Since careers are built using a bunch of complicated skills, career advising happens any time someone gives you a suggestion about how to improve the skills related to your career. If we think about what a career is, it appears that pretty much any skill you acquire—as a student, as a worker, or, for that matter, as a human being living with others in society—may be relevant to your career. This means that you have probably heard opinions and received advice about your career from virtually everyone you know.

Unlike other kinds of advice, career advice is something people do ask for. Sometimes it comes unsolicited, and it is important to decide whether to take it or not. Sometimes you don’t even know you are getting it, and it might be the best thing someone’s ever said about how to become a good career-builder. Here are some basic guidelines for thinking about where to get help figuring out how to build a career, and also how to think about the advice you do get. In the end, as with all advice, the decision about what advice to take and what advice not to take (along with the responsibilities that come with making decisions) remains yours alone.

Read on about advising at the Office of Career and Professional Development…

Read on about advising by faculty mentors…

Read on about advice from peers and other informal sources…