ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the challenges that leaders and managers face in organising their careers services and positioning their experts in response to institutional employability agendas. It focuses on the evolution of higher education careers services and literature on professions and professionalism, to provide context and further perspectives. The chapter explores the professional identity of Careers Advisers and proposed recommendations for action by managers and Careers Advisers themselves that would position Careers Advisers, and their services, as experts in this field. It describes approaches to careers service leadership and management that demonstrably support institutional employability priorities, and can establish Careers Advisers as careers and employability experts, who make an essential contribution to the student experience. A tension, perceived or actual, between student outcomes and institutional priorities has resulted in an encapsulation of expertise and experience which has not always supported the institutional position of careers services as career development and employability experts.
