I’m bored with my current job. I’d like to do something different. Based on my experiences, education and wish list below, what do you think I’m qualified to do and have a shot at getting into?
Education: MA in Politics (with elements of Pyschology, Sociology and Philosophy).
Experience: Around a dozen temp jobs (mostly office-based) taken while travelling Australia. Three years (in total, made up of several vacation jobs) as a software tester and assistant test manager for the (UK) Post Office. Eight months on an IT graduate programme for an international insurance/financial services company (mostly helping out learning project management, nothing technical). Currently just over a year at another international professional services and accounting firm, acting as an IT risk consultant (i.e. IT security audits).
Skills: Nothing technical. Oh, raw HTML, tinkering with web design, non-hands-on experience in SAP and NT security configuration, that kind of thing. But nothing that would get me a job in itself. Most of my experience has been in project management, risk management, general airy-fairy communications type of thing.
Wants: Something stable. Office-based is fine (I do a lot of travelling to tedious industrial estates in the middle of nowhere). I like technology but just using it isn’t as much fun as I thought it would be. Team-based. Something where there aren’t necessarily right or wrong answers but you’re valued for being able to justify a position and find solutions to problems. Not testing. Not consulting (I don’t like being the unwanted, expensive albatross round a company’s neck). Something a lot more creative than I do now.
So what am I capable of doing? I don’t really want a major pay cut, and can’t afford to jack my current job in to re-train full-time in web design or coding or marketing or advertising (which I’d quite like to do, but bottom-of-the-ladder entrants in those industries make peanuts here).
Any advice? I’ll consider anything – IT-related or not (I once wanted to own a record store) – but something more creative and team-based, in short.
I can’t tell. You don’t have any of the qualifications I would need for my staff – a desktop publishing team (Communications, mostly print & web) for a third-party fringe benefits administrator. I don’t mean to flame you or be offensive here, but you are NOT qualified to spell out your qualifications. You didn’t sell me as a potential hire-able candidate. Your list is all over the place, so I’m thinking you need to focus your sales pitch a bit more.
But then again, that’s probably why you’re posting here – to get us to help you focus in.
My recommendation is to talk to people you’ve worked with – especially former supervisors. Perhaps from them – people who know you and what kind of a worker you are – you might be able to get a better idea in what direction to turn next. You might also talk to recruiters. Sometimes they give skills assessment “tests” and can help direct you to the next step in your career life.
Whatever you do, list the software you know on your resume. Do not lie. If you only looked at an application once, that doesn’t count. Used it every day for six months – fine. You’d be surprised how many people send me resumes and give me no indication if they can run a computer or not.
And if you wanna live in Florida and be a copywriter – e-mail me! (I’ve got a position open right now.) I’ll stop here before the mods spank me for recruiting on the boards…
My advice is figure out what you love to do (write down a list of the favorite parts of any job you’ve taken and see if there was a pattern) and do everything you can to be able to do it.
Absolutely. That list bears no resemblance to my CV, or to any covering letter I’ve written (the former is on my website, but isn’t absolutely up-to-date and isn’t remotely focused on any particular job). I don’t know if the CV would make better reading or not, but the real issue is in knowing who to be tailoring it to.
My problem isn’t in selling myself: I’m confident enough in myself to be positive and stay focused in interviews. But, as you saw, I don’t know what actual career areas are available to someone with my background who doesn’t want to take a huge step back.
Dogzilla, RealityChuck - thanks for the suggestions, both of you.
slide slowly to your new career , else you’ll be riding the paradise loop (no job because you have no experience but no experience can be gained because you can’t get a job - paradise is because immigrants often think as western societies as paradise) and work a few months and horde your money before you decide to embark on the new career , (its not a good time to change since the UK economy is a bit wobbly)
off my head :
advertising (though don’t fall for the crap advertising things in news papers which = you canvassing lots of peoples homes and going home exhausted each day)
minor HTML editor a friend in London does this and she
has no qualifications for it at all
University lecturer , some 10-24 point entry universities
or write down what you want to do , and research what it takes to do it and climb the ladder, and don’t be tempted by MSCEs and stuff , depending on your age you can do almost anything , it just takes awhile to get to a respectable position when you first start
and start out fairly low
If my memory is correct, you are still somewhere in England. The job market is probably not exactly the same as where I am (N.Y.) but I’m guessing its close enough.
Anyway, your background is similar to what many of my previous IT project managers have had (or at least on a level with the assistant project managers anyway) A lot of them had Poli. Sci. degrees (or other non-tech degrees), with some exposure to the IT field…I’m not sure what your previous salaries have been though, so I don’t know if this would be a step up or down for you.
That position would certainly fill your “wants” list…its office based (usually with just some travel to the client’s site), and team based as well. Honestly, the majority of Project Manager’s I have had have not had a whole lot of exposure to programming languages and I don’t think your lack of experience in that area would really be a problem. Its much more important to be good at communicating rather than having a strong grasp of specific technologies.
This would also have the benefit of giving you an exposure to all the cool stuff in the IT field without having to really get bogged down in the really technical part of it.
Again, I’m not really sure what the market is like over in England. Over in New York (especially after everything that happened in September), the IT field isn’t really hiring as much…but if you can find a position like that, I think it might suit you.
Thanks folks. Project management is certainly something I’ve considered as a realistic alternative (and a few people from my company have gone on to that kind of role). Online editing sounds fun, but I’ll do some research – I’ve spoken to a couple of web journalists who hate their jobs (and they work for a large, stable, well-paying company).
Apologies for posting off topic, but I am curious about one of geepee’s suggestions:
You can become a university lecturer in the UK with only a master’s degree? What is a “10-24 point entry university”? What is the job market like? If a foreign national applied for such a job, would she have a snowball’s chance in hell?
UK university entry is determined by points system which points which are earned in 6th form college (UK = Primary school -> high school -> 6th form college -> University+)
(however there are other routes such as (UK = Primary school -> high school -> foundation -> University+)
points table is something like this
A=10
B=8
C=6
D=4
E=2
A/S is half since they are half a course (scotland has a different version scottish highers i think)
a crap university will allow people in with 0-10 points (ot if you cry to the admissions guy) an ok university will let you in with 10-22 points a Top redbrick uni (ie the original universities like) 26-30+ points the 22-24 being good unis
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You can become a university lecturer in the UK with only a master’s degree? What is a “10-24 point entry university”? What is the job market like? If a foreign national applied for such a job, would she have a snowball’s chance in hell?
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masters degree , good chances at a 10-20 pointer university
i recall a university i attended for a year and hell most of the lecturers were unqualified and read from a book , further research i found that they didn’t even have the B.s.c behind their names and very few had degrees and qualifications (this was a 12 point for computing university due to me arriving in UK late due to a Hurricane ) however a better university will want better qualifications obviously
course you could always try 6th form colleges my computing teacher there was more qualified than the one at the first university , however i don’t know about the pay