What is Adult Directions Online?

Adult Directions Online is a careers and skills matching tool designed to help adults with their career decisions. The latest version offers instant and flexible access to:

Careers matching

Adult Directions Online provides careers matching which produces a personalised list of career suggestions based on an individual's work interests. The program matches to specific careers and has a facility for the client to review and change their answers where appropriate. This enables the client to undestand why particular careers have been suggested. They can also look up their own career ideas and see how their responses match up to the key aspects of particular careers. Users can also enter health factors to see how they may affect career choice.

Adult Directions Online also provides a very comprehensive database of careers with detailed information on over 1,800 career titles. Careers information in Adult Directions Online is updated 3 times a year to ensure clients are receiving the most accurate and up-to-date information possible. The careers information is also enhanced with over 3,000 high quality photographs of people at work.

Skills matching and analysis

Adult Directions Online offers instant access to skills matching and analysis. This provides clients with the opportunity to identify and assess their own transferable skills and produce their own Skills Audit. Users are asked questions on 45 skills such as reading, using a computer or problem solving. These are rated by the individual from unskilled to highly skilled. A list of careers is displayed with a rating in terms of the client's skills. They can also look at careers that are matched to both their skills and likes and dislikes.

Clients can also see how their skills compare to those required for particular jobs. They can search any of the careers and see how suitable that career is for their skills. This will help your clients to identify their top skills and skills they wish to improve.

Client-based Action Plans

Clients have direct access to their own client-based Action Plan. The Action Plan can be used to set short, medium and long-term goals for their career. If your clients have completed the careers and skills matching they may use their matched list of career suggestions and the results of their skills audit in their Action Plan. It will also help the individual to consider their own career ideas or skills they wish to improve.

The Action Plan is easy to access and is supplied in a printer-friendly format. Creating a personal Action Plan helps your clients to focus on their personal career goals and supports them with the next step in their career.

Your own career ideas

Client can explore their own career ideas in Adult Directions Online. With instant access to all the careers, the individual can look at any of the careers and the related information. If they have completed the careers and/or skills matching they can also compare their results to careers of their choice.

General career-related articles

General articles in Adult Directions Online examine career-related issues. A range of useful articles such as Job Applications, Age and Employment and Access to Higher Education provide valuable information and web/email links to further information.