School careers advisors are like a “backwards Google” and the tools they use are “Orwellian” and “detached from reality”, or at least so said journalist and concerned parent James Panichi in this masthead last month.

He is both harsh and fair, right and wrong. The same goes for the hundred plus comments which generally echoed his complaints. There was particular opprobrium reserved for the use of online matching assessments.

Choosing one career early in life doesn’t mean we’ll end up doing it forever, so it’s important to know how to change tack.Credit: Louise Kennerley

I have been researching career development and training careers advisors for almost 30 years and some things never change. The most common complaint without fail over all that time was and continues to take the form of “I / my child/ partner was told by a careers advisor that I should be a [insert a bizarre or inappropriate occupation]“.

Either the complaint is left at that, or frequently, the denouement is appended “and look at me now” or “and now I am a brain surgeon”. Or substitute an occupation with no bearing on the recalled recommendation.

Part of the problem is the selective memories of the complainants. Unusual occupational recommendations tend to be better recalled........

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