Has anyone used the National careers service for careers advice?

[Jecstar]

Hi all,

Has anyone spoken to the advisors at the national careers service and if so what did you think?
I’m in my late 30s, have a humanities degree and PGCE and have worked in the education field since leaving university. Over the last few years I’ve become completely disillusioned and burnt out and have decided I want to leave education and try something different.

This is such a big step for me I feel like I need some specific careers advice. I left uni to long ago for the careers service to work with me and have come across the national careers service advice line.

Is it worth speaking with them or is there some other way to get careers advice that I don’t know about?

I had a session with national careers service at the end of last year - for me it wasn't massively useful but the adviser did point me towards some good resources, and did what seemed like a silly quiz with me that turned out to be scarily accurate! It's free so you have nothing to lose by making an appointment.

I think the direct route to finding out if they’re any good is to pick up the phone to them.

You’re only procrastinating by asking MN whether you should do that. After all, as the poster above says, you have nothing to lose.

(I do understand, though …)

My experience was pretty crap the advisor could not wait to end the call ! Like most things it depends on the individual adviser you speak to I'm sure some are a lot better than the one I had. It's probably worth giving them a call. Job Centres could be worth contacting as they advertise job opportunities.

As someone else has said, it's free, so you've got nothing to lose. I've worked with lots of teachers who have decided to transition in their careers. An experienced adviser should be able to give you some fairly generic advice but you sometimes need someone with coaching experience to help think outside the box and explore the not to so obvious. Careers quizzes can be a helpful start but it's important to have someone experienced enough to help interpret the information. The stumbling block for many is trying to rebrand oneself and remove the 'teacher' label and to highlight the clear transferrable skills. Happy to help!

I didn’t find it helpful at all. I was I guess hoping someone would dig into my transferable skills but basically she just asked me what I wanted to do. I mused a couple of ideas I thought my skills might link to (very broad areas) again hoping a bit of knowledge about career areas and was sent off to google employers in my area and just see what jobs they had open. I work in a niche industry with a lot of very specific software and hardware and I want to get out of it, but don’t want to waste time and money on Mickey Mouse courses that don’t lead anywhere. That was what it felt like I was being pointed at as there was no discussion of careers at all!

Sadly my experience of them is woefully poor. I would rate them in minus figures. I had an initial consultation exactly 1 year ago. Everything was off to a good start. They seemed credible. Although I was asked to sign up to a course on "Organising and Delegating" - a bit odd (box ticking?). I agreed in good faith to do it. When I received the comms from my consultation, I found that I was also signed up to something called "Principles of Internet Safety". I did the first, and attempted the second and abandoned it after some time as it seemed to be a multi choice "fill in the words" type of quiz for which I could not figure out the correct answers (as there seemed to be more than one fitting response). I was also asked by my adviser to send my CV so that he could have a look and make some changes that would benefit me. The NCS also promise to do follow ups etc and provide other help (see charter etc). I received NOTHING back from them following this initial appt. There was no 8 week follow up as promised; no other help at all. I emailed my "adviser" twice to follow up on the CV with no response. I called and had to leave a voice mail. NOTHING!. Weeks went by and I had a couple of calls from different "agents" to ask how I was getting on. Suffice to say that I told the truth that they were useless and didn't do what they promised, that my adviser had "disappeared" and that I was still looking for work. They were sorry etc. I also wrote to complain and then got another call to ask how I was getting on (no clue as to the history). So, after waiting a month to get a new appt, I am restarting the whole process today. Yesterday, I also got two appt reminders, one of which was cancelled and replaced by them at the time of arrangement (a month ago). I think that if this govt are intent on cutting down waste they should scrap this scheme. As far as I am concerned the NCS has too many incompetent staff that are not up to the job at all. I've seen no benefit and am just as on my own as when I started over a year ago. I could honestly do better - Gis a job!

I asked for advice and help sorting my CV.
Appointment 1 - over the phone. Couldn't help as my document was Google and couldn't open it
Appointment 2- had a face to face booked. Was on the bus, to the appointment, when I received a txt to say it was cancelled. This was just 30 minutes before we were due to meet.
Appointment 3- met a male member of staff. I had my CV open on my phone. Got talking about the problems I was having hunting a job. He picked up my phone, held it in his hand for 2 seconds, before putting it down. It was the briefest of glances. He then told me I needed a different CV and cover letter for each job I was applying for. Useless.
Appointment 4- met a female from the careers office. Had a discussion about what type of jobs I was looking for. Seemed like she wanted to help. Downloaded my CV to her laptop. Carried on talking about various things I could do in my search for a job. She informed me that she would go over my CV, make any changes and get back to me in a couple of weeks. That was 4th Aug. To date I have still not had my CV returned. She made contact, via email, on 28th Oct, asking if I'd started work or was I still in need of any help.
National Careers are a shambles and disgrace. They obviously don't care what your problem is. Pure lazy and ignorant.

Bloody useless. They cancelled my appointment and then I couldn't rebook as it had to be minimum 6 months (or maybe a year) since your last appointment. Only my "last appointment" hadn't happened.

Finally saw them. My UC job coach had ripped my CV to shreds but I changed it to what they told me to do. Then careers service told me it was all wrong still
So I changed it to what they said. Started applying for jobs and all of them wanted what my original CV was. Luckily I'd kept it.

Now CS email me constantly asking for an update. Even though I've told them I'm working.

I actually had a really good experience with NCS.

I attended the introductory webinar in June and then received an initial call, where I was told I would be assigned a career coach/advisor. The advisor rang me a couple of weeks later and we discussed my career goals and went through recent job applications. They helped revamp my CV and was always on hand to review my job applications. We had fortnightly catch up sessions, where I'd run through interview answers etc. The advisor signposted me to other organisations that provided mentorship. I found a mentor, who specialised in the field that I wanted to move into and the guidance I got from that mentor helped me secure the new job that I started this month. I don't think i would have got my job had the careers advisor not told me about the mentorship organisation.