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Hi All,
Not really asking anything in particular but just after any general advice about looking for a new career and possibly moving into IT. I am currently 33 years old and live in London. Apologies if I ramble on a bit too.
Just to give a brief career history; I left uni with a BA in Business Studies in 2003 but never really knew what I wanted to do so spent a year temping in various admin office jobs, I then got a permanent role at a foreign countries embassy processing visas where I spent 3 years before applying internally and getting a job in the finance department where I spent 5 years. I really enjoyed the job - it was very varied, I worked in a small office, knew my job inside out and had good friends, colleagues and felt quite respected at what I did receiving a few promotions whilst in the role reaching a salary of 42k pa = even got to do a bit of travelling around the world visiting other offices.
I was made redundant around 18 months ago from that role due to budget cuts and due to the nature of the role figured that finance would be the best route to follow. I ended up spending 12 months unemployed (apart from a couple of 1 week temp roles) and it was without doubt the worst period of my life. The problem is that the role in the Embassy was quite a specialised role as I guess most public sector jobs are - all the systems used were bespoke and much of the work was tailored for the public sector, i.e. we didn't use ledgers as such, reporting was different to the commercial sector - there were no balance sheets/P&L accounting, no accounts receivable, etc, etc. I also don't have any formal accountancy qualification as there was never any need in the role.
When I was made redundant I never expected to be unemployed for so long, it was a complete nightmare - when I left I set my sights on anything paying over 25k. Set up job searches on all the main sites, signed up with about 30 different agencies and applied for well over 2,000 jobs spending around 4-6 hours a day doing cover/speculative letters, application forms and tailoring my cv to each application. Eventually I got a job by effectively lying way into a role and dumbing down my CV - I did things like turn the bespoke software I used into Sage, used the obscure name of the sub-agency I worked for rather than full name of the overall organisation and turned the two 2 week temping jobs I did into three month roles.
However, the place I have managed to find work in is awful - I'm only on a rolling contract so can be gotten rid of with a days notice, am on an hourly rate paying the equivalent of 25k a year, don't get paid for holiday/sick leave (or even if I'm half an hour late for work) and I've never had so much work to do - am easily doing the work of 2 people and the environment itself is awful, it is a media company and feels very cut-throat to what I'm used to, most of the people I work with are snobs, rarely give me the time of day and I'm pretty much the only introvert in the office so go home feeling pretty low and dread going in each morning, I've never experience anxiety levels like it. No one ever goes home on time and I feel I get looked down upon when I leave at 5.30 rather than slog away til 8 or 9pm.
If it wasn't for the 12 months I spent unemployed I would have left ages ago but that fear of unemployment is holding me there despite what it's doing to my mental health. Even if I did get taken on permanently there would be no hope of any sort of progression as it's a bog standard finance assistant role - I don't think the salary for the role has moved since 2007 either. I just don't know what my future holds now as these appear to be the only type jobs I can get now, I can't seem to get any similar position to what I was on before because I lack finance/accountancy qualifications and the competition is just so great. I did try to take up an accountancy qualification in the ACCA but just don't have it in me if I'm completely honest with myself - I guess I'm just not that interested in Finance to be perfectly honest and the reason I enjoyed it in the Embassy was more to do with finding the sector interesting. Just feel like I'm stuck in a rut.
I guess what I'm asking for is some advice as to possible career paths. As I said earlier I am more introverted than extroverted and feel I would thrive in a smaller office environment. I have always found computers and IT interesting - whenever there was an IT problem in my Embassy job my colleagues would ask me first rather than call the helpdesk and in most cases I could easily solve simple things where I didn't need administrator access. I am usually the first port of call with my friends for any of their computer problems too. The thing is I wouldn't know what part of IT to start in and don't think I could afford at my age and circumstance to drop below 25k pa.
Any advice would be most welcome.
Not really asking anything in particular but just after any general advice about looking for a new career and possibly moving into IT. I am currently 33 years old and live in London. Apologies if I ramble on a bit too.
Just to give a brief career history; I left uni with a BA in Business Studies in 2003 but never really knew what I wanted to do so spent a year temping in various admin office jobs, I then got a permanent role at a foreign countries embassy processing visas where I spent 3 years before applying internally and getting a job in the finance department where I spent 5 years. I really enjoyed the job - it was very varied, I worked in a small office, knew my job inside out and had good friends, colleagues and felt quite respected at what I did receiving a few promotions whilst in the role reaching a salary of 42k pa = even got to do a bit of travelling around the world visiting other offices.
I was made redundant around 18 months ago from that role due to budget cuts and due to the nature of the role figured that finance would be the best route to follow. I ended up spending 12 months unemployed (apart from a couple of 1 week temp roles) and it was without doubt the worst period of my life. The problem is that the role in the Embassy was quite a specialised role as I guess most public sector jobs are - all the systems used were bespoke and much of the work was tailored for the public sector, i.e. we didn't use ledgers as such, reporting was different to the commercial sector - there were no balance sheets/P&L accounting, no accounts receivable, etc, etc. I also don't have any formal accountancy qualification as there was never any need in the role.
When I was made redundant I never expected to be unemployed for so long, it was a complete nightmare - when I left I set my sights on anything paying over 25k. Set up job searches on all the main sites, signed up with about 30 different agencies and applied for well over 2,000 jobs spending around 4-6 hours a day doing cover/speculative letters, application forms and tailoring my cv to each application. Eventually I got a job by effectively lying way into a role and dumbing down my CV - I did things like turn the bespoke software I used into Sage, used the obscure name of the sub-agency I worked for rather than full name of the overall organisation and turned the two 2 week temping jobs I did into three month roles.
However, the place I have managed to find work in is awful - I'm only on a rolling contract so can be gotten rid of with a days notice, am on an hourly rate paying the equivalent of 25k a year, don't get paid for holiday/sick leave (or even if I'm half an hour late for work) and I've never had so much work to do - am easily doing the work of 2 people and the environment itself is awful, it is a media company and feels very cut-throat to what I'm used to, most of the people I work with are snobs, rarely give me the time of day and I'm pretty much the only introvert in the office so go home feeling pretty low and dread going in each morning, I've never experience anxiety levels like it. No one ever goes home on time and I feel I get looked down upon when I leave at 5.30 rather than slog away til 8 or 9pm.
If it wasn't for the 12 months I spent unemployed I would have left ages ago but that fear of unemployment is holding me there despite what it's doing to my mental health. Even if I did get taken on permanently there would be no hope of any sort of progression as it's a bog standard finance assistant role - I don't think the salary for the role has moved since 2007 either. I just don't know what my future holds now as these appear to be the only type jobs I can get now, I can't seem to get any similar position to what I was on before because I lack finance/accountancy qualifications and the competition is just so great. I did try to take up an accountancy qualification in the ACCA but just don't have it in me if I'm completely honest with myself - I guess I'm just not that interested in Finance to be perfectly honest and the reason I enjoyed it in the Embassy was more to do with finding the sector interesting. Just feel like I'm stuck in a rut.
I guess what I'm asking for is some advice as to possible career paths. As I said earlier I am more introverted than extroverted and feel I would thrive in a smaller office environment. I have always found computers and IT interesting - whenever there was an IT problem in my Embassy job my colleagues would ask me first rather than call the helpdesk and in most cases I could easily solve simple things where I didn't need administrator access. I am usually the first port of call with my friends for any of their computer problems too. The thing is I wouldn't know what part of IT to start in and don't think I could afford at my age and circumstance to drop below 25k pa.
Any advice would be most welcome.
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This is one of my serious postings. Do not leave a job however bad it is before you get a new job! I would say at 33 you are at thye beginning of age prejudice (YES in spite of legislation it does exist, they will just give you a different reason why you weren't selected).
Can't give you any other specific advice as it is many decades since I had to change jobs!
GL with whatever you want to do, BUT FIND ANOTHER JOB FIRST!
Can't give you any other specific advice as it is many decades since I had to change jobs!
GL with whatever you want to do, BUT FIND ANOTHER JOB FIRST!
ok, I'm almost 50 now and I've been in IT for 30+ years... for what's it worth, this is my take on things.
There are a hell of a lot of people with a bit of IT knowledge in this country, so if you want to move into IT you are going to have to study, get qualified and specialise. At 33 you are up against IT grads just out of Uni who think they know it all, and they are prepared to work for a lot less than you - harsh but true.
You say you were the first call for computer problems in your office - when you talk problems are you talking networks or general Windows problems? If general windows (ie, why is my taskbar at the top of my screen or why have all the gridlines disappeared in Excel) then you could look at doing contract work as an IT helpdesk operator, but when you see the salaries on offer it might make you think twice - check out:
http://www.cwjobs.co.uk/JobSearch/Results.aspx?Keywords=helpdesk
and you'll see that most pay under 20k for a Level 1 (entry-level) helpdesk operator. It's also a call-centre environment when all is said and done, means hours in a cubicle taking call after call. If you want to go down that route you'll need to do some serious grovelling to computer agencies.
You sound like you already have some book-keeping/sage experience so it might be worth building on that rather than trying to pick up a new career.
There are plenty of IT "professional" courses out there (networking etc), but most cost an arm and a leg and without experience you're unlikely to find it leads to work.
The other think I'd say is that is so easy to outsource most IT work now - and it's a damn sight cheaper. Apologies if you're read this before, but we had some work that needed doing (a piece of code for a query wasn't running as fast as we knew it should be). We posted the job on www.guru.com so IT people from around the world could bid for the job. USA applications wanted between 100 - 200 GBP, but a recent masters grad from Portugal did it for 12 GBP because he was so desperate for work.... it's frightening how little people are prepared to accept because in their country work is so scarce. He did a brilliant job and we paid him 50 GBP.
If you have some programming experience then you might want to look into QA (Quality Assurance) and there is a qual called ISTQB-BCS Certified Tester Foundation Level which might get you some contract work - but again it's hard to get your foot on the ladder and you'll be below 25k until you get established. If you can't program, this most certainly isn't for you.
Always in demand skills are SQL and Oracle, and there are plenty of course providers who will happily relive you of thousands to do courses that will supposedly set up for 500 GBP a day work (yeah right) but the truth is that to get onto that sort of money you need years and years of experience.
I wish you well and I wish I could be more encouraging, but times are tough and there is a hell of a lot of competition out there.
Good Luck
[recovering from migraine so if I don't reply it's because the screen has gone all wobbly. again]
There are a hell of a lot of people with a bit of IT knowledge in this country, so if you want to move into IT you are going to have to study, get qualified and specialise. At 33 you are up against IT grads just out of Uni who think they know it all, and they are prepared to work for a lot less than you - harsh but true.
You say you were the first call for computer problems in your office - when you talk problems are you talking networks or general Windows problems? If general windows (ie, why is my taskbar at the top of my screen or why have all the gridlines disappeared in Excel) then you could look at doing contract work as an IT helpdesk operator, but when you see the salaries on offer it might make you think twice - check out:
http://www.cwjobs.co.uk/JobSearch/Results.aspx?Keywords=helpdesk
and you'll see that most pay under 20k for a Level 1 (entry-level) helpdesk operator. It's also a call-centre environment when all is said and done, means hours in a cubicle taking call after call. If you want to go down that route you'll need to do some serious grovelling to computer agencies.
You sound like you already have some book-keeping/sage experience so it might be worth building on that rather than trying to pick up a new career.
There are plenty of IT "professional" courses out there (networking etc), but most cost an arm and a leg and without experience you're unlikely to find it leads to work.
The other think I'd say is that is so easy to outsource most IT work now - and it's a damn sight cheaper. Apologies if you're read this before, but we had some work that needed doing (a piece of code for a query wasn't running as fast as we knew it should be). We posted the job on www.guru.com so IT people from around the world could bid for the job. USA applications wanted between 100 - 200 GBP, but a recent masters grad from Portugal did it for 12 GBP because he was so desperate for work.... it's frightening how little people are prepared to accept because in their country work is so scarce. He did a brilliant job and we paid him 50 GBP.
If you have some programming experience then you might want to look into QA (Quality Assurance) and there is a qual called ISTQB-BCS Certified Tester Foundation Level which might get you some contract work - but again it's hard to get your foot on the ladder and you'll be below 25k until you get established. If you can't program, this most certainly isn't for you.
Always in demand skills are SQL and Oracle, and there are plenty of course providers who will happily relive you of thousands to do courses that will supposedly set up for 500 GBP a day work (yeah right) but the truth is that to get onto that sort of money you need years and years of experience.
I wish you well and I wish I could be more encouraging, but times are tough and there is a hell of a lot of competition out there.
Good Luck
[recovering from migraine so if I don't reply it's because the screen has gone all wobbly. again]
me again richdeniro
just reread your original post and it's now clear that you are currently way under-employed and that you had a responsible position before you were made redundant. Do you know anything about SQL at all? It might be what you're looking for because with your creative (cough, cough) approach to CV writing I'm sure you could spin your Embassy work to stress how you dealt with sensitive information, produced management reports and had a high security clearance.
SQL involves writing statements to retrieve information from company databases (ie, find all visa apps processed by personX where the applicant was Nigerian and the visa holder has since gone missing from a particular London borough).
You'll know very quickly whether you like it, or find it incredibly tedious. Just google/youTube for online tutorials - lots of free ones around. As you can see from www.cwjobs.co.uk there is a steady demand for SQL folk - you'll have to work for peanuts for your first few jobs to get established though.
just reread your original post and it's now clear that you are currently way under-employed and that you had a responsible position before you were made redundant. Do you know anything about SQL at all? It might be what you're looking for because with your creative (cough, cough) approach to CV writing I'm sure you could spin your Embassy work to stress how you dealt with sensitive information, produced management reports and had a high security clearance.
SQL involves writing statements to retrieve information from company databases (ie, find all visa apps processed by personX where the applicant was Nigerian and the visa holder has since gone missing from a particular London borough).
You'll know very quickly whether you like it, or find it incredibly tedious. Just google/youTube for online tutorials - lots of free ones around. As you can see from www.cwjobs.co.uk there is a steady demand for SQL folk - you'll have to work for peanuts for your first few jobs to get established though.
doh, half-asleep here. Example job would be MI Analyst using SQL to retrieve info for management reports.
Wow - thanks for the reply mate.... I have some vague SQL experience from uni however that was over a decade ago. However picking up new computer and software skills is one of my strengths and so perhaps I could self teach myself and dress it up a bit on my CV.
You've definitely given me a lot to think about and thanks again for responding :-)
You've definitely given me a lot to think about and thanks again for responding :-)
look at why you are getting stressed in the job and sort that issue first. Don't worry about what people think if you leave early. If your boss has a problem with it then they can always discuss it with you its nobody elses facking business... maybe you are working from home a bit ..how do they know any differently etc..etc..
if you leave can i have your job?
if you leave can i have your job?
Slicer Joined: 10 Jan 03
Replies: 4975 29 Oct 13 21:37
This is one of my serious postings. Do not leave a job however bad it is before you get a new job! I would say at 33 you are at thye beginning of age prejudice (YES in spite of legislation it does exist, they will just give you a different reason why you weren't selected).
Can't give you any other specific advice as it is many decades since I had to change jobs!
GL with whatever you want to do, BUT FIND ANOTHER JOB FIRST!
fck that - neccesity is the mother of invention
I dont think you'll get £25k p/a if you have little or no experience. Too many people willing to work for peanuts
Replies: 4975 29 Oct 13 21:37
This is one of my serious postings. Do not leave a job however bad it is before you get a new job! I would say at 33 you are at thye beginning of age prejudice (YES in spite of legislation it does exist, they will just give you a different reason why you weren't selected).
Can't give you any other specific advice as it is many decades since I had to change jobs!
GL with whatever you want to do, BUT FIND ANOTHER JOB FIRST!
fck that - neccesity is the mother of invention
I dont think you'll get £25k p/a if you have little or no experience. Too many people willing to work for peanuts
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