How do you know where to find good quality careers information that is helpful and accurate? It’s all too easy to make assumptions about jobs and careers based on less-than-reliable and out of date sources. Media portrayals of job and careers information can be angled to provide a ‘story’ and can often be misleading. Many websites are trying to ‘sell’ you products and services and will have a vested interest how they present information. Many of us will believe and trust what we hear through social media rather than relying on evidence-based information and reliable sources. Look at the number of people hoodwinked by fake COVID news on vaccines, for example.
This week I’m going to share with you some valuable, trustworthy sources of information and expertise that can be relied on to help you if you:
- Want to find out more about particular jobs
- Are currently applying for jobs and need advice
- Want to explore what kinds of jobs might suit you
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The National Careers Service
Many people remain unaware of this government-funded resource for all-age careers support. The website contains free and impartial careers information, advice and guidance to anyone aged 13+. You can speak to a careers adviser or online through webchat. You can complete a skills assessment which takes around 5-10 minutes. Based on the answers you can then explore possible career suggestions from 800 available career profiles .
If your job suggestions are in a sector that has been impacted by COVID, you can call an adviser who will have knowledge of local opportunities available in your area.
I personally found the questionnaire results a bit basic, although the information on the occupations themselves was quite helpful. It’s probably most helpful to those starting out on their career journey rather than mid-career changers.
Conveniently the website does link to the recently launched Government’s Skills Toolkit, which is a really useful resource, providing access to a wide range of free courses designed to help people develop the skills recruiters are looking for.
2. Prospects
The Prospects website requires you to register in order to access many valuable free online careers resources and questionnaires available.
Resources include a comprehensive and helpfully detailed range of hundreds of job profiles, job sector information, employer profiles, advice on applying for jobs, self-employment, apprenticeships and applying to university and post-graduate study. There are two careers questionnaires– Career Planner, which explores your skills, motivations and desires. It’s suitable for anyone with GCSE level and upwards; job suggestions made will depend on the level of education you imput. Job Match makes suggestions based on your skills to highlight possible job roles. I completed both this and the National Careers Service questionnaire. I found Prospects Job Match suggestions were more nuanced and helpful than the National Careers Service ones.
If you have a degree, you can take a look at ‘What can I do with my degree?’ and explore the range of options that are listed. These can help to broaden out the range of available possibilities to you and perhaps challenge your assumptions about what’s possible.
N.B. If you are a recent graduate, it may be helpful to know that most graduate recruiters don’t mind what your degree is in- unless a role requires a specific technical or scientific subject.
3. icould
icould is a charity and many of the resources on this website focus on interviews with people who perform particular job roles. A visually pleasing website, it’s populated with over 1,000 engaging, short video clips of people talking first-hand about the jobs they do. You can search by job type or subject.
A really smart extra: each profile is supported by UK labour market information. which covers how much people in specific jobs earn, what qualifications and skills you need, employment prospects, which sectors jobs can be found in and where can jobs be located in the UK.
Many of us will work for around 50+ years. That’s a long time to do jobs we don’t enjoy. Use these web resources to explore and consider whether you discover jobs that might be more fulfilling than the one you have.
“Find out what you like doing best and get someone to pay you for doing it.” —Katherine Whitehorn
