Confused about where to go next.. ironically.

[DailyGeek]

Morning all, please excuse the underlying 'woe is me' tone to this post

I currently work with the local Connexions service (supporting 13-19 year olds) where I've been for 4 years on 1st May 2011. I've spent much of that time working as a careers adviser but from September onwards, changed roles to working on supporting teens with other issues (drugs/homelessness/anger management - everything really).

As part of the current spending cuts, they are making about 20% of the staff redundant early May and I'm not really in a position to be hanging around to see if I get chopped or not (my sickness record isn't fantastic, albeit genuine).

Now here's my issue - I don't know what to do next. A bit of my background:

Left Grammar school after GCSEs and did an Advanced GNVQ in IT at college.

Ended up working in Comet as a PC/Grey Goods specialist for about 5.5 years, ended up getting a job in the local police force HQ as a researcher for seven months, as my first move out of retail.

Also volunteered with the Samaritans for just shy of three years, which is what got me the police job, and eventually, into Connexions.

Now I currently earn in the early 20k region, however I'm going to need to change fields, partly out of risk of redundancy and partly out of protecting my sanity. I'd like it to be something I have an interest in or will enjoy, ideally of course.

Now I'm not going to make any money out of comedy any time soon, but I love writing and would love to write for a gaming\tech site (I've had two interviews with future publishing in the past based on my writing, but always been beaten by someone with more journalism experience).

With my careers guidance background I should be able to figure this out but I always get hooked on comedy or writing and they aren't easy fields to find work in. They're more of an aspirational thing I guess.

I'd love to work in IT, and I've got a very good level of general hardware/software knowledge, but every job I've seen requires experience or several languages, or some clever looking certification, if I want a job that pays more than 12k.

So-I'm not sure what I'm asking for really, but any advice or suggestions about what the hell I could do might be a start... Feeling rather lost and ever so slightly frustrated at the moment

Cheers

 

[DailyGeek]

Apprenticeship in IT?

Should mention I need to stay as close to the 20k mark as possible. My other half is starting Uni in September to study to become a midwife so I can't drop too much pay.

 

[DailyGeek]

In before the "dont' work in IT it's rubbish crowd".

Even though they take home plenty of pay and read OCUK all day!

I'm quite conflicted with working in IT as I understand the pitfalls and downsides. Unfortunately aside from talking/listening to people, making people laugh or writing, it's the only other thing I'm good at. I've ballsed up somewhere along the line

 

[DailyGeek]

To be honest I think you're going to struggle finding a job in IT that pays 20k with your experience and qualifications. If you were serious about it, the certification route is probably your best bet, but even then finding work afterwards wouldn't be that easy.

If you're really interested in IT then training yourself in your spare time would be a good start, get experience with the sort of thing you want to work with, if you can afford to then try to get certificated in something relevant and once you're ready, start applying to jobs. I know that's painful, but you only need to succeed once.

I agree. I've looked into doing MS certs, Cisco certs, even stuff like CEH but there's very little chance of me getting work having done certs with no experience. I'm a bit screwed trying to find something before May

Not just looking at IT though, keeping all options open (except going back to retail!) so any ideas welcome

 

[DailyGeek]

I figure some base knowledge of all the stuff i'd not touch on as a home user would be handy to have, but with so many candidates going for each job I wonder if it's a pointless exercise. Perhaps I should just focus on one area and get really proficient?

 

[DailyGeek]

Hit the Edinburgh comedy festival and hope for the best??

I am going up there if I can afford it for a while this year. I'm not at the point of having an hour long one man show that I can stick 10k in to promote yet though, that's a while off.