Growing Ambitions - career speaker volunteering in education

Welcome to Growing Ambitions!

Are you willing to speak to young people near you about your job and career for half an hour? Click here

Are you looking for career speakers for your secondary school, college or university? Click here

This unique UK-wide careers information service puts real people, doing real jobs, in front of young people as volunteer career Speakers to tell them what their careers are really like and give them great ideas for their future. Growing Ambitions is an award-winning, not-for-profit FREE brokerage service to individuals and employers.

Post-General Election public spending cuts

Public spending is being cut but we cannot afford, as a nation, any lesser investment in careers information for young people – in fact, to ensure they develop the skills we need for the future, we need to be investing more, not less. This seems impossible, but it is not. [Read more in our Pre-General Election Briefing Paper download]

Young people from lower income families continue to be less likely to pursue careers in the professions. Sally Davis, MD comments. Or watch it on YouTube

Here careers education teachers and advisers can find local volunteer career Speakers from among over 1000 career types and growing. This is a FREE service to individuals and to employers who wish to receive career speaking invitations. Organisations whose staff are volunteering through us include Microsoft UK; Adecco; Shaw Trust; and hundreds more. It is a ready-made, high impact CSR activity.

Give a young person a dream, and careers guidance can then be well-targetted and all the more effective.

Within today's Information, Advice and Guidance (IAC) environment, providing vibrant, genuine and informative Word-Related Learning experiences is crucial in helping young people to make good GCSE, A level, Diploma, degree and other training choices, like apprenticeships. In the Staying On report (09/06/2009) by the Equality and Human Rights Commission 94% of young people said they need better career information. Fair access to the Professions carried out a survey among young people and found that 70 per cent of under 14-year-olds have never received careers advice.

Through capacity-building career talks from workplace role models, young people can make informed career plans that are more likely to endure. Young people from Key Stage 3 upwards benefit from this service.

Growing Ambitions is an agent for positive social change, enhanced social inclusion and mobility.