The Careers Service
Our Researcher at Fellows and Associates, Sienna Johal, gives her opinion on the current National Careers Service debate and asks what can be done to help those in education to make the right career choices at the right time.
The press has been awash recently with news surrounding the UK’s careers service and notably the failings of it when it comes to advising those in education about their options.
As a recruitment firm our job and goal is to ensure that the right candidate is matched to the right client. The careers service becoming a national debate naturally piqued my interest not only because of the role we have but also due to own personal experience with careers advice.
Personal Experience
I am 23 and enjoy a job that offers the chance to be creative, listen to people and puts my social skills to good use. I currently work at Fellows and Associates as a Researcher and whilst I relish my position and enjoy work, it hasn’t always been plain sailing when it comes to knowing what I wanted to do.
As a child I was always excited by school and loved learning, aged 8 I made the decision to be a Doctor. The decision didn’t last long after my first foray into University life studying Dentistry where I quickly learnt I didn’t have healing hands.
So why did I get it so wrong?
I genuinely believe the lack of accessible careers advice and the little family that could support me in my decision making (they were as clueless as I was), gave me the impression that doing a conventional degree would be my best chance to have high earning potential. It was assumed at my secondary school (a girls only selective school) that those that did Medicine, Dentistry or Law were the elite, an attitude that was upheld by students as well. Only when I reached University did my naïve 18 year old self realise how little I really knew about the world of work and what I wanted out of it.
From personal experience I can say that there is a mismatch between what jobs there are and what we as children are told is possible. I can think of few examples where friends have bucked the trend. Those that decided to do something they wanted to do, despite careers advisors telling them that they will find it difficult post-graduation have gone forwards and forged incredibly successful careers. Unfortunately this streak of rebellion isn’t found in all of us and what of those that don’t have any idea what they want to do?
It’s taken me 5 years to get to where I am today and most of it by trial and error. Although I appreciate that I have been job hunting in one of the worst economic climates for decades I believe a lot more could have been done to help me make the right choices for myself. If a dedicated careers advisor had sat me down and asked me to list my traits, expectations and hobbies I’m pretty sure it would have resulted in a lot less time, heartache and trouble.
The UK Careers Service
The appreciation for careers is limited it seems and, with a poor amount of one on one meetings with advisors, it appears that individual tailored advice is scarce. The job market is tough, especially for those in education, with teenagers being asked to make choices with far reaching consequences without knowing the whole picture.
The tendency appears to promote traditional and well acknowledged careers such as Medicine, Law, Teaching or Public Services, and those that were lesser known in the public sphere such as Patent Attorneys fall by the wayside. The lack of knowledge about the industry as a whole has far reaching repercussions with many not knowing about the profession until they are at University and training in a field somewhat related.
Where to go from here?
The responsibility for supplying careers advice is in the hands of the schools currently. However, it has been suggested that the National Careers Service should create a bridging gap helping schools to cope with demands (1). As I mentioned with my own school there are personal opinions that means that careers advice is subjective, dependent on teachers, and as such the information a child receives can be biased.
School pupils should be able to have one on one face time with an informed advisor but this is just the start. If schools and colleges were able to forge strong community ties with businesses in their local areas they would be better placed to advise children on the realistic expectations of employers. With the plea now being for OFSTED to become actively involved in assessing the state of careers advice in school, a major overhaul could be on the cards and with good reason.
With the current lack of careers advice allegedly costing the UK economy £28 billion (2) something needs to be done and soon. In my opinion it will be a long while before careers advice in schools and colleges matches the expectations of the working world, and we’ll continue limping along in the current state for a long while to come. I believe it will be a collective effort of the education system, the National Careers Service and businesses to achieve a cohesive and efficient advice service, giving accessible relevant information to those that need it.
(2)http://feweek.co.uk/2013/01/25/plea-for-ofsted-to-inspect-school-advice/