National Careers Week a huge success for college students…

This week the Association of Colleges (AoC) and its members took part in National Careers Week highlighting further the importance of careers advice and the need to improve it. AoC, in partnership with the National Union of Student (NUS), produced a toolkit for colleges for use throughout what we have been calling our ‘week of action’, which has provided them with a different activity to do with their students each day of the week to share on social media. Not only did college students engage with our toolkit’s activities, several colleges also used the week to openly support our Careers Guidance: Guaranteed campaign which is calling on the government to ensure that all young people have access to careers advice on post-14 education, training and employment options. Our President, Richard Atkins, also highlighted the campaign in this week’s blog: Choosing the right path on National Careers Week. A new microsite, dedicated to the campaign, has been launched. It’s available at: http://careersguidanceguaranteed.com/. Here, you will find useful information about why the campaign was started, resources and photos of our activities. For more information on this, contact Alfie Brierley. The week started off in style with students getting involved with our origami fortune tellers by filming short videos of themselves finding out which career path they got. Tuesday involved students taking pictures holding up one of our hashtag signs showing either their dream job, what they would have done differently or what route they took to where they are now in order to raise awareness of career options through improving the current system of careers advice. Wednesday was the chance for students to take part in our ‘match the job to the salaries game’ intended to highlight the fact that many students aren’t aware of how much they could earn in different professions given the lack of good quality, independent careers advice. Thursday allowed for students to express whether or not they thought careers advice was good in their local area through our flash poll activity with some very mixed results. Today (6 March) is the final day and several colleges are hosting visits from their local MP to talk about careers advice and all that they have done in support of National Careers Week. Colleges’ activity during the week have all been hugely successful and contributed greatly to raising awareness for good quality, independent and impartial careers advice.