The first ever national show for career guidance professionals was a resounding success with 2,000 people networking, learning and sharing best practice from across the industry.

Prospects and the Institute of Career Guidance worked in partnership to deliver the event. It welcomed 100 exhibitors covering different career opportunities and over 30 different seminars giving inspirational insights into the latest developments in career guidance and IAG.

Visitors and exhibitors were thrilled by the prestigious venue, Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, with the event taking place overlooking the pitch. The mixture of learning opportunities on offer by the seminars and networking prospects provided individuals with a clear understanding on how to achieve future goals.

The free seminars were complemented by an exhibition that provided visitors with the latest up-to-date information from employers, industry leaders, education organisations and suppliers to the career guidance industry.

Serena El-Jamal from WorldSkills London 2011 was delighted to be at the show. WorldSkills distributed over 150 DVDs with many people signing up to find out more, and advisers who work with young offenders were really interested in what WorldSkils London 2011 and the skills competitions can offer their clients. WorldSkills will bring together the best young skills talent the country has to offer to compete against competitors from over 50 countries in 45 skill categories. The event is coming to London in 2011.

Many of the UK’s sector skills councils were represented at The National Career Guidance Show including Lantra the Sector Skills Council for environmental and land-based industries as they found out they “had no time to flag” at the active event!

The opportunity to meet with careers advisers was praised by Stacey Gale from Bournemouth University and Ian Palmer from Careers at Sea. Both organisations had good quality discussions and were able to raise the awareness of what they each had to offer.

Ian Palmer commented: “It is good to meet so many advisers in one place. There is a surprising amount of ignorance about merchant navy careers and what we can offer this event has helped us address that.”

The benefits of promoting to a specific industry were reiterated by Alan Edmunds from the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board. There are skills shortages across their sector and the event has created an opportunity to explain the opportunities available for young people and the 750 apprenticeship vacancies each year supported by ECITB. The Engineering Construction industry which deals with substantial construction projects is responsible for much of the infra-structure of the UK, yet when many people think of the construction industry they think of house building. “We are definitely not house builders” laughed Alan “think more power station!”

It was not just the exhibitors who benefited from attending The National Career Guidance Show; guests visiting over the two-days were thrilled with a few making the following comments, “A superb information gathering exercise”, “Excellent talks about blogs and a useful range of organisations”, “The Twitter seminar was brilliant” “Please run the show again - annually”, “Accessible, well-presented and I very much enjoyed it” on the feedback forms.

Following the success of The National Career Guidance Show further events are planned to take place. To find out the latest on when and where visit: www.nationalcareerguidanceshow.com.