Career guidance

lisajane

Can anyone tell me if it would be helpful for a 26 year old who doesn't have a clue what to do with her life, visit a career guidance counsellor?

What would they end up doing? Would you have to have some kind of idea and they guide you and give advice?

Are they expensive?

ntlbell

my personal opinion is they're not very helpful

unless you want to know what jobs go with what degree.

go to your local library and get "what colour is my parachute"

but in general try and figure out what do you enjoy doing

what would you do if you were not even getting paid for it

have a look at your hobbies and see if there's any related jobs etc etc

AmberWaives

lisajane wrote: »

Can anyone tell me if it would be helpful for a 26 year old who doesn't have a clue what to do with her life, visit a career guidance counsellor?

What would they end up doing? Would you have to have some kind of idea and they guide you and give advice?

I would pursue this through your local VEC (Vocational Education Committee). Each VEC has a website. Some of the individual schools/institutions who are part of a VEC have on-site adult education guidance services that include guidance counsellors. This is free (funded by your taxes).

Like all things, the quality will vary depending on the skills and personality of the individual counsellor.

My own experience with this has been 100% positive and I couldn't recommend it enough.

artyeva

op - while i can't tell you to go or not to go to a guidance councellor let me share my experience of a few yrs ago with ya...

i went to a guidance councellor for a few reasons - i was in a dead end admin job, one in a long line of dead end admin jobs after i left college with a fairly useless degree. (got good results but not many employers were looking for it). I knew I had developed skills like management and education and IT and so on but I had no idea what ''job'' would suit me and use these skills.

I went to this crowd in Letterkenny who were well advertised, their website seemed convincing, etc. I met with them, talked about the kinds of jobs and industries I would be interested in working in and why, was given a link to one of those online tests to do in my own time, then was to meet with them again where I was told I would be given a full result on the tests on my skills and aptitudes. They said they would go through the results, give me advice on the next steps to take to get me into the job I 'should' be in, and give me ongoing support and advice throughout. All for a few hundred yo-yos.

This all sounds really cool, doesn't it?

Except the online test was a joke - when I met with them again they basically had typed up my first conversation with them, and said ''yeah - you'd be great at X, Y and Z but never went through why or how they came to this conclusion. The ongoing support? I was given an e-mail address.

Waste of money and time. :mad:

Go to your local VEC guidance councellor instead.

Gibbins123

I know someone that went to one a few years ago and i think it was 70 or 75 euro.

Fas have recently enough put up a pretty good career test on their website. You answers some questions and get list of jobs, and you can answer some more to narrow it down, and answer some more again!

It was fairly accurate with the areas i would be interested in, with one or two that i woudn't have thought of before.

I think that no matter what a guidance councellor or test tells you... its you who knows best(yes even if you are totally confused). Look into courses, even short evening courses, of careers that interest you. You can get a cert or something and by the end of it know whether you liked it or not. But i think even just reading the course prospectus helps!

Still not sure of my ideal job but am keeping in mind some of the things that came up on the fas online career test.