Yes i am a safety officer with 4-5 years experience, found the first unit great. How long did the diploma take you, im not very academic and it took me 3.5 months to finish unit 1. Do you have any experience?
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Health and Safety / facilities Careers
- Thread starter Amplus
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Yes i am a safety officer with 4-5 years experience, found the first unit great. How long did the diploma take you, im not very academic and it took me 3.5 months to finish unit 1. Do you have any experience?
About 6 months to do the whole diploma , yes I have experience .
NCRQ have also recently announced that they have doing a fire certificate , which looks interesting
Yeah saw it, definitely interested. Fair play 6 months is very quick.
Deleted member 651465
D
Deleted member 651465
I'm a chartered member of IOSH and have been a safety manager for 12 years. If you have any questions, tag me and I'll see if I can answer your question.
I've been the site manager at a large gas power station and an aviation engine repair business for a large multinational american firm that rhymes with Gee EE. I've also headed up manufacturing industries and did a stint at the health service as a regional safety advisor. In my experience it's best to move around industries to add experience to your portfolio particularly as you may start in a place where you're not sure if its what you like etc.
Construction is good money if you want to get involved but it's very much operational.. walking site and checking compliance whilst generally working lots of hours. There's excellent money aborad if you have no commitments, but it's getting in to the party as everyone has a NEBOSH gen cert these days. To earn the bigger money you need to be have some proven 'strategic' knowledge e.g. how to manage an EHS management system or industrial hygiene programme, not that you know how to check lifting compliance on a checklist. A demonstrable record of results also helps, so always keep a record of your achievements even if you think they're site-specific... employers love examples where you've changed something or fixed a problem for the better. I currently work in the pharmaceutical industry which is heavily focused on process safety and it's own level of fun, particularly if you have a good chemical background.
My tip is: NEBOSH is a good start but it won't buy you any jobs without the experience to back it up. I didn't do the NEBOSH Diploma and instead did a Post Grad Diploma from a university instead. It got me to the same level that I needed to move up the tree and was much easier to complete whilst working. For reference, I've completed lots of qualifications including things to supplement my safety role (ILM level 5 management, quality auditor lead etc).. to the point that I'd need to complete a doctorate in safety to even go higher than my highest qual but do you know what? no one really cares.
I suppose what I'm saying is.. don't be the guy with all the certificates and no experience. It'll be easier to complete quals when you're doing a job, particularly specialist things like fire safety etc. and definitely DON'T be one of those guys that put their post nominals in emails... if someone does that to me, I usually delete the email OR if it's internal and I feel like messing with them I'd reply with all of mine to assert dominance (like I did to my boss that put TechIOSH on his email like a badge of honour
).
I've been the site manager at a large gas power station and an aviation engine repair business for a large multinational american firm that rhymes with Gee EE. I've also headed up manufacturing industries and did a stint at the health service as a regional safety advisor. In my experience it's best to move around industries to add experience to your portfolio particularly as you may start in a place where you're not sure if its what you like etc.
Construction is good money if you want to get involved but it's very much operational.. walking site and checking compliance whilst generally working lots of hours. There's excellent money aborad if you have no commitments, but it's getting in to the party as everyone has a NEBOSH gen cert these days. To earn the bigger money you need to be have some proven 'strategic' knowledge e.g. how to manage an EHS management system or industrial hygiene programme, not that you know how to check lifting compliance on a checklist. A demonstrable record of results also helps, so always keep a record of your achievements even if you think they're site-specific... employers love examples where you've changed something or fixed a problem for the better. I currently work in the pharmaceutical industry which is heavily focused on process safety and it's own level of fun, particularly if you have a good chemical background.
My tip is: NEBOSH is a good start but it won't buy you any jobs without the experience to back it up. I didn't do the NEBOSH Diploma and instead did a Post Grad Diploma from a university instead. It got me to the same level that I needed to move up the tree and was much easier to complete whilst working. For reference, I've completed lots of qualifications including things to supplement my safety role (ILM level 5 management, quality auditor lead etc).. to the point that I'd need to complete a doctorate in safety to even go higher than my highest qual but do you know what? no one really cares.
I suppose what I'm saying is.. don't be the guy with all the certificates and no experience. It'll be easier to complete quals when you're doing a job, particularly specialist things like fire safety etc. and definitely DON'T be one of those guys that put their post nominals in emails... if someone does that to me, I usually delete the email OR if it's internal and I feel like messing with them I'd reply with all of mine to assert dominance (like I did to my boss that put TechIOSH on his email like a badge of honour
).@EVH
Thanks for the post, very informative.
Im currently in the LA sector as a trainee safety officer but i have gone as far as i can in my role which if im honest is barely at the beginning. Im trying to find another job but its pretty hard going and i have been looking for nearly two years now. Im looking at trainee safety roles, health and safety administrator roles but still not getting anywhere. I have had advice on getting the qualifications early on in your career to make myself stand out for these entry level jobs, i do have about 5 years experience but it doesnt seem good enough. Any advice, everyone tells me be patient something will come along.
Qualifications:
Nebosh general certicate
NCRQ Principles of Health and safety
NCRQ unit 2 and 3 for diploma ongoing.
Thanks for the post, very informative.
Im currently in the LA sector as a trainee safety officer but i have gone as far as i can in my role which if im honest is barely at the beginning. Im trying to find another job but its pretty hard going and i have been looking for nearly two years now. Im looking at trainee safety roles, health and safety administrator roles but still not getting anywhere. I have had advice on getting the qualifications early on in your career to make myself stand out for these entry level jobs, i do have about 5 years experience but it doesnt seem good enough. Any advice, everyone tells me be patient something will come along.
Qualifications:
Nebosh general certicate
NCRQ Principles of Health and safety
NCRQ unit 2 and 3 for diploma ongoing.
Deleted member 651465
D
Deleted member 651465
5 years experience should be enough to get you a step above a trainee. Have you put your CV in with agencies? I went from a lowly “officer” role to a regional advisor in 5 years… it can be down to finding the right opportunity.
Get yourself on LinkedIn and start following some companies you want to work for. Likewise, draft a CV and get someone to look it over. Most of the time getting the interview is the hardest part.
Unfortunately more than one employer has told me that public sector work is seen as cushy (which I dispute having done 4 years in NHS and local authority myself) but I wouldn’t let that deter you.
If you’re struggling now it’ll likely be due to COVID closing businesses BUT that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t drop some CVs in the post with a covering letter!
@EVH
My 5 years experience is pretty terrible as ive had to self teach my role as the whole team left a few months after i got the role. I dont write policies, risk assessments, auditing. Infact it would be quicker if i posted what i actually do.
I am on LinkedIn but dont really know how to use it properly. I have my CV posted on there and i have just started finding a couple jobs on there lately. Do you recommend any particular agencies or should i just google recruitment agencies in the south west of england?
Could i send over my CV to you?
My 5 years experience is pretty terrible as ive had to self teach my role as the whole team left a few months after i got the role. I dont write policies, risk assessments, auditing. Infact it would be quicker if i posted what i actually do.
I am on LinkedIn but dont really know how to use it properly. I have my CV posted on there and i have just started finding a couple jobs on there lately. Do you recommend any particular agencies or should i just google recruitment agencies in the south west of england?
Could i send over my CV to you?
5 years as a trainee, I'd say you need to move on ; and get experience of doing writing policies, risk assessments and auditing that will help with you a lot on getting a new job. Risk assessments is like bread and butter to a health and safety professional
Deleted member 651465
D
Deleted member 651465
Find some local agencies and put your CV in with them. It wouldn't hurt to stick one on some larger ones but you may end up with a recruiter that doesn't know the area and they'll try offering you jobs 50 miles away because they don't understand the geography. What you could do is reverse-engineer the job market and look at the adverts for the roles you want... what do they ask for? Now you know what you need experience in, in order to qualify for the role.
To be honest; If you've been doing the role for 5 years and haven't done a risk assessment then alarm bells would be going off in my head.
If your current employer has a progress / development process then you could raise it as something you want to do more but tbh, I'd just pull a load of risk assessments out and start reviewing them... do they cover all reasonably foreseeable hazards? are all types of people covered (pregnant, disabled, young persons, visitors, employees, public etc)? what scoring system do they use? (5 x 5 matrices are most common) and do they contain the level of detail that a caveman could read and understand? Likewise, if you're looking at a technical job are they complex enough? (for instance, simply saying "equipment is rated to a set pressure isn’t good enough, I’d expect the pressure to be stated if it was critical etc).
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Thanks EVH.
I'll take a look at some local job recruiters to try my luck. I haven't done any risk assessments but I have reviewed 100's remotely which is a bit rubbish as I'm taking their word that it's correct. I have done a risk assessment in my diploma and feel like I have the understanding of carrying one out.
My work are looking at getting me to do auditing later in the year, but apart from that I'm on my own.
I basically look at risk assessments for a particular site and see if it has been all filled in and with enough detail so for example not you using one word answers etc.