willy eckerslike said:Southbanken said:All those citing IT as a great career. It is a broad church, what areas specifically are you guys talking about and what skills / qualifications are required?
I'm in the Business Intelligence area. You need SQL skills, although there are some jobs which are just Excel, so if you know advanced features of Excel (such as VBA, pivot tables and pivot charts etc) there's work there. Then there is BI specific software such as Qlikview and Tableau. You can teach yourself these but it is better to know the principles of database design as BI is all about how stored data relates to each other. You need good interpersonal skills because you need to talk to clients/users to ascertain requirements and sometimes presentation skills. Other skills like .net coding come in useful and general good Windows knowledge is handy plus even web skills.
If you want to sit in a pub all day like Damocles (see earlier post :)) and not have to deal with the hoi polloi, then coding might suit. This will need knowledge of programming techniques and of course the language you're programming in. I'm sure there's a lot more to it.
Security and infrastructure: these people talk to me about networks and firewalls but most of it goes over my head. Boring as hell but the pay is possibly the best (security is anyway).
Then there's 1st line support. Regular work, shit pay unless you get to team leader.
Web development. Never appealed to me as pay looks very ordinary.
Finally the new beast:BullshitBusiness Analyst. These seem to be growing in number and are specialists in managing projects. They protect the client from having to liaise with the IT developers, translating what they say into proper measurable tasks. They need to be able to do a little coding (but usually badly) and have an in-depth knowledge of the business processes. Pay is ridiculously high but I couldn't do it as it seems to be meetings after meetings and you need project management experience or qualifications. Good choice if you know an industry sector in-depth and technically minded. There are more areas but the best advice is early on you might have to be flexible in your career path.
willy eckerslike said:Southbanken said:All those citing IT as a great career. It is a broad church, what areas specifically are you guys talking about and what skills / qualifications are required?
I'm in the Business Intelligence area. You need SQL skills, although there are some jobs which are just Excel, so if you know advanced features of Excel (such as VBA, pivot tables and pivot charts etc) there's work there. Then there is BI specific software such as Qlikview and Tableau. You can teach yourself these but it is better to know the principles of database design as BI is all about how stored data relates to each other. You need good interpersonal skills because you need to talk to clients/users to ascertain requirements and sometimes presentation skills. Other skills like .net coding come in useful and general good Windows knowledge is handy plus even web skills.
If you want to sit in a pub all day like Damocles (see earlier post :)) and not have to deal with the hoi polloi, then coding might suit. This will need knowledge of programming techniques and of course the language you're programming in. I'm sure there's a lot more to it.
Security and infrastructure: these people talk to me about networks and firewalls but most of it goes over my head. Boring as hell but the pay is possibly the best (security is anyway).
Then there's 1st line support. Regular work, shit pay unless you get to team leader.
Web development. Never appealed to me as pay looks very ordinary.
Finally the new beast:BullshitBusiness Analyst. These seem to be growing in number and are specialists in managing projects. They protect the client from having to liaise with the IT developers, translating what they say into proper measurable tasks. They need to be able to do a little coding (but usually badly) and have an in-depth knowledge of the business processes. Pay is ridiculously high but I couldn't do it as it seems to be meetings after meetings and you need project management experience or qualifications. Good choice if you know an industry sector in-depth and technically minded.
There are more areas but the best advice is early on you might have to be flexible in your career path.
What's the most common route for someone from a financial background (ACA) to get into these sort of IT jobs?willy eckerslike said:I'd echo Damocles and say IT is a good area especially with your financial background. I've had job offers to work in the financial district in London of up to £800 a day. Just don't want the hassle and the daily rate in North West can range £250 to £400 a day anyway. Permanent rates are not as good due to the economy but still above average. I changed careers about 9 yrs ago.
Don't bother with a degree just yet though - I don't have one and frankly don't need one. There's plenty of free software, courses and advice out there, but IT is a diverse area now so best to try and see which sector suits you best.
Pelly Greeny said:Gaudion M said:Just one note of caution, people often assume a degree opens up a magic door to good / well paid jobs. It might have 40 years ago but not any more. I have two degrees and it doesn’t mean anything I apply for is a slam dunk. It is still very tough and I know plenty of people with decent degrees in shit jobs. If you want to study anyway then do it. I enjoyed Uni when I was 19 and enjoyed getting a second relevant degree to my job/career latter on.
Do it if you will enjoy it or if you have researched a very specific career and need to get qualified to get a foot in the door, don’t think it’s a golden ticket.
Thing is all I have qualification wise is 3 C&G in electrical installation from the late 80's - had the JIB not fucked off apprenticeships and introduced 3 year trainee schemes then I may still have been in that game. And no, I am not going back into that.
I've got 5 O-Levels C or above (from when they were hard), and 2 CSE Grade 1's.
Other than that I've nothing apart from over twenty years in financial sales - but only up to 6 years ago. Since then I've been living off my savings and investments so I could bring up my daughter.
I have a very basic knowledge of Word and that's about it. So I need to get some qualifications on paper if I'm to get a look in when I get round to applying for something. Whether that qualification is entirely relevant or just shows a willingness/ability to learn and helps me at least get a look in remains to be seen. But I can't see me getting an interview with a cv that looks like mine at the moment.
I'm waiting for a call back regarding the OU access course - <a class="postlink" href="http://www.open.ac.uk/courses/modules/y033" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.open.ac.uk/courses/modules/y033</a>
bgblue said:Only some of you :)salfordpaul said:plumbers are on over £100,000 a year or so says the sun :-)
In the land of Barcodes said:You've got 20 years experience in Sales - IMO the hardest trade in the book (puts tin hat on)
Damocles said:In the land of Barcodes said:You've got 20 years experience in Sales - IMO the hardest trade in the book (puts tin hat on)
I know that this is a bit off topic but I've never accepted this. Sales isn't hard. Many training programs in large companies have results oriented methods of selling the product. All you have to do is listen, learn, apply and repeat over and over. Oh and smash the phones like it is Jennifer Lawrence's backdoors and you've had 10 pints.
There's this strange mysticism around sales which I've never understood. Every human being is different but as a whole there are general trends and reactions which we can expect to see. Follow the guidelines, adapt a little to your personality then work your bollocks off in terms of hitting a bunch of potential clients in one day.
Damocles said:In the land of Barcodes said:You've got 20 years experience in Sales - IMO the hardest trade in the book (puts tin hat on)
I know that this is a bit off topic but I've never accepted this. Sales isn't hard. Many training programs in large companies have results oriented methods of selling the product. All you have to do is listen, learn, apply and repeat over and over. Oh and smash the phones like it is Jennifer Lawrence's backdoors and you've had 10 pints.
There's this strange mysticism around sales which I've never understood. Every human being is different but as a whole there are general trends and reactions which we can expect to see. Follow the guidelines, adapt a little to your personality then work your bollocks off in terms of hitting a bunch of potential clients in one day. I've never found it any more complicated than that to be honest - it's a field that is ripe for gamification.
Kids will grind their bollocks off playing a computer game for 100 hours a week doing a repetitive task because game developers are very good at making the grind a part of the mechanics of the game. They thrive when given a certain ruleset to complete a task which they then have to optimize to best fit their personal style. This is just sales with a nice user interface essentially.
If you're into sales and you don't know much about it, this video by Extra Credits about gamification's ideas in the real world is an interesting watch:
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dLK9MW-9sY[/video]
bgblue said:47? Wouldn't have said that :-)
In the land of Barcodes said:Just read your post and I'm a bit of a shocked 47 year old to be fair.
You've got 20 years experience in Sales - IMO the hardest trade in the book (puts tin hat on)
I'm an ex Telecomms Project Manager with an Engineering Degree who has spent 20+ years in the Army.
I'm now a Sales Manager - I moved into Sales when I was a Blackberry Certified Solutions Engineer working for a well known mobile Telecomms company that was taken over by a European Giant
They taught me sales in 4 weeks - it took me 25 years experience, various courses with some irrelevant qualifications and badges (MCSE, CCITT, Prince 2, BCSE) to be overtaken by the fact that nothing is like closing a deal!!!!!!
If I may make a suggestion - stick with what you know, you obviously built up a great nest egg to allow you to take 6 years off, so why would you risk everything on something you may not be good at?
If you're good at Sales then stick to it, unless the legislation has changed. I employ part time staff who I pay pro-rata on hours worked on salary but they also receive pro-rata commissions
I work for a marketing company in the North East, where I'll not lie my Project Management experience helps, but all of our Sales guys, full & part time earn a lot of money
Why would you change? Sales is sales. If I could put it this way - better to go from City to Oldham than to go from City to Sale Sharks
I don't know where you are in the UK, but if you want to PM me and you're within commuting distance, I'll give you an Interview mate at the very least - for a sales role.
46 and 3/4 :)Pelly Greeny said:bgblue said:47? Wouldn't have said that :-)
What would you have said?
go on I've set you up there ;-)
bgblue said:46 and 3/4 :)Pelly Greeny said:bgblue said:47? Wouldn't have said that :-)
What would you have said?
go on I've set you up there ;-)