Employment Market Opportunists Number 7: The Career Advisors

Refresh your CV on Monster and you get things like this in your mailbox. The details have not been changed to spare the guilty...

Dear Seven Dials

Your CV has been reviewed online and generated some interest with one of our Senior Consultants at our London offices.

I would be most grateful if you could call me on 077224 30666 to discuss your requirements alternatively email mmcbride@active-career.co.uk at your earliest convenience with a view to scheduling an appointment.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,
Melissa McBride
Active Career Management Ltd
133 Houndsditch
London
EC3A 7BX
M: 07722 430666
F: 020 3402 6160
E: mmcbride@active-career.co.uk
W:www.active-career.co.uk

Active Career Transition is a real company. What they provide is career counselling, outsourcing and HR advisory services. They aren't employment agencies and they don't know where the jobs are. They make the majority of their money from companies, mostly from outsourcing assignments, and the rest from charging individual job-seekers for career counselling. Way back in the 90's I went along to a company like them and heard what was so obviously a rehearsed sales spiel, complete with a little ceremony in which the "senior consultant" signed a form "accepting" me as a suitable person to be a client. I can't remember what they charged, but I think there was mention of a career development grant, which was a £5,000 loan from the Government for suitable purposes, which that firm was obviously providing. Can you spell "bottom feeder"?

No, I'm not being harsh. Don't get me started on the whole career-change thing (actually, I will, but not now). The reason you know it doesn't work is that you have never met anyone who speaks highly of them, or indeed at all about them. If it did work, the guys doing the advising - all mysteriously former "senior managers" in name companies who have decided that A Freelancer's Life Is The Life For Them - would have proper jobs with real companies instead of trying to flog you the psychometric testing. (The psychometric testing is always extra.)