Apparently…..it isn’t a job

[Minininjarob]

2 minutes ago, fleabag said:

Did anyone want to be a careers officer  ?

I’d love to be one and be the opposite to most peoples experiences. Find out what the kids want to do and encourage and enable them, rather than belittle and insult them. 
 

[Crusoe]

It seems appropriate to post this  😎

 

[Barking Spiders]

It is odd when people say being a musician etc isn't a proper job. Following whatever reasoning they're using do we assume Beethoven, Bach, Mozart etc were misguided and basically wasted their time and lives when they could've been doing something more 'useful' and productive like being an accounts clerk? 

[mikel]

2 hours ago, uk_lefty said:

Isn't it just jealousy that you have a job that sounds infinitely more fun than some carp like corporate accounts manager or not as menial as council tax supervisor or some shtit like that?

 

My brother is a football coach for kids, and making a good living out of it. He was never more than a pub player and has a degree in history. If anyone gets sniffy about his job it's just jealousy that he can make a good living out of doing something a lot of people have a go at on a volunteering basis.

Good on him. I was an athletics coach for 10 years, all voluntary, and loved it. Quite a few times I had to put people right when I questioned their motivation and they countered with "Well you get paid to be here". Nah, athletics is based on the club system, and apart from National coaches and admin it's all volunteers. 

[zbd1960]

I went to a grammar school -careers advice was a joke and boiled down to little more than what was your strongest A Level subject and which university that suited.

 

I wanted to go into astronomy, was advised to do chemistry. I didn't have a clue really. Randomly ended up working for a bank. Some years later moved into programming and IT, none of it thanks to careers advice though. I'm at university now in my 60s after I retired...

 

[Cat Burrito]

School careers officer advice to me was to be a Lighthouse Keeper. Growing up in landlocked Wiltshire!

 

I fared slightly better at college. I had to do work experience and Bill Wyman had just left the Stones. I asked her to get me that gig. Obviously she didn't but she did get me a week on Carnaby Street working at EMAP Metro who had just taken over Kerrang, RAW and Mojo magazines. 

[Lozz196]

I don’t think I ever saw the careers officer at school, absolutely no recollection of it. At first I wanted to be an interpreter as was fairly good at languages, then a police officer (did my work experience with them), then quickly progressed to having no clues at all, and am still there at 56.  Given I hope to retire within 5 or so years I’m running out of time to think of a dream career. And not going to lose any sleep over it.

[chris_b]

I remember my Careers officer, a Mr Ford. He was pulling his hair out by the time I'd finished with him!!

[uk_lefty]

My school careers service didn't really exist. They had a basic software version that asked what my GCSEs were and anyone who did History and a language was told to be a diplomat. 

 

I am not now a diplomat. I don't think I ever will be.

[TimR]

I remember filling in a massive multiple choice sheet which was then fed into a computer and spat out about 100 different jobs that would be appropriate for me.

 

Can't remember what any of them were now.

[Jack]

Funnily enough my careers adviser told me to be a blended learning manager for a multi academy trust.

 

Oh, wait, no.

 

Lab technician, he said lab technician. 

[Raymondo]

2 hours ago, TimR said:

I remember filling in a massive multiple choice sheet which was then fed into a computer and spat out about 100 different jobs that would be appropriate for me.

 

Can't remember what any of them were now.

But you tried them all anyway.  😉

 

[fleabag]

I never saw a CO at school, but i did want to be a train driver. 

 

I even applied but they caught me out in about 30 seconds flat after they gave me the Ishihara test.  I only got page one right, page two on  were unrecognisable.

 

Thereth ended my train driving career.  Luckily i then did an engineering apprenticeship

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 5, 2022 by fleabag

[Woodinblack]

8 hours ago, fleabag said:

I never saw a CO at school, but i did want to be a train driver. 

 

I even applied but they caught me out in about 30 seconds flat after they gave me the Ishihara test.  I only got page one right, page two on  were unrecognisable.

 

Fancy, a test and everything. My first interview they just gave me a bundle of wires and asked me to show them colours they named. I thought it was kind of dumb at the time as I had no idea that people were actually colour blind.

[Tim2291]

The careers advisors at our school pretty much told everyone to become a train driver or teacher... They don't help in any way! I ended up starting my full Engineering degree at 26 (Open uni) and have only just finished it now! Schools should never "advise" kids on careers, they should be advising kids how to achieve their career regardless of how crazy it sounds. I'm sure if Tim Peak said to a careers advisor at 14 that he wanted to be an astronaut they'd laugh at him rather than saying OK, this is what you need to give yourself the best chance!

[Woodinblack]

The careers advisers job was basically to funnel everyone at my school into the dockyard or the military.

 

To be fair I went to interviews for both. The Air force were really enthusiastic, but it turned out that they wanted me to be an engineer that didn't involve learning to fly a plane AND i had to cut my hair, and the dockyard (hellish interview) offered me that job but it was a 1/3rd less than marconi did, so a bit of a no brainer.

[Tim2291]

1 minute ago, Woodinblack said:

The careers advisers job was basically to funnel everyone at my school into the dockyard or the military.

 

To be fair I went to interviews for both. The Air force were really enthusiastic, but it turned out that they wanted me to be an engineer that didn't involve learning to fly a plane AND i had to cut my hair, and the dockyard (hellish interview) offered me that job but it was a 1/3rd less than marconi did, so a bit of a no brainer.

I was hoping to join the airforce as a pilot, until I found out I was very colour blind and wouldn't be allowed to fly a plane. What's the point in being in the Air Force and not being able to fly the plane?

[Crusoe]

17 hours ago, Cat Burrito said:

 

 

I fared slightly better at college. I had to do work experience and Bill Wyman had just left the Stones. I asked her to get me that gig. Obviously she didn't but she did get me a week on Carnaby Street working at EMAP Metro who had just taken over Kerrang, RAW and Mojo magazines. 

RAW magazine... that's blast from the past!

[Crusoe]

2 minutes ago, Tim2291 said:

I was hoping to join the airforce as a pilot, until I found out I was very colour blind and wouldn't be allowed to fly a plane. What's the point in being in the Air Force and not being able to fly the plane?

I wanted to do the same. When I was 16 I went to an RAF information day. I was a year too young to join. By the time I was old enough, I'd gone off the idea. I'd wanted to that from about the age of six and suddenly I had no idea what I wanted to be and still don't.

[Woodinblack]

10 minutes ago, Tim2291 said:

I was hoping to join the airforce as a pilot, until I found out I was very colour blind and wouldn't be allowed to fly a plane. What's the point in being in the Air Force and not being able to fly the plane?

 

Literally was my problem with it. I wasn't even colour blind so what reason did they have!

[mikel]

A friend of mine has a daughter who wanted to be a vet, really wanted to be a vet, from the age of 10. She did a work experience at 16 in the local vets practice, and hated it. Boy was he relieved, saved him 3 or 4 years of extra University bills. How we laughed. 

[Tim2291]

26 minutes ago, Crusoe said:

I wanted to do the same. When I was 16 I went to an RAF information day. I was a year too young to join. By the time I was old enough, I'd gone off the idea. I'd wanted to that from about the age of six and suddenly I had no idea what I wanted to be and still don't.

I know the feeling! Other than a musician (which people put me off of at every opportunity obviously), I never had a clue what I wanted. Ended up stumbling into a sales engineering role, and whilst there found that I did enjoy engineering a lot so went for the degree. Hoping to move forward into more of an actual engineering role once I get my results back, with any luck I will actually enjoy it haha! 

I'm 31 now so still have plenty of time left to work sadly! I'd love to get music back to a point that it's more of a job for me, but in my stupidity I let contacts and networks slip away over the last few years!

[BigRedX]

I can't remember ever seeing a careers adviser whilst I was at school. That might have been because it was in the 70s and such people didn't yet exist; because I went to a posh school where it was assumed that you would go to university and your choice of subject there would dictate your career; or I did, but at the time I thought I knew what I wanted to do (be a marine biologist) and therefore my interview lasted 30 seconds and I have forgotten it ever took place.

 

The reality was that I had absolutely no idea what I really wanted to do with my life, and even less so once I worked out that the direction that school, my parents, and society in general were trying to push me in was non-mandatory...

 

TBH my academic progress was pretty much laid out for me by my teachers and parents, and by the time I was 14 I was far more interested in playing music and happy to coast through the subjects I was good at with the minimum of effort. IIRC my only choice of 'O' Levels boiled down to whether I wanted to take History or Geography as my 10th subject, and I chose History because I hated the teacher who would have taught me Geography. When It came to 'A' levels I picked the three subjects I thought would be best based on my 'O' Levels mostly because I wanted an easy life and more time to spend in the woodwork shop where I was making an electric guitar. The guitar took up more of my time than any one of my 'A' Level subjects and I only just scraped into University which I hated, and after 3 years and two different courses at two different universities I dropped out when it looked as though my band was going to get signed by a major record label.

 

I got into my "career" of graphic design/artwork entirely by accident and entirely through my musical activities rather than any formal education.

 

 

[Hobbayne]

I always wanted to drive the London Underground tube train that I used to travel to school on.

Back in those days (The mid to late 80's) they couldn't recruit enough staff because of the unsociable hours etc.

Most young lads my age would rather be out clubbing at midnight on a weekend than working.

I applied for a job and got one as a train guard and was a fully qualified tube driver within 18 months.

The whole thing changed when they abolished the Guards job and left the driver on his own. We did get a wage rise though.

I did 34 years on it and took early retirement a few months ago in April.

So I did get my dream job in a way. 😊

Edited October 5, 2022 by Hobbayne

[Nicko]

My careers officer at school was my mums best friend's sister and a regular visitor to our house.  I still don't remember her giving one bit of advice on a relevant career.

 

From an early age I wanted to be an architect, but when I chose my optional subjects at school (which for some reason at my school was at the end of the second year - a year earlier than most schools )I probably got them wrong.  I ended up taking an engineering apprenticeship - not because I wanted to be one but because my dad was one.  I did a degree part time when I was in my late 20s but most of it didn't really interest me and it was only a stepping stone to a better paid job.

 

Although I played in the school band and played a bit of guitar music wasn't something I really imagined doing.  I don't have any natural talent for it and lack the commitment needed to put the work in.