Career Counselling

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The cost of red tape in schools

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

I was talking to the Head of Careers at a school this week. During the discussion, she mentioned that one of her biggest problems is arranging work experience. I can understand that as it involves liaising with many businesses in the area, twisting a few arms, calling in a few favours - all the kinds of things that MP’s are good at. In the middle of the conversation though, she mentioned something that I found staggering …

Her school spends £10 K per year arranging these work experience opportunities for year 10’s. Guess what the money gets spent on? Travel or perhaps useful resources? No. The school spends this money on … wait for it … HEALTH AND SAFETY CHECKS.

health & safety So there are loads of companies out there coining it by conducting health and safety checks on the good people who are prepared to provide work experience opportunities. It this weren’t so serious, it would be laughable. Firstly, spending money on health and safety checks is essentially money peed down the drain - there is no return on this investment. Secondly and more importantly, this school (and there are plenty of others) are reconsidering whether they can afford work experience for their students. In a way, that’s good for us, because we provide career resources for students. However, we would never suggest doing away with work experience opportunities - they are probably the most important experience to have when coming to terms with how the world of work functions.How will students make the right kind of decisions about their futures? Services such as the Career Foundations Programme can solve this problem, but not everyone has the money to spend.

This health and safety stuff is a load of bollocks - it’s like a cancer in our society. It costs us billions every year and produces absolutely nothing. A safety first philosophy will never create anything great. It’s these kinds of constraints that make ongoing educational and economic competitiveness more and more difficult and increasingly unlikely.

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Transitions and changes for young adults

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

Today, I’ve been writing some new content for our series of webinars aimed at helping careers advisors at schools to provide a better quality of career advice. The webinar has to do with “preparing for change and transitions”. In thinking about it, it strikes me that young adults need to realise that some of the changes they face are entirely predictable whereas others are far less so. For example, we know for sure that on leaving school, we will either go to University or some form of further study or we will (try to) enter the world of work. These are entirely predictable.

change and transitions

If we look at these examples in more detail, let’s try and identify the essence of the change in each situation. For those young adults entering University, the real change has to do with coping with much greater personal freedom and independence. If we look at what’s required to cope well with this new situation, it comes down mainly to the quality of our decision making and our ability to learn from mistakes.

For those young adults entering the world of work, the challenges presented by this change are very different. I would argue that the biggest challenges have to do with fitting in, complying and figuring out how to make one’s mark. The skills and attitudes required to make this transition successfully have much more to do with the ability to adopt the appropriate behaviours this new environment requires. Decision making the learning from mistakes are still important, but not as important as learning and adopting the behaviours required by one’s working environment. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to sit down and figure out the kinds of things that should be done (generically) in order to fit in to a full time work situation.

So predictable change is one thing - unpredictable change is another. I would argue that unpredictable change in itself is becoming more predictable given the pace of change in our lives but also that this change requires a distinct set of change skills. These are largely about awareness (having a good radar), developing a broad range of commercial and technical skills to improve one’s ability to adapt and having the confidence to act proactively. I’ll make sure to write on this in a future post.

Tags: Changes, Transitions
Posted in Career Counselling, Student Career Advice | No Comments »

Realisations from China

Friday, January 15th, 2010

I’ve spent all of this week in Hong Kong and China discussing the launch of www.mytalentplace.cn. My business partners and I are convinced that the Chinese mindset together with the single child policy and massive market size makes this a great place for a business offering careers advice to students. It’s my first trip to China and I thought I’d share some of my impressions with you. Seeing and experiencing something first hand is always much more powerful than reading about it.

Career competition

Firstly, in this week it was announced that China is now the world’s biggest car market. Last year, the growth in new car sales was 46% at a time when all the Western car markets were dead! China also recently overtook Germany to become the world’s biggest exporter. Get the idea? The momentum here is unstoppable. This new wealth and prosperity is creating a thriving market for luxury brands too.

Everyone I spoke to (students as well as parents) gave us one message. The message is that Chinese parents will do everything they can to further the prospects of their child. There’s only one child to lavish attention and resources on and having experienced hard times under communism, parents know that their children have great prospects, particularly if they can gain an international qualification and experience. Of course, most parents in the UK will say that they want their kids to have the best and to do well, but I don’t think there’s that same level of intensity that exists in China. Western life is comfortable and fairly predictable. A UK student who screws up his exams this year knows that there is likely to be another chance. We need to be prepared to see lots more Chinese students at our UK universities. As universities struggle financially, so more and more Chinese parents will pay for their child to get the best education.

So, not only will new graduates be competing with their Chinese equivalents for jobs, but they’ll be competing with more Chinese students while they’re studying. While these foreign students might lack in certain areas, they certainly won’t be out on the lash every night! From March 2010 Chinese students will also be benefitting from the career advice provided by MyTalentplace

Tags: China
Posted in Career Counselling, Parents - their role in Career Advice | 3 Comments »

Accounting - the best career foundation available?

Monday, January 4th, 2010

I never thought I’d say this, but I am now convinced that the header of this post is correct. When I studied my first degree - the extremely useful, practical and commercial BA majoring in Psychology, I looked at Commercial degrees, particularly those with an emphasis on Accounting as being dry, boring and for nerds. I was wrong about 2 of the 3 points. A sample of a typical Accounting class will probably show a higher than average nerd factor, but this is not a terminal problem. Nerds can be interesting and who knows, they might be good to stay in touch with so they’ll take your call when they’re Managing Director and you’re looking for a job!

Be his friend! Let’s forget the stereotypes for now though. The one thing that stands out among the Accountants I know is how they all have a great grasp of business principles and have used this to real benefit during their careers. A big part of the training often involved auditing of different companies. This is a great way of getting exposure to all sorts of different sectors and business types. By the time your average nerd (sorry accountant) is 25, they have been exposed to more types of businesses than most of us will come across in our working lives. Cogitate on that for a mo!

OK, some accountants will stay accountants and that’s fine for all concerned. A large number though use the knowledge they have of how businesses work either to create their own businesses, rise to senior positions in the corporate ranks or in professional firms. There is a myth that Accountants don’t become entrepreneurs. That’s bollocks. Certainly the ability to identify risks accurately may mean that accountants don’t get involved in some of the more zany schemes or ideas, but I’ve met enough who have their own successful businesses to know that this view is a myth.

So, if I were starting all over again I would study accountancy first without any doubt. With a business grounding like this, I would then have the flexibility to take my career almost anywhere I wanted to go (both geographically and job wise)

Want to find out more? Click here to to find out more about Accounting as a Career choice

Tags: Accounting careers
Posted in Career Counselling, Parents - their role in Career Advice, Student Career Advice | 4 Comments »

Company culture - the impact on job satisfaction

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

One of the things about working life that many newbies don’t even know about is company “culture”. Company culture is often described as “how we do things around here” and often forms the framework for what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. The culture is often created by senior management and often reflects the values and focus of the founder of the company. There are lots of ways of describing any company’s culture. Essentially though, some cultures are traditional and favour hierarchy (not for me thanks), others are much more entrepreneurial and encourage risk taking. There’s a saying in some companies that “it’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission”. If you hear that being said, you know you’re working for a company with an entrepreneurial culture. Some cultures are resistant to change, others are adaptive.

company-culture

What I’m trying to say, is that the kind of culture you get to work within will have a real impact on how you do your job and how much you enjoy your work. So, it’s important to get a handle on it before you join. OK, for now, any job might do, but if you do have a choice, this is an important consideration.If you like a stable, secure environment with a focus on process and quality, you probably don’t want to be working in a start - up!

You need to know what kind of culture you’re going to:

1) Feel most comfortable in

2) Be most effective within

So, how do you find out? One tip is to check out the press releases on the company’s website. Press releases are really useful to get a sense of what’s important to the company, what they’re proud of achieving, whether this is a formal environment or not etc. If you do know anyone working in the company, talk to them about how decisions are made, what goals are set and what managers pay attention to. That will tell you a lot. Make sure you go into that new job with your eyes open.

Tags: career advice, company culture, job satisfaction
Posted in Career Counselling, Student Career Advice, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Know who you are before you “Brand” yourself

Sunday, November 29th, 2009

Susan Guarneri recently wrote a great post on personal branding and that prompted me to think. I need prompting to think on most days!

Susan’s a big fan of psychometric assessment and I think we all know where I stand on that one! I do feel though that if the results of assessments are presented in a simple and understandable format, that makes a big difference.

The first challenge with developing a personal brand is to have a decent understanding of who you are. Obviously this is a little more difficult if you’re a student who hasn’t had much experience yet. A very useful way of quickly ramping up your self insight and career focus is to get some 360 degree feedback from your friends and network. 360 what? This is a common tool in business and enables colleagues to provide feedback on one another as a way of improving performance.

What you need to do is to ask a few trusted people in your network some pertinent questions. Give them some time to think through this before answering. Better still, send them the questions in an email.

1) What do you think I’m particularly good at?
2) What words best describe me as a person?
3) What careers could you see me being successful in and why?

If you get 5 friends and family members to complete these, you’ll be in a good position to start thinking about what makes you unique. You can then get going with personal branding - more about that later.

Posted in Career Counselling, Parents - their role in Career Advice, Student Career Advice | 1 Comment »

Dear Me… - by Kara Wirt

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

A Young Joanna Lumley

Have you ever wished that you could give advice to your younger self? It could stop you making many of the decisions you regret and save yourself years of heartache and anguish. Several famous characters have done just this, by writing letters of advice addressed to themselves aged 16. In “Dear Me – A Letter To My Sixteen-Year-Old Self” there are many extracts that apply to all of us, and serve well as general advice and guidance for early adulthood. Here are some of the best!
The famous figures tend to give themselves advice about both their behaviour and their dreams. Joanna Lumley tells herself to “do one thing at a time, and do it properly” and to “volunteer for everything because that way lies adventure”. Will Young says to himself “Don’t be afraid about who you are and what your dreams are. What you are self conscious of is not as important as you feel it is.”
blog-what-matters-most-is-how-you-see-yourself2

blog-what-matters-most-is-how-you-see-yourself2

Many of the letters advised themselves not to worry about being different. Trisha Goddard says “Don’t worry about not fitting in. It means you’ll never be a sheep. Not fitting in will give you the freedom to follow your dreams instead of the crowd… Never be afraid to be the first to achieve something – someone has to be.” Jonathan Ross humorously writes to his 16-year-old self “You are not cool, I know, but it is a quality that is vastly overrated. Stop worrying about the opinion of others and be yourself!”

Finally, the swimmer Mark Foster gives some advice that we can all apply to our aspirations, he says “…remember that in whatever you do, you should reach for the stars… you won’t always reach them but if you don’t try you won’t even get off the ground. Give life everything you’ve got! Talent alone is not enough, you will have to work hard too.”

Hopefully some of these quotes can help guide you through any difficult times you may have and they can be applied to job searching and throughout your career development.

adolescence-quote1

Posted in Career Counselling, Student Career Advice | 1 Comment »

The new model for Career Advice

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

As many of you will know, www.mytalentplace.co.uk provides a range of career advice - both free and paid to students. I recently worked through the Career Foundation programme online with a student at Wellington. Talking to her afterwards and asking for her feedback - a couple of things struck me …

Firstly, she rated us a 10 out of 10. Her sister gave us a 9.5. When last did you hear of students being so positive about career advice? Not since Pontius was a pupil pilot. I thought you may find it interesting to listen to what she had to say about the benefits of our online

One of the things that seems to be going down well is spending sufficient time with students. The traditional approach to career advice is all about psychometric tests - don’t get me going on those!! Our student (customers) really seem to appreciate the fact that we spend time getting to know them, so that we are best placed to guide them in the right direction. They make their own decisions and our advisors challenge them every step of the way.

I know this has been a bit “salesy”. When we get this kind of feedback (and we’re getting it consistently), we’d like to share it with you. If you’d like to find out more about our online career advice programmes, check them out at

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Is Arrogance a Requirement to be a Doctor?

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

Many of our good purveyors of psychometric tests are convinced that there are certain qualities that go with certain career roles and that these can be accurately determined in individuals by their tests. If this is true and its a big IF, should we not be developing a test for arrogance?

The Best and Worst of Medicine

Most of us are familiar with the antics of “House”, but he’s just a caricature of reality. I recently went to the local NHS surgery to have something checked out and the Doctor spend a good 3 seconds conducting the assessment. I don’t think she got within a foot of me and I’m not that repugnant!! My wife works in the NHS and is often going on about the arrogance of Doctors - particularly the new grads who frankly, don’t yet know the difference between sh!t and peanut butter!

What happened to bedside manner? I have a theory. I reckon a lot of people who study medicine are essentially nerds. They get the qualification and automatic patient respect (hey, the Doctor is always right), and they’re in nerd heaven. Arrogance is an easy next step if you don’t have great social skills.

Theory number 2 is that there’s a secret injection that Doctor’s get given when they graduate to substantially raise their arrogance levels. I bit like like Caster Semenya’s testosterone!

Medical schools need to introduce more of a focus on bedside manner and respect for patients. Oh, and if you’re thinking of becoming a Doctor, don’t turn out like House!

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New Careers Resources for Schools

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

This is a good time to let y’all know about a major new development at www.mytalentplace.co.uk. The feedback we’ve gained in our first few month’s existence has led us to create a new “fast food ” take away service for careers advisors in schools. Careers advisors find it tough to keep pace with the changes in the real world of work, so we’re going to help them to do that. We’ve created a package of 24 webinars with exercises and facilitator’s guides. They cover 3 main areas

1) Preparation for the world of work (CV’s interview preparation, performing in the interview etc)
2) Personal development - including goal setting, emotional intelligence, self insight and the like and
3) Developing the skills employers want - teamwork, negotiation skills, giving and receiving feedback and so on.

The real value is under the water

We’ll be providing these webinars on an annual subscription basis to schools and are hoping that this set of resources will go a long way to helping beleagured PSHE teachers to deliver top learning experiences to their pupils. Let’s see what response we get!