Career Guidance for junior to leaving cert ages?

jess61067

Hi there,
I am not sure if this is in the right forum.. but hopefully..
I am looking for anyone who has used the services of a career guidance teacher in Dublin. Am looking for someone for my son who has just done his junior cert. I want someone well qualified and quite a bit of experience. Also do you get reports from them or do they communicate just with the child or parents too?

Regards
j

JSK 252

jess61067 wrote: »

Hi there,
I am not sure if this is in the right forum.. but hopefully..
I am looking for anyone who has used the services of a career guidance teacher in Dublin. Am looking for someone for my son who has just done his junior cert. I want someone well qualified and quite a bit of experience. Also do you get reports from them or do they communicate just with the child or parents too?

Regards
j

Is there not a career guidance teacher in your sons school?

Kareir

JSK 252 wrote: »

Is there not a career guidance teacher in your sons school?

Aye, that's where I got mine done. It worked very well.

_Kar.

JSK 252

I just thought it was the norm for schools to have one.

On the subject my career guidance teacher was like a mother to us. You actually cannot comprehend the amount of help and support she gave me and my class through out the year. We were seriusly scared that the woman was gonna have a heart attack!

Fad

Awful career guidance consellors are pretty common place though, I got on very well with the one in my school. but I know a lot of people didnt.

Delta Kilo

jess61067 wrote: »

Hi there,
I am not sure if this is in the right forum.. but hopefully..
I am looking for anyone who has used the services of a career guidance teacher in Dublin. Am looking for someone for my son who has just done his junior cert. I want someone well qualified and quite a bit of experience. Also do you get reports from them or do they communicate just with the child or parents too?

Regards
j

There should be one in the school. If he is doing TY (which I would recommend) then he will have loads of times to have meetings with said teacher and also do various work experience placements.

The teacher, if your son has no clue what he wants to do, will do an assessment, I think it is called the Hogan careers aptitude test or something of that nature. He/she will then advise certain areas/industries that he should look into. They wont advise on specific courses/colleges but they will give you a broad range of options including IT's and "back-door" entries.

That said, don't be upset if the teacher advises to stay clear of eg engineering because his maths aptitude result was below average and you wanted him to become a civil engineer so he could design you a better house or something.

IrishKnight

I always found Career Guidance to be a bit hit and miss. Personally, I'd tell you son, try to think about what subjects he really likes in school and does well in it. Following that, start to look into careers that involve those subjects. Get your son to do some research into job he might like, ask here on boards or go to someone who does the job. In my exp., most times they are more than willing to talk about it.

In terms of college, I'd recommend that your son keeps to "general" courses such as Arts or Science. That way, when the time comes, and he discovers that he doesn't like doing the "Greek and Roman Food in the Third Centenary" degree he won't have to drop out and apply...

/2 cent

Jammyc

http://www.qualifax.ie/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=25

I have tried this and found it to be a little helpful.

http://www.careerdirections.ie/ that one is quite good though.

I would get your son to take the second one anyway. Hope it helps.

spurious

The cut backs (which never stopped during the 'boom' times) did away with a lot of career guidance teachers, along with special needs people and lots of other posts.

The latest cuts will make it even worse, along with schools dropping subjects and levels, classes getting bigger etc. Not to worry though, it will still be the teachers' fault when the whole thing falls apart.

OP- many of the private career guidance people are aimed at adults in particular industries. If your child's school still has a guidance post, let them run a few tests first. Be careful though because many of those tests throw up all sorts of weird results and it is often easier and more accurate to go with what the child's interests are. Some people don't become clear on these until during college, so the best plan is to use subject choices at LC to give the widest possible choice at college (if they are interested in going to college, not everyone is).

stainluss

In my experience, many tend to be crap. (in ty we spent more time in careers talking about emotions and morals than we did the future)

If you cant find a good one, direct your son towards websites such as www.careerdirections.ie
www.qualifax.ie
and www.ucas.ac.uk if he cant find a suitable course in Ireland (the UK has courses for everything)

Ask him what hes interested in and then give him some feedback with what careers could follow. Those websites have questionnaires designed to do this.

That said, he could have changes his mind several times since now before his LC, i know i have. (I went from art, to IT, to Business, to advertising now) I wouldnt be surprised if i change again before we do the mocks:)

Andree

Hi Jess,
It is important to choose someone who is experienced and qualified for your son. Try the Institute of Career Guidance website www.igc.ie. They have a list of qualified practitioners here. You could also look up under "Careers" in the Golden Pages. There are also many people here. What you need to ask is:
Are they members of the Institute of Career Guidance Counsellors? (If they are, they are qualified)
What type of tests do they do? (They should be Psychometric and include at least a Personality Profile and an Interest Inventory)
Do they provide a report? ( You should be handed a full written report)
Do they do parental feedback? ( You should, as his Mother, be provided with at least a 30min feedback as soon as your son is finished)
The above information is about private career guidance counsellors, but check first what service is given in school. Do not be afraid to ring and chat to the Career Guidance Counsellor.
If you find that your son needs a little extra direction, he could work with a private practitioner first and then link back into the counsellor in school.
Hope this is of help to you!
The best of luck!

Secoundrow

In my opinion a career guidence teacher out side school is a waste of time.
They are only there to inform you of systems like CAO and UCAS and how they work
and while they can perform certain aptitude tests these are majorly flawed in that if you like something when you select a answer your biased
and if you havent a clue what it is you want to do, they mean noting as youll get a random answer at evry attempt

so in short your school should provide this service.
Its up to your son to decide upon what course he would like to do.
What career he wants to do for the rest of his life!
no one can tell him that

So basically what im saying is career guidence teacher are useless C*nts who get paid to much to do noting

neasaph

Hi Jess,
Sorry to hear your in a bit of difficulty.
I had a similar problem with my kids, for various reasons they were not getting enough time or advice on they type of career or interests they were naturally maybe inclined towards.
I found after a bit of search and references a lady. She was excellent and thorough. She did various assessments and gave great advice to all my kids - who are all very different.
I would not like to post her number but i do have her email address : sarahgunn@ireland.com or email me privately and I will send on to you if you like
Best of luck
Vanessa