How easy is it to get a office type job with no experience

_Jem_

Hello me again lol

I would like some help please , I have just got off the phone with the health and disability advisor, and was told to have a look at the learn direct website for free courses for basic office training. I would be grateful if someone could point me to a basic learning course. As everything seems to be well to advanced for me to get my head around it.

I'm going to get another phonecall from them in a couple of weeks to see if there was anything I can do and go from there.

Cloth_of_Gold

_Jem_ said:

Hello me again lol

I would like some help please , I have just got off the phone with the health and disability advisor, and was told to have a look at the learn direct website for free courses for basic office training. I would be grateful if someone could point me to a basic learning course. As everything seems to be well to advanced for me to get my head around it.

I'm going to get another phonecall from them in a couple of weeks to see if there was anything I can do and go from there.

I can't see any free courses on their website. They have some fairly low cost ones, which are reduced further during February. Almost any office job will require you to be able to use some of Microsoft Office's products, especially Word, but possible also others, such as Excel and PowerPoint. As a minimum you need to have at least the basics of Word and PowerPoint.  Here are links to their introductory Word and Excel  courses:

https://www.learndirect.com/course/word-2010-basic

https://www.learndirect.com/course/start-using-excel

I'm going to look and see if I can find any free courses. Your local authority might run some, but in recent years most have really cut back on their funding for adult education. Whereabouts are you?

Savvy_Sue

I think sometimes there is free training available for people with few qualifications, but it might vary by area. Would be worth checking with local authority, as stated: I know ours was only subsidising Basic Skills (Maths / English) to improve employability. 

Cloth_of_Gold

This company provides many free online courses. I don't know anything about them but they have around 10K 4 and 5 star reviews on Trustpilot. Have a look on their site but here are their free basic courses for Word and Excel:

https://alison.com/courses?query=word basic

https://alison.com/courses?query=excel basic

_Jem_

Thanks, I thought I was going bonkers as I couldn't see any free courses. 

Cloth_of_Gold

They also have free courses on office administration. https://alison.com/tag/office-administration

For all the courses if you want the certificate at the end you have to pay a small-ish fee. As far as I can see you're not obliged to do that though. Maybe you could try one or two and see whether you like them and feel you have the aptitude for this type of work. If not, you haven't wasted any money, if you do enjoy them and feel it's your sort of thing you can decide whether or not you want the certificate. I'm not sure if the certificate would carry much weight with a potential employer. If not, it's probably not worth paying for but if they are then it might be. Perhaps the H&D adviser could, well, advise you lol.

Alternatively, you could, in the first instance at least, just look at a tutorial on YouTube, such as this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MCmnr2L50o

He does tutorials on all sorts of other things too.

_Jem_

Thanks. You know I think it's a delay tactic from the job centre, I believe they know that site doesn't offer free courses. I have been honest with them and said I need help on what job I can actually do, and I don't know if my brain can actually take on a new job role office type as its something completely new. I am confident with computers but taking new things in is hard due to a health problem. I actually believe they don't agree with the DWP saying I might be able to do some kind of work.


I will watch that YouTube video👍 at least I can then say I have been doing something.

Cloth_of_Gold

If you don't like that one there are plenty of others on there. Good luck anyway and let us know how you get on.

Mark_Glasses

One of the unfortunate things about the world of work is the idea you can't do very simple things because you don't have experience.

When I was looking for holiday work when I was a student getting a job in a factory or warehouse where you could do yourself a serious injury was a simple matter of leaving your name and number with a recruitment agency. Those same agencies would never send you to an office job without experience.

Fortunately I came across one recruitment consultant who was willing to send me to an office job and it was the easiest job I'd ever done. In fact every office job I've done has been really easy, even my so called skilled profession now is a doddle. 

The difficulty is finding that person who will give you a chance. The job itself should be easy. 

SadieO

There's a course called ECDL that teaches basic office IT skills like Word and Excel. My OH did it for free when he was on job seekers. Might be worth looking into?