What's your experience of careers advice in school?

Hi all,

One of my students is researching the provision of careers advice in schools - particularly with Connexions all but gone - and so would like to know what your experiences are/were, both good and bad! :wink:

As part of this he'd like to make clear recommendations for how the service(s) should improve, so any comments on this would be really appreciated.

Many thanks...Helen :biggrin:

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Reply 1

Soph.Jade

Mine was basically a 10 minute chat with e careers advisor "are you doing a levels, have you thought about uni, oh good, definitely go to uni".not sure if it was any better for people not doing a levels but I wasn't told about any alternative options

Reply 2

Tabzqt

Absolutely terrible. I think mine was just a two minute chat.

Reply 3

TattyBoJangles

The career advisors were absolutely clueless and it was just as well we were only subjected to one, ten-minute talk.

Reply 4

somethingbeautiful

Pointless. None of them ever had any clue.

Reply 5

Ladyliesel

They weren't helpful. When I was trying to research possible careers paths outside university we were given a 30 minute slot for a lecture, which was cut down to 10 minutes. I was doing A levels so was simply told to pick my favourite subject and carry it on for a degree. I still have no idea what I want to do in the future.

Reply 6

Runninground

I had a chat with one in my secondary school. I told him I wanted to start my own business so he just gave me a list of websites that should be helpful. He did advise me of backup careers or 'safe' careers that would suit what I wanted to do.

The one at my college however was a little better, although she was always busy so I never got an appointment when I most needed one.

One of my tutors who wasn't actually a careers advisor gave me some good advice- Go to Uni otherwise you'll fail in life (though not in so few words).

The best one I had was a female tutor who actually managed to help me get my job and listened when I told her I didn't want to go to Uni.

I have however found careers advice to be pointless. It's all based around the advisors experience. If they went to Uni, that's what they would suggest. What you need is a regular meeting with someone that can get to know you over the period of time and suggest a variety of careers in line with your interests. They could then organise some work experience to help you find which career is best. They could then guide you to getting a job in that industry by selecting and suggesting relevant paths into that career.

Reply 7

manic_fuzz

My careers advisor was useless. All she told me was that I should be looking into applying to a Russell group uni and that I should go home and Google that. Also, she wrote an 'action plan' for me which was just her typing that I wanted to go to uni and outlining my family and the A-levels I was doing... wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't made so many spelling mistakes and then signed it off as being written by me.

Careers advise would be better if careers advisors knew anything at all about the pathways and requirements to get to higher education and more vocational careers. A rather obvious solution but evidently too difficult... :K:

Reply 8

super_kawaii

I found mine utterly useless. I knew exactly what I wanted to do at uni (not regretting my choice at all) and how I'd go about it. I don't think they liked me all too much because of that :ashamed2:

Reply 9

Ham22

It's no loss that Connections has gone, I went to an appointment I'd booked with them at 19 because I was clueless and wanted to get some ideas or some kind of direction, was sat down and told basically it wasn't their policy to offer me any advice and was left bemused, annoyed and floundering in a box room after being given a huge 'directory of jobs' type book. Colossal waste of time.

Anyway...school careers guidance was useless. I remember doing the same career questionnaire multiple times, which if you clicked that you weren't a people person it got rid of every single result bar 'oil-rig worker'. Fantastic... :colonhash:

Perhaps more in-depth questionnaires of this type would be better- For example, I found the Myers-Briggs one useful- I don't know if that was supposed to be linked to careers, or if there's one along a similar vein that is to do with careers.

Reply 10

llys

Original post by manic_fuzz

Also, she wrote an 'action plan' for me which was just her typing that I wanted to go to uni and outlining my family and the A-levels I was doing... wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't made so many spelling mistakes and then signed it off as being written by me.

----------------

I'm assuming all these "career advisors" were not your own teachers but came into your schools from outside? All these comments make me think Gove was right abolishing that. A good website could probably do a better (or at least equally good) job than what people here are describing.

Reply 11

Moosferatu

Nonexistant.

Seriously.

I never got even the slightest bit of advice. Except 'go to uni' obviously. What a load of ****.

Someone try and make an argument for social mobility when we have gaps like this in the state education system.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 12

yothi5

Bad, clueless, no value.

Reply 13

Izzyeviel

Abysmal. Filled in a multi choice questionnaire at the age of 14. The result was I was given a leaflet about gardening because one of the boxes I ticked was 'do you like the outdoors?' 'Yes'.

That was it

Reply 14

Emma:-)

Entertainment Forum Helper

Original post by Edu-Eye

As part of this he'd like to make clear recommendations for how the service(s) should improve, so any comments on this would be really appreciated.

Many thanks...Helen :biggrin:

The careers advice was a bit **** at my school.
You only got careers advice if you went to them for advice, which is fine as if you want to get advice, you could go to them, if you didnt, then you didnt. But the careers office and their advice wasnt publicised very well at school so not many people went, possibly because some people didnt know about it or what services/advice they offered. We did little bits in PSE lessons, but no where near enough. The form tutor also went round our form in our last week of school asking everyone what they had planned for after they had finished, i.e. 6th form/college/apprentiship/job. Too little too late me thinks. EVERYONE in the year 10/11 should have been made to go for some kind of appointment, just to make sure they where ok and knew what they wanted to to and how to go about it.

Reply 15

Pixie-Bee

No contact with advisors for university options at all. Everything I've done has been on my own so far.

We were briefly in touch for work experience placements, but they didn't do anything then other than tell me I have a deadline to get something sorted for a two week block. That was it. A thirty second, in then out appointment. :unimpressed:

Reply 16

King Kebab

The careers advice lady in my old school was very good I think. She knew what she was talking about like progression routes and stuff. I definitely thing that I made the right choices because of the few meeting I had with her. I hadn't heard of the course I did before University before I spoke to her.

Reply 17

username418231

I had a really good careers advisor, and I used to read the Connexions website a lot. Also there were some really good resources.

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Reply 18

nulli tertius

Original post by Edu-Eye

As part of this he'd like to make clear recommendations for how the service(s) should improve, so any comments on this would be really appreciated.

Many thanks...Helen :biggrin:

There never was a golden age of careers advice. You can ask people aged from 74 to 14 and the answer from each generation will be that the advice was very poor.

Reply 19

Cynical_Smile01

None existent aged 11-16, didn't get an appointment because I knew what I wanted to do (go to Uni). I moved to a different school for sixth form which put a lot into career advice, with three teachers with "futures" responsibilities. (Granted, two of those are for Oxbridge applicants) but that was specifically arranged by school. Everyone got at least two meetings, they can drop in whenever, and there is step by step advice mainly for Uni applications.

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