Careers advisor

Careers advisors enable people to make well-informed choices about their education, training and employment options. They work in a wide variety of settings, including education and independent guidance agencies.

Work activities

Careers advisors enable their clients to make well prepared and realistic choices about their education, training and employment opportunities. Many careers advisors work with young people at school or college. In other settings, they work with adult clients who may be unemployed, facing redundancy or who want to change their career. An important part of the careers advisor’s role is to encourage people to consider their interests, skills and abilities. They guide clients through assessment tools, such as careers guidance software and sometimes psychometric tests. Face-to-face interviews are an important part of the advisor’s work. In a school or college setting, they assess, inform and encourage young people, and help them to plan ahead. They may write reports based on the interviews.

Careers advisors help some people to overcome the barriers they face in finding and staying on in employment, training and learning opportunities. For example, they help people to put together a CV, complete job applications, or learn interview techniques. Some advisors work closely with employers and training providers, contacting them to obtain careers information and sometimes visiting them to give advice on recruitment, employment legislation and changes in educational qualifications or procedures. Careers advisors need to keep careful client records. Other administrative tasks include writing reports after meetings and visits, managing careers information resources and corresponding with employers and professional institutions.

Personal qualities and skills

As a careers advisor, you need:

Good communication and interpersonal skills.
To listen carefully, and ask the right questions.
The ability to show genuine interest in the needs of your clients.

You should be:

IT literate.
Flexible and adaptable.
Able to work well in a team.
Well organised and self-motivated, with good problem-solving skills.
Able to help people towards making important decisions, without imposing solutions.
Non-judgemental and objective, especially when dealing with sensitive issues.

Knowledge of assessment techniques such as psychometric tests and computer guidance software is useful.

Pay and opportunities

Salaries for careers advisors vary. The pay rates given are approximate. Careers advisors earn in the range of £21,000, rising to £35,000 with experience.

They normally have a basic 35-40-hour week, which, depending on the post, may include evening work. Part-time opportunities are also available.

Opportunities for careers advisors occur throughout the UK. Employers include careers service companies, universities, colleges, schools, the National Careers Service, Careers Wales, and commercial organisations.

Where are vacancies advertised?

Vacancies are advertised in local/national newspapers, on job boards, on employers’ websites, on the Government’s Find a Job service, and on Careers in Careers.

Entry routes and training

The Qualification in Career Development (QCD) is the professional course that enables you to work as a careers advisor. It is a postgraduate qualification which combines academic with work-based learning and can be taken over one year full-time or two years part-time. It is available at universities across the UK. Since it is a postgraduate qualification, you will typically need a first or Bachelor’s degree in order to begin the QCD.

You could alternatively take the career development professional level 6 higher apprenticeship. This provides much of your training on the job, although you will also work towards the QCD and complete the programme fully qualified to work as a careers advisor.

Qualifications at levels 4 and 6 in advice and guidance are also available for those who are already working in guidance-related areas, for example, colleges, universities, Jobcentre Plus, and voluntary agencies.

Aside from qualifications, employers place look for people with the right personal qualities, such as communication and people skills and the desire to help others progress towards their career goals. Skills and abilities gained in an area such as teaching, youth and community work, social work, probation work or personnel work are useful.

With experience, it is possible to progress to supervisory and management positions.

Rehabilitation of Offenders Act: When working with people under the age of 18, this career is an exception to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. This means that you must supply information to an employer about any spent or unspent convictions, cautions, reprimands or warnings, if they ask you to. This is different from other careers, where you only have to reveal information on unspent convictions if you are asked to.

Qualifications

To complete the QCD, you will either need to gain the QCD postgraduate diploma or Master’s as an academic qualification or to via the higher apprenticeship programme.

To gain the QCD through the academic route, you’ll need a degree, typically in any subject. To get onto a degree programme, you will usually need:

Two to three A-levels.
GCSEs in English and maths.
GCSEs in a number of other subjects.

To get onto a higher apprenticeship, you will need two A-levels plus GCSEs in English and maths.

Adult opportunities

Age limits: It is illegal for any organisation to set age limits for entry to employment, education or training, unless they can show there is a real need to have these limits.

Related careers

Adult guidance worker
Advice centre worker
Community worker
Counsellor
Human resources manager
Life/business coach
Recruitment consultant
Youth worker