Stagnant IT "Career" - change paths or make the best of IT?

Gary1885

That's an interesting point.  Presumably PM = "Project Management".  I did actually complete some project management training at my old Council job, but long story short, there was no exam, just an online PRINCE2 course.  I must admit, I struggled with it as there were no real-world examples.  I would much rather complete a project AND learn the methodology along the way, in a more practical, "on-the-job" fashion.  Talking about a "project mandate" and all these other documents (without any clue as to what they would be in a real project) just meant I had to learn names and then answer the multiple-choice "mock exam" questions at the end.

Essentially, the course material probably cost my employer about £50 for 50 people.  It was Flash based and would crash all the time.

It is something I'd consider if I knew I wouldn't be so bored by it.  Has anyone else experienced similar things?

Environmentalguy

Hi Gary, I`m usually a lurker on these boards but thought I would share with you my experience over the past 12 years. Like you I was stuck in an IT job working for a university for nearly 15 years, completely bored by it and getting on near 40 at the time. luckily I got chance to take voluntary redundancy and I did the one thing no one, even myself though possible. I quit my job and changed my career. After looking around and having a hard think I did an Open University course for about a year to get my writing skills up-to scratch (I left school with no qualifications) and then transferred  to a brick university 3 years later gaining a 1st class science honours degree. Really scary in your 40`s changing career and going back to university with people half your age, but I fitted in great and surprised myself how well I did.

I`m now moving to my second company within my new found career and now I look back I gained so much, I have lost the feeling I was never good enough and discovered that even coming up-to 50 in a couple of years now,  its never to late to change you have loads and loads of transferable skills and they are invaluable In many other careers. So it may be worth considering, this coming from an ex-IT guy with no formal previous qualifications and no hope, to some one with a very bight future ahead of me which I now enjoy and get paid what I need to be sufficiently happy now. Good Luck.

Gary1885

Environmentalguy said:

Hi Gary, I`m usually a lurker on these boards but thought I would share with you my experience over the past 12 years. Like you I was stuck in an IT job working for a university for nearly 15 years, completely bored by it and getting on near 40 at the time. luckily I got chance to take voluntary redundancy and I did the one thing no one, even myself though possible. I quit my job and changed my career. After looking around and having a hard think I did an Open University course for about a year to get my writing skills up-to scratch (I left school with no qualifications) and then transferred  to a brick university 3 years later gaining a 1st class science honours degree. Really scary in your 40`s changing career and going back to university with people half your age, but I fitted in great and surprised myself how well I did.

I`m now moving to my second company within my new found career and now I look back I gained so much, I have lost the feeling I was never good enough and discovered that even coming up-to 50 in a couple of years now,  its never to late to change you have loads and loads of transferable skills and they are invaluable In many other careers. So it may be worth considering, this coming from an ex-IT guy with no formal previous qualifications and no hope, to some one with a very bight future ahead of me which I now enjoy and get paid what I need to be sufficiently happy now. Good Luck.

I completely get where you're coming from on this one and to a degree I'd love to be able to do the same.  However, I've come to the conclusion that I'm just not that interested in any further academic study.  I need to chase the money right now.  I already know that I should have pursued a career in sales, but my opportunity to do so was back in 2008, when I was leaving a retailer to go to my IT job.  I played it safe for several reasons:

1. It was a local government job; these tend to be fairly secure.

2. The payscale of the job suggested career progression (how wrong I was) and I felt I had the skills necessary to give me a head start over the competition at the time.

3. I did not trust sales "commission", having come from a company that abolished it and replaced it with a barely achievable and barely worth it bonus system.

I now find myself in a predicament where I've "invested" 12 years into a career in IT, and today I've been resetting people's passwords, telling them how to log in and installing/diagnosing software, printers etc.  Basic desktop support stuff.  Meanwhile, everyone around me - many younger than me - are doing what I would consider to be the "grown-up jobs" I aspired to; managing teams and having more of an important role in the bigger picture of things.  In my role, I'm just one of the worker drones.  That is not to say I'm not respected by my employer, but I don't think they are yet aware of where I expected to be by now.

It is fair to say that my passion for IT is pretty much gone.  There are elements of it I still have an interest in, but I don't want to get into my 40s and be sitting in a dusty comms room with a laptop balanced on my knee trying to connect a console cable to a switch.

To add to this, I've now been furloughed due to COVID-19, so I'm on 80% pay for the day job, having also lost my income from the band.  When taking into consideration who to furlough in this "first wave", my employer has had to look at skill sets, so it just goes to show that I was right all along to worry about a lack of skills.  When it comes to it, if you're not useful, you're out.

Savvy_Sue

Gary1885 said:
and today I've been resetting people's passwords, telling them how to log in and installing/diagnosing software, printers etc.  Basic desktop support stuff.  Meanwhile, everyone around me - many younger than me - are doing what I would consider to be the "grown-up jobs" I aspired to; managing teams and having more of an important role in the bigger picture of things.  In my role, I'm just one of the worker drones.  That is not to say I'm not respected by my employer, but I don't think they are yet aware of where I expected to be by now.

Two things

1. NEVER underestimate the value of basic desktop support stuff! I know our IT support service has been doing a lot of that since most of started WFH, but we just couldn't manage without them!

Gary1885 said:

Meanwhile, everyone around me - many younger than me - are doing what I would consider to be the "grown-up jobs" I aspired to; managing teams and having more of an important role in the bigger picture of things.  In my role, I'm just one of the worker drones.  That is not to say I'm not respected by my employer, but I don't think they are yet aware of where I expected to be by now.

2. Again, looking at our IT support company, there are a LOT of people doing the basic stuff, and maybe four people I've had dealings with who are not? Clearly, there are not nearly as many 'grown-up jobs' (and one of the senior people was answering support calls the other day, to help out!)

Gary1885

Planet_Switzerland said:

I think you need to ask yourself whether your priority is money or job satisfaction. I don't work in IT but can kid of relate. I hate my job with a passion and lost interest in what I do years ago, but if I was getting £100k for it I wouldn't mind as much. I would also have picked a different career if I had my time again, but my priority is money so I have no desire to take a pay cut to change careers.

If the grown up jobs you refer to paid the same as you're getting now, would you still want to do them?

The main thing in many ways is obviously money, but I think we all know that money comes by being higher up the chain within a employer.  At the end of the day, IT technicians, engineers etc are at the bottom of the pecking order in this respect.  It is only once you start to have either an exceptional amount of technical know-how or management responsibility that you can actually start to earn proper money.  I am not the technical know-how person.  I'm now on £32,500 including a car allowance (£28,000 without), which many would see as good.  However, I really NEED to be on more than this.  My girlfriend earns significantly more than I do and I would just like to be able to afford to pay her mortgageand bills - plus my own outgoings - if for example she was on maternity leave.  As things are, my monthly salary is just over £1,000 less than hers per month.

To answer your question, if anyone was paying me £100,000 per year to stick PCs in my car and turn up at a random business to install them, I'd be worried about being made redundant.  We all know it wouldn't happen.  If the "grown-up" jobs were paid the same as I am, at least I would feel I was on the right track towards something better.

Hope that kind of clarifies my thinking!

Gary1885

Savvy_Sue said:

Gary1885 said:
and today I've been resetting people's passwords, telling them how to log in and installing/diagnosing software, printers etc.  Basic desktop support stuff.  Meanwhile, everyone around me - many younger than me - are doing what I would consider to be the "grown-up jobs" I aspired to; managing teams and having more of an important role in the bigger picture of things.  In my role, I'm just one of the worker drones.  That is not to say I'm not respected by my employer, but I don't think they are yet aware of where I expected to be by now.

Two things

1. NEVER underestimate the value of basic desktop support stuff! I know our IT support service has been doing a lot of that since most of started WFH, but we just couldn't manage without them!

Gary1885 said:

Meanwhile, everyone around me - many younger than me - are doing what I would consider to be the "grown-up jobs" I aspired to; managing teams and having more of an important role in the bigger picture of things.  In my role, I'm just one of the worker drones.  That is not to say I'm not respected by my employer, but I don't think they are yet aware of where I expected to be by now.

2. Again, looking at our IT support company, there are a LOT of people doing the basic stuff, and maybe four people I've had dealings with who are not? Clearly, there are not nearly as many 'grown-up jobs' (and one of the senior people was answering support calls the other day, to help out!)

1.  I didn't say it wasn't important, although incidentally I actually wasn't important enough to be kept on out of all the people who were!  Many people couldn't manage without IT, but some of these IT technicians are on £15,000 per year.  Appreciation doesn't put food on the table.

2. I wouldn't mind being a senior person who actually still pitched in and helped out, but I've been connecting printers and resetting passwords for years and years now, with no progression.  I am so desperately sick of it.  Meanwhile, I see people moving on in promising careers, knowing that my pay may rise by maybe a couple of thousand if I spend a few thousand on training, to still be going out and fixing computers.

I don't know what the magic answer is, but surely there's got to be something I can do!

Gary1885

Planet_Switzerland said:

Gary1885 said:

Planet_Switzerland said:

I think you need to ask yourself whether your priority is money or job satisfaction. I don't work in IT but can kid of relate. I hate my job with a passion and lost interest in what I do years ago, but if I was getting £100k for it I wouldn't mind as much. I would also have picked a different career if I had my time again, but my priority is money so I have no desire to take a pay cut to change careers.

If the grown up jobs you refer to paid the same as you're getting now, would you still want to do them?

The main thing in many ways is obviously money, but I think we all know that money comes by being higher up the chain within a employer.  At the end of the day, IT technicians, engineers etc are at the bottom of the pecking order in this respect.  It is only once you start to have either an exceptional amount of technical know-how or management responsibility that you can actually start to earn proper money.  I am not the technical know-how person.  I'm now on £32,500 including a car allowance (£28,000 without), which many would see as good.  However, I really NEED to be on more than this.  My girlfriend earns significantly more than I do and I would just like to be able to afford to pay her mortgageand bills - plus my own outgoings - if for example she was on maternity leave.  As things are, my monthly salary is just over £1,000 less than hers per month.

To answer your question, if anyone was paying me £100,000 per year to stick PCs in my car and turn up at a random business to install them, I'd be worried about being made redundant.  We all know it wouldn't happen.  If the "grown-up" jobs were paid the same as I am, at least I would feel I was on the right track towards something better.

Hope that kind of clarifies my thinking!

Well if management is the only way you're realistically going to make more money then that's what you have to pursue. I wouldn't say £32.5k is a good salary, but if your job is bottom of the pecking order it's not bad. If your girlfriend makes £1k more a month than you, she's presumably on around £50k. Not that many people have a household income of more than £82.5k. I'm very money orientated myself though so understand your need for more money.

I would say that it is the only realistic way, but it is just trying to prove my worth somehow!  Although the company I'm working for seem to be happy with my performance so far, particularly from the perspective of customer service and building a rapport, I have ultimately only been there 5 months.  Would I be correct in presuming that I would need to prove myself over a number of years rather than months?  I have found one job that fits the bill and which I would be great at, but the only problem I have is that I have no idea whether it is worthwhile applying for such roles when they ask for team leadership/management experience.  I can say I have this to a degree, but it was in an unofficial capacity and lasted for no longer than a year.  I do intend to apply for this role I have found, as I believe if I can sell myself and ever leverage leadership skills I have gained in my previous roles.

If anyone out there can help advise on what my next actions should be and what kind of realistic timescales I would be looking at, I'd really appreciate your input.

consumers_revenge

Havent read all this to be honest. I've been in IT since 98. have a stack of certs and get paid 37K
2 things.
I get paid for something I love doing.....so I dont really work.
I was recently offered a team leads/managers job. Turned it down as I dont want the extra aggro!

Gary1885

consumers_revenge said:

Havent read all this to be honest. I've been in IT since 98. have a stack of certs and get paid 37K
2 things.
I get paid for something I love doing.....so I dont really work.
I was recently offered a team leads/managers job. Turned it down as I dont want the extra aggro!

I think this post kind of hits the nail on the head in terms of what frustrates me at times.  One of my previous employers had several people who were content with their lot in life; they enjoyed their job, or at least the convenience of it.  They didn't need any more money and didn't want any more responsibility.  I was the ambitious one and made it known that I wanted to progress and be able to receive some of the training that they were sent on.  This never materialised and they continued to invest in those people.  Eventually, almost all of them were offered some kind of team leader/management type role, but many turned it down.  The offer was never sent my way because I had not progressed to their level in the pay scale, therefore was never eligible.  Imagine the frustration of knowing that you are more intelligent than most of the management (in fact, the department head was a total moron) but it is never recognised.

I find that in the world of work - and indeed other parts of life too - people are out for themselves and seem to be out to make you look bad in order to enhance their own image.  I think this has held me back because I have always been polite and good natured, which people take as an invitation to walk all over you.  This has already stopped but I'm playing catch-up as I'm 15 years behind in my career and it is very frustrating.  More so in a way now that I'm out of work and unable to use any of this time to progress as such.

consumers_revenge

Gary1885 said:

consumers_revenge said:

Havent read all this to be honest. I've been in IT since 98. have a stack of certs and get paid 37K
2 things.
I get paid for something I love doing.....so I dont really work.
I was recently offered a team leads/managers job. Turned it down as I dont want the extra aggro!

I think this post kind of hits the nail on the head in terms of what frustrates me at times.  One of my previous employers had several people who were content with their lot in life; they enjoyed their job, or at least the convenience of it.  They didn't need any more money and didn't want any more responsibility.  I was the ambitious one and made it known that I wanted to progress and be able to receive some of the training that they were sent on.  This never materialised and they continued to invest in those people.  Eventually, almost all of them were offered some kind of team leader/management type role, but many turned it down.  The offer was never sent my way because I had not progressed to their level in the pay scale, therefore was never eligible.  Imagine the frustration of knowing that you are more intelligent than most of the management (in fact, the department head was a total moron) but it is never recognised.

I find that in the world of work - and indeed other parts of life too - people are out for themselves and seem to be out to make you look bad in order to enhance their own image.  I think this has held me back because I have always been polite and good natured, which people take as an invitation to walk all over you.  This has already stopped but I'm playing catch-up as I'm 15 years behind in my career and it is very frustrating.  More so in a way now that I'm out of work and unable to use any of this time to progress as such.

This is why you should never judge a book by its cover.
The reason I dont need any more money (and I do to get the nicer things in life) is when I was younger I grafted 7 days a week with as much overtime in addition to my proper job as I could get whilst me mates were out peeing all their money up against a wall so I could whack down a massive house deposit.
Year after year I've grafted through countless hours of study to get more and more certs FROM MY OWN POCKET MOSTLY! When I asked for security training amongst others I was told it wasnt relative. So tough, I just went and did the training out of my own pocket, why wait for them to see my potential.
When I got my certs I moved to a new job that would pay me more. Simples. The reason I didnt take the new job is simply because they wouldnt pay me the same amount as they had to pay outside. So I will go outside to another company and get that big pay jump. My effort, my graft!
However wont be before I graft many long hours again to get the CISSP then make my new jump over to the next level. Companies not getting my graft for free or for their benefit. Not content, just love what I do for a living, but also willing to work for more and expect the reward.
Oh yeah and during this time at home, whilst holding down a full time job, I've also done 2 free certs and training in my own time for something thats quite big in cybersecurity so you could be making progress. Plural site gave away a free months of IT related training in April. Just start investing in yourself and not waiting for others to do it for you. It likely wont happy. I wasted quite a few years doing that.
Having read the whole thread now it seems you want to be given a better job or moved into management by showing little in the way of self investment UNLESS THE COMPANY PAYS and have no interest in gaining any further academic learning (companies now expect this self development) to prove you you cant have a better skillset? Sorry to be harsh, it isnt likely to happen.