Careers advice services?

[opethdisciple]

Inquiring on behalf of a friend.

She is self employed running her own Photography business.

She is making decent money but starting to feel trapped by being self employed and having to constantly chase the money.

The relentlessness is making her tired and depressed. She is contemplating a career change. She has a degree in economics.

Is there a career service out there where she can go and talk to someone who knows about the market and can guide her on what to do next etc?

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I found this.

It looks good, but then I am cynical and just think these guys will take your money and give you back some generic rubbish.

 

[Dellboy]

Don't bother paying for advice - plenty of forums will offer more valuable than they will.

I'd recommend her getting in touch with a few recruitment companies who place into entry level roles relating to her economics degree and seeing what they have available.

Any idea what she's currently looking at industry/job role wise?

 

[Semple]

How far back did she graduate?

I know my uni offers up their careers advice services to their alumni. Would be worth checking if that's a resource available to her.

 

[dowie]

I found this.

It looks good, but then I am cynical and just think these guys will take your money and give you back some generic rubbish.

I wonder if you could find a similar test and just do that + get the report.

When I had one of these sorts of things years ago the interview with the results booklet and test/profile etc.. was a bit of a waste of time, it just involved them going through the booklet with me and discussing the results which I could read for myself and then some leaflets giving info on some of the careers suggested which again I could read for myself and which the person giving the feedback doesn't really have a clue about anyway. I mean if you were interested in learning about being an accountant you'll find out rather a lot more from say an internet forum for qualified and trainee accountants than you will from a careers advisor.

So I guess there is possibly some utility in getting the assessment + some recommendations if she's stuck for things to do or might want suggestions of stuff that she might excel at that she's not thought about - would be good if there was a service that just offered the tests. (I wonder if these tests are actually created by the company you've linked to or if they rely on some standardised tests provided by a third party)

 

[dowie]

further to the above - IIRC this is the organisation who ran the assessment I sat years ago:

https://www.morrisby.com/career-changers

much lower price than the company linked to in the OP

I wouldn't expect the advisor in either case to "know the market" - I'd just expect them to interpret the results of the testing and make some suggestions that she could use as a base to do further research herself. I think that internet forums dedicated to particular careers/professions would be the next best step in finding out more about how to get in and what her chances are.

 

[bangwhosnext]

Don't bother paying for advice - plenty of forums will offer more valuable than they will.

I'd recommend her getting in touch with a few recruitment companies who place into entry level roles relating to her economics degree and seeing what they have available.

Any idea what she's currently looking at industry/job role wise?

further to the above - IIRC this is the organisation who ran the assessment I sat years ago:

https://www.morrisby.com/career-changers

much lower price than the company linked to in the OP

I wouldn't expect the advisor in either case to "know the market" - I'd just expect them to interpret the results of the testing and make some suggestions that she could use as a base to do further research herself. I think that internet forums dedicated to particular careers/professions would be the next best step in finding out more about how to get in and what her chances are.

Hi folks, could you point me in the direction of a few other good careers forums...

Searching google and can come up with nothing except blogs and veiled advertisements.

 

[dowie]

Hi folks, could you point me in the direction of a few other good careers forums...

Well, in reference to the post you quoted, that depends on the career/profession. Maybe if you specify that then someone could make some suggestions.

 

[bangwhosnext]

Well, in reference to the post you quoted, that depends on the career/profession. Maybe if you specify that then someone could make some suggestions.

I'm just looking for general career advice.

I'm at a cross-roads at the moment... I have options in engineering (which I'm not that interested in, but money and prospects are okay), Lab research (which I'm mildly interested in) or psychology (which I'm fairly interested in but seems to be very broad in terms of careers and may not lead to a anything significant).

I'm middle aged and decided on a career change as I was fed-up with my job of 15 years. I have qualification/experience in all three subjects listed above, just not sure which one to run with... hence looking for a general careers advice forum, but they seem to be as rare as hen's teeth on the internet.

 

[dowie]

I'm middle aged and decided on a career change as I was fed-up with my job of 15 years. I have qualification/experience in all three subjects listed above, just not sure which one to run with... hence looking for a general careers advice forum, but they seem to be as rare as hen's teeth on the internet.

I can't say I've heard of one tbh... what would you seek to gain from one that couldn't be answered in say forums dedicated to particular professions/asking questions of people in those professions?

 

[bangwhosnext]

I can't say I've heard of one tbh... what would you seek to gain from one that couldn't be answered in say forums dedicated to particular professions/asking questions of people in those professions?

I'd like to compare and contrast different people's experiences and career journeys. If I go to an engineering forum or psychology forum, all the information will be biased towards those subjects, I'd like comparisons between different careers. That is all. Something like this forum.

 

[dowie]

I'd like to compare and contrast different people's experiences and career journeys. If I go to an engineering forum or psychology forum, all the information will be biased towards those subjects, I'd like comparisons between different careers. That is all. Something like this forum.

This makes no sense, unless you want to find someone who has been both a Clinical psychologist and a Chartered Engineer in some area of engineering which seems rather unlikely. Even then they'll have their own individual experiences. In the end you'd still simply be soliciting experiences/advice from individuals in those careers.

If you want to find out about some specific area of engineering then try posting a thread on here with Engineering in the title and hopefully some forum members might be able to assist, likewise go ask questions on some engineering forms. Ditto to psychology careers. You'll find that various people have positive or negative views of their industry/careers etc..

 

[bangwhosnext]

This makes no sense, unless you want to find someone who has been both a Clinical psychologist and a Chartered Engineer in some area of engineering which seems rather unlikely. Even then they'll have their own individual experiences. In the end you'd still simply be soliciting experiences/advice from individuals in those careers.

If you want to find out about some specific area of engineering then try posting a thread on here with Engineering in the title and hopefully some forum members might be able to assist, likewise go ask questions on some engineering forms. Ditto to psychology careers. You'll find that various people have positive or negative views of their industry/careers etc..

Yeah, thanks.