This paper explores the role of career guidance practitioners in relation to their responsibility to provide impartial advice and guidance and how this might be challenged in view of recent debates regarding the aspirations of young people. It questions whether practitioners can encourage the ‘raising of aspirations’ whilst remaining impartial? These potential contradictions are explored drawing upon themes of social and cultural capital, equality and power. The concepts of aspirations and impartiality are explored within the context of current career education and guidance policy and how this impacts on practice.