Careers advice

Back when I was at school we used to have what were optimistically called 'Careers Lessons'. On paper these sessions were supposed to help us prepare for the world of work, but in reality they varied between an hour-long doss on a Friday afternoon and an hour of patronisingly suggesting to the girls in class that hairdresser was a valuable and fulfilling career. At no point were we taught anything useful, like how to write a CV, how to track socioeconomic trends for indicators of what skillsets were likely to be of use to the employment market in future, or how to negotiate the welfare system.

From time to time, though, we'd be given some sort of aptitude test which would tell us what career we were perfectly suited for. By simply ticking a few boxes, the checklist (or the computer - we were very technologically advanced) would narrow down the options of our futures to the ideal outcome. Naturally it told me I should become an airline pilot. Or a bank teller. I'm still waiting.

I was thinking about this last night. Does anyone - ever - end up in the career that careers advisors tell them is ideal for them? Anyone?