CICA Registered ↗ 10+ years

About Naomi

Genuinely invested
in your outcome.
Not just your hour.

I'm Naomi — a qualified Career Development Practitioner based in Melbourne. My career has taken me across higher education, international student recruitment, travel industry leadership, and now into private practice. It's been anything but linear, and that's exactly why I'm good at this.

Before working in universities, I spent years in the travel industry — helping people plan backpacking adventures, working holidays, volunteer placements, structured world tours, and everything in between. I've volunteered in Australia and internationally, visited every continent but one (Antarctica is on the list 🧊), worked while travelling, studied while working, and built a full life — family, relationships, personal growth — alongside a career that's never stopped evolving.

I've also navigated some of the harder things life throws at people. I know what it means to keep moving forward when the path isn't clear. That lived experience sits underneath everything I do — not as a badge, but as the reason I can meet people where they actually are.

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Why I built this

I kept watching people rush into decisions that didn't suit them — or freeze because nobody gave them a real framework for figuring it out.

My own path is the reason The Long Haul Careers exists. Not despite its messiness — because of it.

I started my career in travel, which is really just another word for helping people step into the unknown. Gap years, working holidays, volunteer trips, overland journeys — I loved it because the people who came to me weren't looking for a tidy itinerary. They were looking for permission to do something brave, and someone who could help them do it well. I genuinely practice what I preach: I've worked, studied, volunteered, and lived across multiple continents, and I've balanced all of that with the everyday complexity of real life — raising a family, being a partner and friend, caring for ageing parents, and doing my own inner work along the way.

The thread running through all of it — travel, education, personal life — is that I've never followed the expected path, and I've never needed to. That's given me a genuine belief that there is no one right way to build a career or a life. The Long Haul Careers is built on that belief. Not on the idea that institutions fail people (many do brilliant work), but on the conviction that deeply personalised, theory-informed guidance should be available to anyone who needs it — not just the people with access to the most resources.

Third: the theoretical frameworks that best explain how people actually move through career transitions — Chaos Theory of Careers, Happenstance Learning Theory, Motivational Interviewing, Narrative Counselling, the Transtheoretical Model — are genuinely transformative when applied well. But they're almost never available in an accessible, affordable format to the people who need them most.

The Long Haul Careers is my attempt to fix that. The Year Ahead Indicator uses these frameworks properly — not as a gimmick, but as a genuine tool for self-understanding. The sessions are real conversations, not checkbox exercises. And the whole thing is priced so that the people who need it most can actually access it.

Qualifications & Memberships

Evidence-based. Properly qualified.

Career counselling is an unregulated industry in Australia. Anyone can call themselves a careers coach. Here's what makes the difference.

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CICA Member

Career Industry Council of Australia

Australia's peak national body for career practitioners. CICA membership requires demonstrated qualifications, professional development, and adherence to a code of ethics.

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ACCE Member

Australian Career Counsellors and Educators

Professional association for formally qualified career counsellors. ACCE membership reflects specialist training in counselling approaches applied to career development.

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IAEVG Member

International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance

The international professional body for careers practitioners, connecting Australian practice to global evidence and standards.

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10+ Years in Education

Four Victorian Universities

Ten-plus years spanning admissions, student advice, pathway planning, international recruitment, and transnational education across four Victorian universities. I understand the higher education landscape deeply — and I know how to help people navigate it with confidence.

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Qualified Practitioner

Formal careers counselling training

Not a life coach. Not a 'career strategist.' A formally qualified careers practitioner with specific training in the evidence-based frameworks that underpin everything The Long Haul Careers does.

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Confidential & Ethical

Bound by professional codes

As a member of professional associations, I'm bound by codes of ethics covering confidentiality, informed consent, and client-centred practice. You're safe here.

The long haul, literally

I've lived the non-linear path.
All of it.

Gap year planning isn't an add-on for me — it's personal. Here's some of what I've carried into this work.

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Every continent but one

I've travelled, worked, volunteered, and lived across six continents. Antarctica is on the list. That breadth of experience shapes how I talk about gap years, working holidays, and international pathways — because I've actually done them.

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Work, study, travel — at once

I didn't do things in sequence. I worked while travelling, studied while working, volunteered internationally, and built a career in parallel with a full personal life. The balancing act is something I understand from the inside.

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Travel industry roots

Years in the travel industry — helping people plan backpacking trips, volunteering experiences, working holidays, and structured world tours — gave me a practical, real-world knowledge base for gap year planning that no textbook provides.

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Volunteering — here and abroad

I've volunteered in Australia and internationally, including with the Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) as a careers practitioner. I know what genuine contribution feels like, and I know how to help clients find experiences that are meaningful — not just résumé filler.

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Real life, in full

I've raised a family, maintained meaningful relationships, cared for parents through serious illness, and kept going through the hard things. I'm not just theoretically familiar with life complexity — I've navigated it, and I'm still navigating it.

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Lifelong learner — by necessity

My own learning has never stopped — formal qualifications, short courses, on-the-job, and through life itself. I've never needed a straight line to get somewhere meaningful. That's the whole point of The Long Haul.

My Approach

Five theories. One integrated approach.

Click each theory to understand how it shows up in practice, and why the combination works better than any single framework alone.

Why these five? Each was developed independently, in different fields, by different researchers. What they share is a fundamental commitment to meeting people where they are, not where a system thinks they should be. Together, they cover readiness, motivation, relationship to change, self-narrative, and growth conditions. That's the full picture.

What working with me actually feels like

Not a consulting session where I give you a list and send you on your way. Not a coaching session where you're asked to visualise your ideal life. A conversation with someone who asks the right questions, knows the landscape, and has no interest in telling you what to want.

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Coffee-chat energy

Warm, direct, and real. No corporate jargon. No scripts. You'll feel like you're talking to someone who actually gets it.

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Where you actually are

I start with where you are, not where you think you should be. Your pace, your circumstances, your constraints; all of it is part of the conversation.

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No judgement. Genuinely.

Whatever your situation; none of it disqualifies you from a meaningful path forward.

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Specific and actionable

You leave with actual next steps based on your specific situation, this week, not some hypothetical future week.

Book your free discovery call

20 minutes. No commitment. Just a conversation.