Daughter in limbo - careers advice help

celiam_2

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I have great respect for psychometric profiling and quite a bit for the efforts of career advisers but is there anyone out there who can give me an idea of where to point my daughter to for information that is straight forward and reliable. She is fed up with pitches from large companies who, she feels, are feeding her a line. She has finished A'levels and is expecting reasonable results but has delayed applying to universitities. [/FONT][/SIZE]

V_Chic_Chick

Connexions can give advice, point her in the right direction for courses etc., and the JobCentre will pay for courses (forklift truck driver for instance!) if she has signed on. She can sign on as she has left one educational establishment and not started at another.

Companies have a tendency to lose all interest in people as soon as they find out (or even think) you're going to go off to uni in the not-too-distant future, so make sure your daughter tells them at interview (or preferably in the covering letter, so that she actually gets to interview) that she hasn't got any immediate plans to go to uni (slight bending of truth but oh well).

teacherrk

Hi celiam,

I to am in the same predicament as yourself and I posted on a similar subject a while back. My school have a DVD collection called Careers4utv, which are a fantastic resource featuring young people talking about their different jobs in a variety of careers. Ask your school if they have them, if not I believe Careers4utv are soon launching an online careers library for everyone to access very soon according to their website. They have a few example videos on their youtube site if you want to take a look and see what you think. Just search for careers4utv on youtube to find them

celiam_2

V_Chic_Chick wrote: »

Connexions can give advice, point her in the right direction for courses etc., and the JobCentre will pay for courses (forklift truck driver for instance!) if she has signed on. She can sign on as she has left one educational establishment and not started at another.

Companies have a tendency to lose all interest in people as soon as they find out (or even think) you're going to go off to uni in the not-too-distant future, so make sure your daughter tells them at interview (or preferably in the covering letter, so that she actually gets to interview) that she hasn't got any immediate plans to go to uni (slight bending of truth but oh well).

Forklift truck driver - that would suit my midlife crisis but not sure about her dilemma! Is there a list of different jobs that Job Centre pay for. Who knows, there may be something that will inspire her.

Oldernotwiser

celiam wrote: »

Forklift truck driver - that would suit my midlife crisis but not sure about her dilemma! Is there a list of different jobs that Job Centre pay for. Who knows, there may be something that will inspire her.

The JCP will only fund courses for the long term unemployed and very limited at that.

Is she actually intending to go to university, either this year or later? Has she looked at vocational courses offered at your local college? Has she actually seen a Careers Adviser (Connexions)?

highguyuk

Just curious as to what pitches she has had from companies?

celiam_2

highguyuk wrote: »

Just curious as to what pitches she has had from companies?

She went along as a visitor (with others from the local comp) to a Careers Day at Bryanston School. It was really good in many ways but of course it was a sales pitch for the companies present. At her school the careers officer focussed more on the less able students. We are going to try and fix her up with work experience days so she can get a better idea of what it is really all about.

celiam_2

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

The JCP will only fund courses for the long term unemployed and very limited at that.

Is she actually intending to go to university, either this year or later? Has she looked at vocational courses offered at your local college? Has she actually seen a Careers Adviser (Connexions)?

Only while she was at school and that wasn't much help. I am going to try and sort out some work experience for her so she gets a chance to see things from the inside.

flutterbyuk25

A work based learning course may be a good option for her. I work for Prince's Trust and we run this course.

It has an element of work experience for either 2 or 3 weeks, and you gain/build upon many other employablility skills like problem solving, confidence, teamwork etc. It won't affect her benefits if she is signing on. She will need to sign on to be refered unless she is volunteering and then she wouldn't get paid anything.

HTH

x

Oldernotwiser

flutterbyuk25 wrote: »

A work based learning course may be a good option for her. I work for Prince's Trust and we run this course.

It has an element of work experience for either 2 or 3 weeks, and you gain/build upon many other employablility skills like problem solving, confidence, teamwork etc. It won't affect her benefits if she is signing on. She will need to sign on to be refered unless she is volunteering and then she wouldn't get paid anything.

HTH

x

Do you really feel that this would be suitable for someone with A levels - don't you think she would be quite out of place?

flutterbyuk25

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Do you really feel that this would be suitable for someone with A levels - don't you think she would be quite out of place?

Not at all.

The course is open to anyone aged 16-25 who is not currently in education, employment or training regardless of their education standard. At the moment there are 2 uni graduates on my current team. On my last team I had a young lad who had 4 'A' grade A levels who was taking a gap year but could not get employment due to lack of work experience. During the course he had a 3 week work placement at M&S and was subsequently offered a 30 hour permanent contract with them.

Surely it's better to do something to gain skills rather than nothing at all? Yes, there are lots of educational underachievers on the course but surely someone with A Levels will be a good role model for these?

x