My response to “Careers Advisory Service any use?“, which is in response to “Is careers advice up to the job?“.
a) Students don’t realise the value of the Careers Advisory Service while they’re at uni. I spoke to one University Careers Advisor who said he has friends who do exactly what he does but charge huge consultancy fees for it whereas his students get it for free and don’t value it.
b) For a long time I was cross with the careers advice given to mathematicians – in a lot of places students are just shown the “Finance” boxfile. But then I realised: if you’re going to give maths students the full range of options open to them you will end up throwing half the careers library at them and they will drown in information overload. Now I tell students to check out some careers profiles on the Maths Careers website (www.mathscareers.org.uk), Plus Careers Library (http://plus.maths.org/interview.html) and my podcast Travels in a Mathematical World (www.travelsinamathematicalworld.co.uk) to find out which areas interest them so they can work with the Careers Service to develop their ideas.
Perhaps this is ridiculous, but maybe careers advisors could focus less on giving information and more on providing support and encouragement? I suppose they don’t have the time.
I went to the careers office a few times as an undergraduate in mathematics, and never got much useful help. Usually the advisor themselves focused just on what degree I was doing and said something like, “with a maths degree you can be an actuary,” and showed no interest in learning what I was interested in.
One time I paid to take a test at the careers office, and when the results came back the careers advisor looked up my category in a table and said “Oh, there are no jobs that match your interests.” The interviews were usually short and hurried.
I lacked confidence and felt completely out of place in most of my classes. I was one of very few females, from a working class background, and didn’t relate to the ambitious goals that other students had. All the printed advice seemed to be aimed at people who were better and smarter than me.
Now with a PhD, I still don’t have much hope for any future career that involves mathematics.
This is a very sad story. I’m sorry to hear of your trouble. One of the things I’m very interested in is talking to careers advisors about the advice they give.
For careers advice for a post-PhD… hmm. There is a booklet of advice and areas the IMA finds mathematics graduates go into which might be helpful to you. There might be some relevant information on the Maths Careers website graduate section and there are lists of companies that employ mathematicians on the IMA website under Corporate Affiliates and Friends of Mathematics that might be worth a look.
I think that careers advice for mathematicians is a difficult game and there are some careers advisors who do it well. The trick is to help the rest to become better informed. I am having my biannual meeting with the IMA’s liaison to the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services next week and we will be talking about this.