The main parties debate careers

Thanks to Keith from the Careers Sector Stakeholders Alliance for pointing out the House of Commons debate on vocational education that took place on the 4th of June. Just in case you weren’t sure where the main parties stood on careers the following gives you a bit of an insight.

Tristram Hunt, the Opposition’s skills spokesman, stated (pp.19-20):

“Indeed, we only have to look at the shambolic execution of the Government’s careers guidance policy for a textbook display of encouraging perverse institutional incentives. In a tough funding climate, it will be a brave and outstanding school that advises its pupils not to stay on. In a recent conference in Westminster, we saw a very good example of that: a leading academy school that is part of a leading chain said that it had brought in outside careers guidance, exactly as it should be doing, but that it told the person coming in to give the careers guidance that they were not allowed to advise pupils to go to the college up the road. With in-house careers guidance, there is a producer interest in keeping kids along an easily understandable gold-path academic route, as it were, of GCSEs, A-level and university, rather than thinking far more creatively, which requires trained professionals with knowledge of local situations.”

In his summing-up, the Minister (Matthew Hancock) returned to his favourite theme of “inspiration” but gave little idea as to how this inspiration would happen with declining resources in school career support. What he did talk about was the new destination data, however there are still some important questions to be answered about the quality of this data now that Connexions are no longer collecting it – largely how are we going to find out about all of the NEETs. The Minister said (p.25):

“Finally, on careers advice and guidance, we want better inspiration and motivation, character building and the opening of young people’s eyes to wider horizons, with mentoring of them so that everyone can reach their potential. The information is out there—the web is littered with it—but we need to ensure that young people find it, know what is relevant to them and can set and reach their goals. Ofsted is inspecting against the new duty to provide independent and impartial advice, so schools will be inspected for that. Crucially, the new destination data will show not only how many people go to university, but how many go into an apprenticeship or a job. The data will better hold schools to account for the outcomes of the education that they provide, not only on the exams and where they get in those league tables, but on where the students get to. I hope that that improves matters a lot.”

Investing in career development should be top of the government’s agenda

I was asked to provide a comment article on the National Careers Council report by the Guardian. They published it today without giving me advance warning so I haven’t had the chance to link to it from my blog yet. But here goes…

Investing in career development should be top of the government’s agenda

Politicians must realise that many concerns about youth unemployment and the economy are linked to people’s careers

Read more on The Guardian site

National Careers Council, an Aspirational Nation: creating a culture change in careers provision. Careers England Policy Commentary 21

The policy commentary that I wrote for Careers England is now available on the University of Derby research archive. The full reference for it is as follows.

Hooley, T. (2013). National Careers Council, an Aspirational Nation: creating a culture change in careers provision. Careers England Policy Commentary 21. Careers England

I hope that people find it useful.

Last few places now available for Brilliant CVs: A workshop for iCeGS by Dr Jim Bright

The Brilliant CVs workshop is almost full. If you want to book you had better move quickly!

We are very lucky to have Jim Bright visiting iCeGS on July 2nd 2013 to present a workshop entitled ‘Brilliant CVs’

The CV is one of the fundamentally important documents in our careers.  The CV can determine not only whether you are interviewed, but also whether you get the job. There exists empirical evidence to suggest that the job one does can serve to identify you in society and the work you do may even influence what you ultimately die of.  Yet despite this, resume advice abounds that is based on hearsay, myths and unfounded beliefs.

In this workshop Dr Jim Bright will share with you an evidence based approach to job hunting and CVs that has been shown to work.  He will back up his presentation with peer reviewed scientific studies evaluating the efficacy of his model of CV writing.  He will also share brand new research, ideas and models that will be published in the forthcoming Brilliant CV: the students guide and in the 5th edition of the best- selling Brilliant CV.  Come and hear why this book has sold over 100,000 copies in the UK, USA, Australia and worldwide.

This workshop will have relevance for any practitioner who supports individuals who are transitioning to new jobs and career roles.

The workshop will run from 10.00 until 3.00 at the Universities Kedleston Road site.

The cost of the workshop is £100 +VAT for the day and this will include lunch.

In order to book a place at the workshop, please click here.

We look forward to seeing you there.

If you have any questions about this event please contact Nicki Moore at n.moore@derby.ac.uk.

Variables Affecting Readiness to Benefit from Career Interventions

A very interesting presenation from Jim Sampson discussing the idea of readiness to benefit from career interventions. The presentation was originally given in February 2013 in Finland.

He asks why do some people benefit more than others from any kind of career intervention? He also asks how can we change what we do to take account of the diverse range of clients.

Jim Sampson talks about readiness to benefit from career interventions

Commentary on the National Careers Council report

Since the launch of the Nationl Careers Council report there has been a lot of discussion about it. I have written a policy commentary on the report which has been published by Careers England.

There have also been comments by the following organisations.

• ASCL
• BBC
• Centrepoint
• CIPD
• Engineering UK
• FE Week
• NIACE (with a further article by their Chief Executive in FE Week)
• SecEd
• 157 Group

It is great that the report is raising debate on careers in England. Let’s hope the discussion keeps rolling on until Government starts to change its policies.

Understanding higher education careers services

I’m giving a presentation to Matrix assessors on Friday about higher education careers services.

This is what I plan to do.

Understanding higher education careers services

I’d be interested in hearing any other messages that HE advisers would like to feed back to Matrix assessors. I will do my best to pass these on.

Social mobility and career education

The following is an excellent short animation from talkingjobs about the role of career education in fostering social mobility.

Brilliant CVs: A workshop for iCeGS by Dr Jim Bright

We are very lucky to have Jim Bright visiting iCeGS on July 2nd 2013 to present a workshop entitled ‘Brilliant CVs’

The CV is one of the fundamentally important documents in our careers.  The CV can determine not only whether you are interviewed, but also whether you get the job. There exists empirical evidence to suggest that the job one does can serve to identify you in society and the work you do may even influence what you ultimately die of.  Yet despite this, resume advice abounds that is based on hearsay, myths and unfounded beliefs.

In this workshop Dr Jim Bright will share with you an evidence based approach to job hunting and CVs that has been shown to work.  He will back up his presentation with peer reviewed scientific studies evaluating the efficacy of his model of CV writing.  He will also share brand new research, ideas and models that will be published in the forthcoming Brilliant CV: the students guide and in the 5th edition of the best- selling Brilliant CV.  Come and hear why this book has sold over 100,000 copies in the UK, USA, Australia and worldwide.

This workshop will have relevance for any practitioner who supports individuals who are transitioning to new jobs and career roles.

The workshop will run from 10.00 until 3.00 at the Universities Kedleston Road site.

The cost of the workshop is £100 +VAT for the day and this will include lunch.

In order to book a place at the workshop, please click here.

We look forward to seeing you there.

If you have any questions about this event please contact Nicki Moore at n.moore@derby.ac.uk.

National Careers Council report released

The National Careers Council First Annual Report was released on Wednesday 5 June 2013 at a launch event in London it is called ‘Creating a Culture Change in Careers Provision: An Aspirational Nation’.

The report makes seven recommendations as follows.

1. A culture change is needed in careers provision for young people and adults in order to address the mismatch of skills shortages and high unemployment.
2. The development of the National Careers Service should be assisted by the creation of an Employer-led Advisory Board comprising senior representatives from employers, education and the career development profession to help guide its work and ensure it delivers value for money and meets the needs of young people, adults and employers.
3. The National Careers Service should significantly expand its work with schools, young people and parents.
4. Employers should encourage their employees to volunteer to go into schools and colleges to give students insights into different careers, enthuse them about the world of work and provide access to active experience of work, in particular to help address mismatches in young people’s career aspiration.
5. The National Careers Service should launch a new initiative to bring together a range of organisations to explore and highlight the importance of ‘character’ and ‘resilience’ in a successful working life and identify realistic and effective options for addressing this issue.
6. The National Careers Service should develop and extend its on-line services and bring together key partners in order to consolidate other on-line careers information and tools, enabling trusted information to become more accessible for young people, parents’carers and adults seeking on-line support to their career development activities and plans.
7. In order to bring about the culture change needed in careers provision for young people and adults we need to create a movement which include employers, education and career development professionals. To implement the recommendations and practical steps Government also needs to play its role in supporting this movement and ensure these recommendations and the practical steps in this report are implemented.

I haven’t fully analysed the report yet, but hope to have more to say about it in the next few days. In the meantime I’d appreciate any thoughts that others have on the report.