Extra degree to get a career?

CharllieSays

Hi,

The people here always give amazing feedback, so I was hoping to get some opinions on the following:

I've had a rough time in regards to employment, since I was stupid enough to be born in the 80s and finished college just before the recession hit (my bad). So my CV is now full of temping, redundancies, a low paid public sector job that went nowhere, and a dodgy role at a start up that got me out of an even worse job but has left me as technically 'self employed' (even though I work for just one company). So now that I'm job hunting once again, I'm facing a few barriers based on my employment history.

I have a good degree (great) in a useless subject - English (not great). Despite working in several finance and payroll jobs since college that required lots of data-crunching, advanced Excel knowledge, and great IT skills, I have no qualifications in that area and haven't heard back from any of the analytics type jobs I've applied to recently (or anything else for that matter). Aside from finance, I've worked in HR. So I decided to take a masters level HR qualification to make myself more employable in that area.

My aim is to move into an analytics/metrics role within the HR field later on, which would combine all of my analysis, IT and HR experience (I'm counting on those skills still being valued in the future). However, I'm considering adding to my qualifications with something 'mathy-sounding', simply to prove on paper that I'm not a typical humanities student and can do 'both left and right brain stuff'. At the moment employers seem to be focusing on the English degree and getting confused. In fact, being able to replace the English degree entirely with a 'mathy-sounding' qualification would, I think, work in my favour.

I have looked at the hDip graduate diplomas in mathematical sciences or statistics, but these seem to be even more expensive than a full degree. Does anyone know of a searchable website that compares the costs of distance learning courses in subject areas?

Additionally, has anyone else recently started/completed a similar distance course that could recommend a university/college/organisation?

Have any of you completed extra qualifications on the opposite end of the spectrum in order to progress in your career? If so, how successful was it, and do you now leave the original subject off your CV when applying? If not, do employers respond positively or negatively to having qualifications on both sides? I've had mostly negative responses to the humanities subject vs analytical work history, so would be interested to hear if anyone has experienced a different reaction.

Does anyone here work in HR analytics (long shot)? How did you get into that role, and what qualifications do you and your colleagues have? I'm struggling just to get another HR admin/assistant role with the experience and qualifications I currently have, so would love to know what's required for roles higher up the ladder.

tea_lover

I think something as simple as an advanced Excel certificate would probably be more help - and certainly a lot cheaper.

InsideInsurance

One of my recent projects was a massive data project for a global insurer and had a team of analysts crunching the data to understand it and define rules as to how to populate a data warehouse initially and subsequently interrogating the new warehouse to identify risk concentrations/ exposures etc.

I had a team of ~15 analysts working on it but only 1 had a maths degree. Many more had arts and humanities like History or French degrees. They did however all have experience in data analysis and were technical enough to answer my slightly noddy SQL questions.

The preferences for paper or experience change over time and I have to say I dont know where the preferences are right now but I would echo other peoples views that getting technical skills with systems would be much better value than maths (says the maths graduate). Unless you intend to try and become an actuary or such the majority want simple rolling averages, trend lines, quartiles etc which can all be done with MI/BI tools and so learning the tools is more important.

CharllieSays

Tea Lover - I would have thought a certificate in something as basic as 'Advanced Excel skills' would be a bit of a waste. I assume most people who work in an office these days can do things like formulas, pivot tables, modelling, lookups, etc. Maybe not as far as VBA skills, but the rest of it I had to know for entry level roles. It was part of the syllabus for highschool level IT, so probably an expected skill these days.

Inside - my problem is that I'm having trouble expanding on my data analysis experience now. I've done similar work in the past, and assumed I would be able to jump back into a role later on. But that hasn't been my experience this year. In regards to preference of experience vs qualifications, I would say it is definitely qualifications and your current position now. Based on feedback that I've had, I'm starting to realise that to get a job at present you have to already be in that job (preferably in the same sector, same size company, etc). It seems that the requirements for the jobs I could get at 15 with a handful of GCSEs have increased massively. For me, it feels like a giant game of musical chairs where the music stopped during the recession and wherever you were left at that point is now where you have to stay.

I might try just cutting the English degree from my CV and seeing if that makes any difference. I also want to expand on my VBA knowledge, and that seems to be a less common skill than Excel. So I'll have a look at courses/certs online. You mentioned SQL - I'll check that out too. Thanks guys.

thehappybutterfly

Have you looked at job adverts for the type of role you want? The ad and job description should state what quals employers are looking for. There's no point in guessing.

CharllieSays

I always tailor my CV/cover letter to the specifics requested for the role. Although there have been several I applied for that were so general that it was impossible to tell (these aren't high level jobs). Others I have applied for anyway, as the criteria was so ridiculous that I doubt anyone would match bar someone already working for that company in that role.

madvixen

CharllieSays wrote: »

Tea Lover - I would have thought a certificate in something as basic as 'Advanced Excel skills' would be a bit of a waste. I assume most people who work in an office these days can do things like formulas, pivot tables, modelling, lookups, etc. Maybe not as far as VBA skills, but the rest of it I had to know for entry level roles. It was part of the syllabus for highschool level IT, so probably an expected skill these days.

You would be amazed at how many people of our age (I'm an 80's baby also) can't do them though. I got an excel qualification with my last job and it's proved exceptionally useful. You can tailor a CV all you like but a qualification is the proof that you can do these things. An excel qualification that costs say £100 may be a very worthwhile investment.

agrinnall

Analytics/metrics in HR sounds like a very specialized role to me, and I would doubt if many employers actually have such a position - I worked in IT for a bank that was at the time one of the UK's largest employers and I'm not aware that they had anyone doing such a job. The easy bits would be done as part of the HR analysts' normal role, and anything very complex would be done by IT specialists.

Can you point us to any adverts for jobs of this type?

dancingfairy

There is a difference between being good at excel and being able to do pivot tables, v-look ups etc. If you are an advanced user of excel you should specify that you can do pivot tables, vlookups etc. Spell it out.
I think maybe you could look at AAT or something like CIMA etc?
Have a look on the graduate website (prospects??) and the national careers service and see what they are saying about the route in/qualifications etc.
df

GoldenShadow

I don't really know what to HR role you describe is, but I do work in finance and that is what has encouraged me to reply.

As far as I know, it's pretty darn hard to get a genuine business analyst, finance analyst or general finance role without a finance qualification. AAT will get you into an assistant post but you need CIMA, ACCA, CIPFA etc for higher posts. The only people I've met without those qualifications have been in their job 10 years plus. They would find it very hard to get their same role now as they are not members of a chartered accountancy body.

Are the roles you discuss really specialised? I don't think degree subjects matter as much if you've got relevant work experience, but that's assuming you're not applying for roles that require xyz when you don't have it. Unless it's hugely competitive in which case degree subject might matter more. It's hard to know without knowing more about the job.

gettingready

OP - I see under your forum name that you are in London?

If so, why don't you look at good, reputable places like:

https://www.bbk.ac.uk (attending 2-3 evenings per week)

also

http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/distance-flexible-learning (that would be distance learning)