General career's advice please

soupdragon10

Don't forget the new 24+ adult learning loans which can help with fees for some level3 and 4 courses. Don't expect a new career to materialise without effort.
Labour Market Intelligence suggests that there is a shrinkage in may office based areas, so high level skills in IT and administration are vital if you are looking at a career in any office based discipline.
I would suggest a 1:1 discussion with a qualified and experienced adviser - this is my field and I do know that qualifications are variable so check out the person you are seeing before the interview, particularly if you are taking time off work for the session.
All those careers quizzes are designed not to suggest your ideal job, but rather the occupational areas that you are best suited to based on your answers. You then need to discuss this with an adviser or investigate the range of jobs that might be available within that job area.
I work in the community providing advice and guidance, and meet many people who have never found their ideal job, and only worked in short term jobs to earn money. Ideally you want a job you don't mind getting up to do.

El_Rey

soupdragon10 wrote: »

I work in the community providing advice and guidance, and meet many people who have never found their ideal job, and only worked in short term jobs to earn money. Ideally you want a job you don't mind getting up to do.

What methods do you use to help people find their ideal job?

duchy

I don't believe it's entirely down to luck -I believe that to a degree we make our own luck and it is as much down to positive attitude. If you walk into an interview expecting them to like you and see you as a good candidate that reflects in your body language and the way you speak whereas if you think you are stepping out of your comfort level it shows too- so you do need to talk yourself up to yourself before an interview if you are trying to move up sometimes.

pinpin

I sometimes think that i'm wasting my time applying for office roles and jobs where lots of intelligence and hubris are a pre-requisite.

So then I think about tradesman type jobs as a possibility. However, most professional tradesmen started when they were 16 out of school.
I think about taking a course in something like plastering or painting and decorating, perhaps.
Any thoughts on that?

Also, how would I go about offering my services to tradesmen for 'more or less' nothing. To get me some experience and to give me an idea of whether I think i'd ever be any good at it.
Advert in a paper? Gumtree?

busiscoming2

pinpin wrote: »

I sometimes think that i'm wasting my time applying for office roles and jobs where lots of intelligence and hubris are a pre-requisite.

So then I think about tradesman type jobs as a possibility. However, most professional tradesmen started when they were 16 out of school.
I think about taking a course in something like plastering or painting and decorating, perhaps.
Any thoughts on that?

Also, how would I go about offering my services to tradesmen for 'more or less' nothing. To get me some experience and to give me an idea of whether I think i'd ever be any good at it.
Advert in a paper? Gumtree?

Gumtree is a good idea. If you are a member of Facebook, have a look for a local tradesperson page and perhaps contact a couple of the smaller companies or one man bands and ask for a bit of 'work experience'.

System

lincroft1710 wrote: »

Think about this for a minute or so.

You have no experience, you only want to work 9-5.30 and no weekends. What can you offer a prospective employer?

BTW many if not the majority of jobs have start times before 9.00 am.

That's the whole point. I need to get experience or get some decent training. I am asking for advice, I am not asking people to rub it in.

Preferably I'd want to work 9-5.30, I'd be happy to stay longer if needs be, but not everyday. I am not looking for well-paid work so I would not expect to have to work free overtime and weekends. If I was getting paid a lot I'd be happy to work more.

I have been in low paid jobs which have been easy-going, enjoyable, great working environments, no expectation for you to stay on longer than your hours and always had 1 hour lunch break.....

but I have also worked for another company who paid the same salary but really took the mickey. The job was stressful, huge pressure to get everything spot on as the clients were massive blue-chip company's, any screw up could cost the company a huge contract. Therefore the manager's were rude, harsh, and expected me to have a short lunch break, sometimes which I never had because we were so under-pressure. Hours were 9am-6pm. I usually had to get in at 8.30am. Yeah - some people may say stress, and long hours is normal, but the point is that this was a £16k salary job. A job like that with so much importance, stress and the hours should pay £25k.

At the end of the day I may have to work extra hours or weekends but as long as the pay reflects that and the company doesn't take the !!!! then I'm ok with it.

TBagpuss

have you looked at what courses your local community college offers? I was recently looking at mine, as I'm interested in some of these evening classes for leisure which they offer, and they do courses in things such as bricklaying, carpentry, plastering, motor engineering, landscaping etc as well as office skills.

If you are getting 'vet' come up on careers test then you could look at things such as dog grooming, 1st aid for animals (which might be a selling point if you wanted to apply for a job in a pet shop) or even a combination - office skills plus dog grooming might make you a good fit as a vet's receptionsist, for example.

Some colleges have short courses which you can do on a part time basis or in evenings if you don;t want to commit to a year long schedule in a new field straight away, and certainly the local colleges I have looked at near me all have advice and information available about funding.

if you look on your local county council's website under 'education' you should be able to find details of the local colleges - and if they are genuine, they will be happy to talk to you about the costs, available grants or loans etc.

El_Rey

soupdragon10 wrote: »

Don't forget the new 24+ adult learning loans which can help with fees for some level3 and 4 courses. Don't expect a new career to materialise without effort.
Labour Market Intelligence suggests that there is a shrinkage in may office based areas, so high level skills in IT and administration are vital if you are looking at a career in any office based discipline.
I would suggest a 1:1 discussion with a qualified and experienced adviser - this is my field and I do know that qualifications are variable so check out the person you are seeing before the interview, particularly if you are taking time off work for the session.
All those careers quizzes are designed not to suggest your ideal job, but rather the occupational areas that you are best suited to based on your answers. You then need to discuss this with an adviser or investigate the range of jobs that might be available within that job area.
I work in the community providing advice and guidance, and meet many people who have never found their ideal job, and only worked in short term jobs to earn money. Ideally you want a job you don't mind getting up to do.

What methods would you recommend I try to identify my ideal job?

Poppycat

haygard :spam:

Aryndeneth

Hi OP, realise I'm a bit late to this thread buy you might find it useful to look at my answer to El Rey's question on this thread. https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5027911

Hopefully some of this will help you get started with exploring what your options are and figuring out what you might want to do. Hope it helps.