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The Help Center of Programmers specifically says not to ask for career advice but people do it anyway. Should I consider the Help Center outdated or only loosely enforced?

And what about a career advice site on the network? There are 70+ sites, and most of them are for relatively narrow interests (which is not a criticism, I enjoy looking through the many sections). A career section seems like it would be very popular. Also, a careers section would help keep career questions off the other sites.

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I am a moderator on The Workplace.

Some questions related to career advice are on-topic for Workplace. However. This is NOT all questions related to career advice.

Make sure you have a clear, answerable question. Bad career questions are "what should I do? should I learn skill X? take job Y? go into field Z?" These are nearly impossible to answer and unfortunately are the most common.

Make sure your question is about work/career but not a specific job. Questions like "what skills do I need to get a job as an X?" are not on-topic because they are about specific domain areas ranging from software architecture to plumbing to dentistry.

See this link for a better explanation.

Good questions will be focused on asking the how/why related to career questions.

For example, asking "should I work for a startup or big MNC?" is a bad question. Asking What are the risks and benefits of working at a start up over an established Company is a good question.

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There is now workplace.stackexchange.com, a site "for members of the workforce navigating the professional setting". Workplace has many questions related to career advice, such as

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While there isn't a specific "career talk" site on the Network, that doesn't mean there couldn't be one. Support your favorite proposal (below). We'll probably have to merge these interests in some way that combines forces and creates an excellent site. Take your pick:

Software Engineering SE (formerly known as Programmers) is not a career site unless it is really, really specific to a programmer's issue. Most "programmer career" questions could equally apply to just about any field, and that's why they are not generally accepted on that site.

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    Four of these proposals are dead and one is no longer a proposal. It might make sense to delete this answer, since the progs and workplace perspectives are fully covered by Anna's and enderland's, respectively. :)
    – Air
    Aug 19, 2015 at 23:10

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