Career Ideas

Vinno

Vinno

Vinno

Associate
Joined
11 May 2010
Posts
1,448
Greetings all.

I am currently in a bit of a pickle. This may be a long one and will pretty much read like an extended version of my CV - so i'll provide a tl;dr at the bottom.

I finished uni in 2011 with a Automotive Engineering/Technology degree. My grade was 2:1.

Since then I have been quite unfortunate in my working life (I think so anyway). I didn't get a job in the industry until 6 months after graduation where I worked for an company who design/makes car exhausts. I designed hooks and brackets for said exhausts. 8 months after joining I was made redundant due to the company going into administration. This was initially only a 1 year contract anyway so I kept my part time job which I'd had since 2006.


It was then 6 months until I got another Engineering job, this was a "proper job" so I packed in the part time one. I worked designing material handling systems - vibratory feeders/conveyor belts etc. I was made redundant after 14 months due to them wanting less workers and more management.

I spent almost a full year unemployed on the dole until I got a temporary job working in the quality department of a place which makes wiring looms for the aerospace industry. I was basically just doing the grunt work, admin etc. Although it was only meant to last 6 weeks, I was still there 6 months later with the promise of a full time job after Christmas. They had me doing less admin things and more Quality things so it felt like they were training me up for something. Christmas came and went - then there was a meeting to inform everyone that Siemens had cancelled a contract which meant they lost 6 months worth of orders overnight, 6 people were made redundant - plus me, the temp guy.

Now as you can imagine, my CV reads like crap with some gaps between. I've been told as much by a recruitment guy who I requested feedback from.

I was made redundant in February and I'm still out of work - and to be honest I don't want a job in Engineering or Design anymore. I've just lost all drive and desire to go anywhere near that environment again. Even if I did land a "dream job" I don't think I could ever feel safe after the last 3 years. I didn't enjoy any of the previous jobs - or even find them tolerable. The lack of security just made things worse.

In the past few weeks I've been trying to think of something else I can do where maybe my Engineering degree will get me somewhere.

My dad gave me a book which has a bunch of aptitude/personality tests in which apparetly can tell you what you'd be good at/would best suit you. I don't really believe its entirely accurate or possible to do such a thing reliably but I did it anyway to give me a starting point.

It's actually given me some decent ideas of things to look at which sound interesting and match what I feel I'm good at. Methodical work with numbers mainly.

So after the massive wall of text which reads like a sob story......

Does anyone know of anything I could have a go at? I'm willing to look at pretty much anything. Ideally something where you train on the job would be nice but I'm not fussed if it isn't possible.

I'm also not bothered about location should the salary of said job allow me to live like human :p

I will say that I am not suited to anything requiring a massive amount of "people skills". I'm awkward at the best of times. :rolleyes:

One thing which massively appeals to me is applying for a job working in Air Traffic Control but I'm 99% sure my eyesight wont allow it. Which is a shame because I'm pretty sure I'd be great at that sort of thing.

I'll end it here before I start rambling.

Thanks in advance for any ideas/advice.

td;dr - Made redundant 3 times in 4 years. Was Design Engineer - need new job ideas. Thanks :D
 
Sounds like you've had bad luck through no fault of your own.

If you fancy ATC why not go for it, you never know. You'll need a class 3 medical and you'll need to check, but the eyesight requirement allows for quite a wide range of correction. Ive copied the relevant part below:

If you need correction, the refractive error (the amount of correction) must not exceed +5.00 dioptres of long sight or -6.00 dioptres of short sight. This is calculated as the most ametropic meridian which takes into account any astigmatism. Astigmatism must not exceed 2.00 dioptres. Anisometropia (the difference in refraction between each eye) must not exceed 2.00 dioptres.

You will need good colour vision however.

Like I say, unless you have good reason to believe your eyesight falls outside the requirements above then why not give it a go - good luck :)
 
Thank you all for the encouragement.

ivrytwr3 - I turned 30 this year so the forces route is out of the equation I think, unless Mrs Clinton decides to plunge us all into World War 3, but I'll worry about that next year :D

As far as the eyesight thing goes: I don't think my eyes are correctable. I had Amblyopia as a young 'un and glasses don't really do much at all. I've been toying with the idea of getting my eyes tested and see exactly what chance I have. That's probably the best thing to do right?

I don't fancy going through the whole process and getting kicked out when I do the medical at the end. :eek:
 
If you like logistics, perhaps load controller for airlines? I used to write software which did that. Essentially you are responsible for generating the load out for the flight (placing cargo across the deck of the aircraft etc) , ensuring its within trims/balance. I am not too sure about the qualifications needed.

Of course other thing is to pick up some programming language and work that angle.
 
The NATS medical requirements for eyesight fyi...

You must have normal colour vision and your visual acuity must be 6/9 or better in each eye separately and 6/6 together. This visual acuity can be achieved using correction but there are limits on the amount of correction required. An initial applicant must make no errors when tested on the first 15 plates of the standard 24 plate Ishihara Test (a series of numbers outlined by different coloured dots, easily seen by someone with normal colour vision).
Click to expand...
 
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