wondering how a careers advisor who was faced with someone who had no interest in anything and no skills or abilities would go about getting someone to open up about the one thing they might be good at or come up with a career that not even the people who know him would have thought of

In my experience, people who can't identify any positive skills or qualities usually have a whole lot more going on in their life possibly depression...?
In thousands of conversations I've had, I've only had one person who was completely closed down.

Ds would have been one of those that answered I don’t know to everything. That is why we pursued the quizzes route and did many of them
Which he eventually acknowledged that a certain industry might be good to work in.

We HE him because he was so far behind and wasn’t getting anywhere in school so we didn’t have any 3rd party careers advice lessons. It was me or no one.

Quizzes are certainly useful ( very useful for some clients like your son) and have their place but they are careers information and the good once could be classed as careers advice. They aren't guidance though.

Unfortunately some schools didn't fully understand this and thought that as long as their students had access to these quizzes they were providing career guidance.

In think, OliversMumsArmy, your DS is an outlier. His situation isn’t the same as the vast majority and every single child never benefits from any service, be it teaching, careers, health etc on all occasions. If he wouldn’t engage, he wouldn’t engage. It’s just not possible to please everyone all of the time. Oliver’s Mummy is well able to advocate for her DS.

I’m not sure the Hartlepool case was just set up for tv. Yes, it wasn’t great but if anyone is still seeing DC to offer advice that is this bad, then they should be relieved of these duties. I do feel that in deprived areas you are more likely to find poor advice. Partly because DC aiming high isn’t the norm. It’s why DC take the wrong A levels, go to a nearby university as opposed to the best university and don’t earn as much as they could. It’s part of the issue of those needing the highest quality advice not getting it. That boy knew what he wanted. His was an easy question to answer but the conversation centred on the stay local mantra. So utterly stupid.