Careers advisers are high school teachers who have completed special training in career education. They create and run career programs that help students learn about different education and career options. They also organise activities like resume writing workshops, help with job hunting, and support with applying for further study.

Careers advisers work closely with parents, teachers, employers, community groups, and training providers to make sure career programs meet students’ needs.

They agree on their duties with the school principal. As specialist teachers, they help the principal plan, run, and improve the school’s career education.

Qualifications

Careers advisers are qualified high school teachers who have finished an approved career education course, either through their bachelor’s degree or further study.

Teachers who want to become careers advisers can get paid while they study through the Teach and Learn Scholarship (specialist teaching areas) – Careers adviser.

Careers advisers help students explore their education and career options. They liaise with parents, teachers, employers, community agencies, as well as education and training providers to deliver career education programs and activities for groups of students or individuals.

Careers advisers:

• guide students to decide on and develop career goals, explore career options and create effective career and transition strategies
• assist students to identify abilities, skills and interests through a range of careers resources and learning opportunities
• work with other teachers to develop students’ employability skills, expand their knowledge and experience of the workplace
• contribute to the school calendar to provide careers activities throughout the year to avoid burnout and avoid clashes with exams and assessments
• negotiate a careers space and timetabling to deliver career education
• help students, parents and carers understand how the curriculum, subject selection, HSC, further education and training, as well as employment impact on career decisions
• provide workplace learning opportunities for students
• provide opportunities for students to learn about careers and career pathways, working conditions, skills shortages and work/life roles including entrepreneurship
• support parents and carers to use tools and strategies to help search for a satisfying career path for students
• ensure students know how to get financial support for further study
• keep careful records of programs, careers counselling, work experience and workplace learning as required by the Retention and disposal legal and department obligations.

To become a careers adviser in NSW public schools, you will need to complete approved courses in secondary teaching and careers education. The become a teacher page outlines the steps you will need to take to become a teacher in a NSW public school.

Studies in careers education may be undertaken through undergraduate study or as a combination of undergraduate and postgraduate study.

Requirements to become a qualified careers adviser in NSW public schools include:

1. be an approved secondary teacher with the NSW Department of Education
2. complete an approved postgraduate program designed to prepare teachers for employment as a careers adviser.

Teach and Learn Scholarship (Specialist Teaching Area)

Approved teachers, can be supported while you upskill as a Teacher Librarian, Careers Adviser or English as an Additional Language/Dialect teacher. Learn more about the Teach and Learn Scholarship.

Transition advisers are qualified secondary teachers that have completed transition adviser training. They provide clear and practical support to help students move smoothly from school to their post-school options, whether that is further study, training, or starting a job.

This job suits teachers who:

• Build strong relationships with students
• Encourage students to learn and take part in school
• Work well with other staff
• Make connections with local businesses and community groups

School principals choose which teachers to train as transition advisers.

Training
Before choosing a teacher for Transition Adviser Training, schools should think about:

• their capacity and commitment to allocate adequate time to facilitate the role for two years for no less than 0.4 FTE non-teaching time for a secondary school
• a willingness to establish or maintain and support a careers and pathways team at the school, and
• a willingness to participate in on-going evaluation of the transition adviser role for two years.

The Career and Workplace Learning team runs a yearly training program that lasts three days. This training pays for relief teachers, travel, accommodation, and the course costs.

Before attending the training, nominated teachers complete a self-directed action research project or environmental scan. This involves reviewing the school context, local community, and available employment, education, and training opportunities.

The transition adviser works as a member of a school to work team by actively working in the following areas:

• promoting the active engagement and retention of targeted students
• collaborating with targeted students to develop a personalised program of career and transition support
• collaborating with staff and students to develop programs for the important transition points in and out of school
• developing and strengthening partnerships between schools, industry, business, government and non-government organisations, to provide identified students with authentic career learning opportunities
• promoting effective communication strategies between schools, employers and local communities
• seeking opportunities through community support agencies for students most likely to be experiencing disengagement from learning
• connecting with the student wellbeing team
• linking with community youth and wellbeing support organisations and other local initiatives available to the school community.

Case study - Chris, Careers Adviser.

I wish that all teachers could see students from the perspective that I do to understand that the work that they are doing daily in their classrooms really matters to people and it affects what they go and do in their lives. And they are affecting that in ways that they don't notice because they only see one tiny sliver of that in their subject.

As a careers adviser, I work with students to develop their post-school plans and create pathways for them to reach those goals that they have created. Part of the job that I have is really helping them plan from what I call the inside out. Thinking first about what they value, what is meaningful to them, what might give them purpose in life, and starting from that place and planning forwards from there.

I have a written post-school plan that I create with students and it is built on a sort of three pronged approach, and that is that students need a plan for the best. They need a plan for the worst. And they need a plan for what's likely. Because when students are thinking about what they really want to happen, that plan for the best, they think if that doesn't happen, then what's going to happen is the worst.

And they can sort of catastrophise this and look at it as failure. So you bring the conversation around to but what's likely to happen? And we then play all those scenarios out in terms of their planning. I had a student called Will, who is a real model of the joys of being a careers adviser. My role in Will's career choices was really that of a sounding board.

A lot of our discussions centered around spitballing thoughts, trying out ideas in in an environment that allowed him to have sometimes some bad ideas and to discuss what made them bad ideas. But what might be a better way to approach it to maximize his outcomes. So it was a strategic role.

The reason I go to this effort is because these are experiences I could have used myself when i was at school. Overall, I want students to feel like they got to the end of high school and that they were able to gain the opportunities that were meaningful and valuable to them. Careers has certainly changed since I was at school. It's much more visible now, and ultimately the answer is because I can see that it matters and it and it has an effect on people. And if I can do that in a way that helps students get where they are trying to go, then it's what I do.

[End of transcript]

Case study - Melissa, Careers Adviser.

What inspires me with being a careers adviser is to help students find what they're aligned to. That thing that lights you up every day, that makes you feel alive. My name's Melissa Parrish, and I'm a careers adviser. As a careers adviser, the key outcomes I want for my students is for them to feel confident in their career and transition planning that they have had many opportunities and exposure to explore lots of different options, to see what they're aligned to, to see what they're interested in.

So they're really making informed choices about their future pathways. The careers adviser's role is really demanding. There's one of us in a school doing so many different projects. You know, and careers education is everyone's business. They should be mapped through the curriculum where there's explicit outcomes for students. And so when it's embedded through the key learning areas across the school, that's where the success lies for the student.

A strategy I use to embed career outcomes into the curriculum is connecting with the with a business or a industry. So I've done this through the Regional Industry Education Partnerships and just local business. So linking these collaborations, I feel, is transformative for careers education because it matches the syllabus outcomes with industry and it's also for me about building their qualifications so they have choices because it really ends up about education is giving them choices again to make informed choices about their future.

A few years ago, one of my students was equally passionate and talented in science, in STEM based subjects, and art. My advice to the student was to really explore both options through school and opportunities, she was exposed to both and those, so she had attended a STEM camp that was offered to Aboriginal students and she also worked with an Aboriginal artist and she was directly linked to industry and occupations in those experiences for her.

Yeah, I'm really proud of this student because essentially she went into the environmental science degree. She has a passion for the environment and science and utilised her success in the HSC, but ultimately she's ended up pursuing her passion and talent in art and visual arts, and she's had the confidence to to go down and not so traditional structured pathway where she is aligned to. This is what I want for all of the students to have these successful transitions where they really have the confidence to explore that lifelong learning and that just leads them to what they're aligned with, which is a great outcome.

[End of transcript]

Case study - Kate, Careers Adviser.

There's so many components to this role. There's so much variety. Every day looks really, really different. But it's not just about sitting down and talking to students and showing them the pathway beyond high school. It's so much bigger than that. My name is Kate and I'm a careers adviser. I think that a careers adviser can have quite a dramatic impact on a student's future and not for the reasons that most people might think.

I think it's about providing a safe space to talk through ideas. I think it's providing that opportunity to build rapport with someone who cares about their future, who's a cheerleader for their future, who wants nothing but the best for them outside of their family. Someone who is specifically inside a school to support them transitioning from high school into the bigger world.

The outcomes that I desire for my students to graduate from high school will include what I've put together with the leavers pass. So it comes down to leadership, extracurricular activities and involvement. Academic achievement, which is not about coming first in a class or ranking first in a class, it's more about the work ethic that's actually behind that. V for volunteering because it's nice actually to participate in a selfless act.

From there it is employment experience, so I like them to get some kind of work experience. Relevant experience, which is related to the pathway that they're looking to pursue beyond high school. And then lastly, it's student led projects. So getting involved in something, coming up with an idea and seeing it through. I remember one of our alumni, Alex, he was here in my very first year at Caringbah High School.

He's a memorable student because he came to me with two competing pathways and he was really trying to decide between medicine and a business pathway. Through the process of keeping both opportunities open to him, and we didn't want to close any doors prematurely, we really followed through and made sure that we had done the due diligence to make sure he was making the right choice for him.

At the end of the day, he actually really excelled in the social sciences, and that is the decision that he decided to pursue that particular pathway. It made me feel really great working with Alex through that process because it was a tough decision for him. And when you feel like your piece of the puzzle, when it comes to making such an important decision about your future, it's so nice that you can contribute in one way, shape or form.

And I really love that that's my role in providing that space for the conversation and to try and help them build the confidence in themselves that they know that they are making the right decision for them.

[End of transcript]