Aimhigher - West Midlands
This website was produced to show the progression opportunities that exist depending on the subject area that you wish to follow: It also has links to courses that can be taken to enable you to progress in your career. The courses are only available in the West Midlands, but this is still a useful site because of the information that is provided, including job descriptions and progression opportunities.

Rating:

Direct Gov
Direct Gov is a Government website that has a good section on Work and Careers. There's a good section on Planning Your Career and another on Finding and Applying for your First Job. This includes information on finding a job, the skills you might need, CVs, application forms and interview skills. There is also a link to another part of the site called What type of work would suit you? When you are in work, there is another useful part of the site on Your Rights and Responsibilities at Work. Overall a good site to start.

Rating:

Breakinto.biz
This site was established by the Council for Administration (CfA) to provide information on the various jobs that are available in the field of business administration. The job information includes pay rates and the sort of work that you would be doing in a typical day. It also provides advice on the qualifications that can be gained from differing starting points. What it doesn’t do is show what job you can go into with a particular qualification - you will have to look at the requirements for each job described.

Rating:

Connexions
There are two relevant sections for careers advice on the website:

Connexions Careers
This site has information for various age groups. It has a section on careers resources that includes downloadable booklets on subjects such as careers and a series called ‘Working in…’, that tells you what it’s like to work in particular jobs, as well as case studies of people who are doing those jobs. There is also a link to a course choice site that tells you about LearnDirect courses.

Jobs4U
There are various tools to provide you with a range of jobs that you could do and a useful section called “but what's it REALLY like?” that tries to give you a bit more information about a particular job. There is also a section to help with your CV. There are a lot of useful links in the GENERAL INFO section on a wide range of things from Apprenticeships to Financial Help and Higher Education Both sites are certainly worth looking at.

Rating:

Careers Gateway
This site is produced by Careersoft, a careers software company. There are links to the local Connexions services, articles on a range of different skill areas, and a good section on job searching which includes CVs, self assessment, interviews, etc. There is a good A-Z of jobs with large numbers of links to various organisation associated with a particular job or profession.

Rating:

Cascaid
Cascaid produce a number of software packages, including Kudos, which is used by a lot of schools and colleges to help with careers advice. There is a useful section called Careers Hub that has sections on working abroad, higher education, job hunting and more. There is even a Careers Surgery where you can ask the Career Doctor specific careers questions. You can find this here. There are also some answers to previous questions asked of the doctor. If you get bored there’s even a Fun Section.

Rating:

Channel 4
Channel 4’s main site is called Brilliant Careers. There are some useful sections on applying for jobs, a toolkit to help with your career decisions and notes on presenting yourself. There is also a section with video clips of people in different occupations. Although the site looks good, there are parts that hang and fail to connect and it is not currently being supported.

Rating:

Learn Direct
Besides providing on-line learning materials, Learn Direct also provides careers advice in this section.

The Job Profile section contains over 700 job profiles as well as the job descriptions, entry requirements, training needs and links to relevant sites. The website also provides an e-mail facility for personal advice from a careers advisor.

There is also a telephone support line (0800 100 900) that offers advice to individuals, regardless of age.

Rating:

NHS Careers
As the title suggests, this site explains some of the many occupations that exist in the NHS. Each job type is subdivided into particular roles with job descriptions and links to relevant professional bodies. Some sections list appropriate institutions offering relevant courses. There is also information on jobs and rates of pay. An excellent site if you want to work for the NHS.

Rating:

Prospects
This site has been established to help graduates to find work. If you are undecided about what you could do with a degree qualification, this link will provide you with some of the alternative job options that you would have with a degree in a particular subject. The rest of the site is also worth looking at.

Rating:

Vocational Learning
This is a website that was set up as part of the 14-19 learning agenda. It was designed to help schools with the changing curriculum, as well as young people, parents and employers. There is a reasonable section for students that describes what employers are looking for in particular jobs, the types of jobs available and what qualifications are needed. It can be found here. The main users of the site appear to be teachers. The big failure of the site is that it hardly mentions Apprenticeships!

Rating:

Others
In addition to these more general sites, there are many others available offering advice within specific sectors. A good way to start is to go to the relevant Sector Skills Council website. You can find a list, including who they represent if you click here.