Honest thoughts on what to do as a mature student with little experience

[CharliePA]

Hi all,

I graduated last year at the age of 33 with a Business & Management degree (upper 2:1) from the OU and have since then been applying for roles in a wide range of sectors.

That wide range reflects just how scattered my focus is, as there are many fields that interest me in some way -- although none totally satisfies my interests, something I'm prepared to overlook just to get on.

Now 34 and considering how to upskill, including through learning coding from scratch -- something I'd rather not do given it's another unpaid learning process and renders my four years of study largely pointless -- I'm once again paralysed by analysis.

I really have no idea where to focus my efforts. I've tried roles in business analysis, finance, administration, marketing and strategy to no avail, orienting my CV each time to those fields as much as I can given my lack of professional experience in them (I worked in hospitality and pursued writing projects under my own steam in the years preceding my studies).

If an application within one of those fields had transpired positively I'd have just gone along with it and started a career within it. But nothing did so now I'm at a loss.

I also face the strange situation of being older and knowing myself well enough to know those jobs will leave me feeling like a fraud (as writing is what I'd rather be doing, but I finally have come to accept its place as a hobby, for now), and experiencing daily cognitive dissonance from applying for roles that aren't really me, even though I'm technically interested in them, and yet knowing I have no choice but to build a career.

I'm not really sure what advice I'm actually seeking. Both general life advice and career skills advice, I guess (not asking for much).

Anyway, appreciate your thoughts...

C

 

[CharliePA]

Yeah, trying to put a positive spin on it is a big consideration. I really wish I was always someone who just wanted to do one, sensible thing and stick with that from a young age. Life would be somewhat more straight forward.

I hadn't expected my degree to attract this much indifference from employers. Trying to get onto the career ladder has proven near-impossible thus far. I'm even considering, sort of, a masters, just to boost my CV. It's overwhelming having so many options pulling me in so many directions.

 

[CharliePA]

Do what you love, love what you do.

Don't do coding, it sucks unless you have a real passion for it.

You must have some strong interests, passions, that offer career or money making opportunities. Work out what they are, and then apply yourself. Try to cut the amount of thinking down to a minimum, and restrict how long you think about it before applying yourself to earning money. If you can find something that you love to do, and you can make enough money to survive off it, your life will be much more rewarding.

Hard to argue with that regarding coding...I'm interested in coding as a concept (I tend to be interested in most things), but it's definitely not a passion of mine.

Where my real interests/passions lie are in the creative side of things, unfortunately. But I'm also interested, genuinely so, in the world of global affairs and investments etc., it's just I don't have much to show for that, other than following events fairly closely.

I suspect business analysis would be a pretty varied role, and therefore be something I could stomach as a day job -- it's just getting the initial experience that's been so difficult.

 

[CharliePA]

What do you do at the moment?

BA roles can be a new grad jumping into a junior analyst type role or can be other technical people, devs, QA etc.. moving across into a BA role, or can be subject matter experts in a particular domain - the latter might be applicable if you've got X years in some industry and there are relevant software vendors for that industry.



Getting a degree is a way to signify a desire to change career though I guess just blindly applying to stuff even if you try to tailor your CV could be rather hit & miss with no experience to pivot from and nothing to offer.

Think of it from an employer's perspective, a degree ticks a box perhaps but lots of people have degrees, generic grad schemes have a fair bit of competition and if you don't get one of those then what skills can you actually offer them? Is there anything relevant re: what you did previously?

You mention finance and administration - pursuing an accountancy qualification might help there, you could have perhaps done ATT without a degree and got a job in the finance dept of some company then pursued ACCA... I guess you could start to pursue ACCA or CIMA etc. now anyway. I'm out of date on this but one flatmate was working in tax for a big 4 firm post-uni, in his opinion (keeping in mind this was a while back and just the opinion of one guy) there were so many numpties in his intake failing exams, quitting etc.. that if someone actually applied to the firm with a few exam passes off their own back then it's quite a good thing.

That could apply to other areas too, I think you need to decide what you want to do first and foremost then commit to that area... that could involve going to meetups, finding some relevant internet forum, Reddit thingie, twitter communities etc.. read about it, network and get yourself started.

Currently doing a little part-time job in hospitality till I find something career-wise.

Thinking from an employer's POV is certainly humbling, yeah. Accounting is a funny one for me. It's the only module for which I achieved distinction, and I weirdly enjoyed trying to diagnose issues, AND getting those qualifications are a good way to upskill, which other areas don't really have, but I've never super-seriously considered it for various reasons (mainly its reputation of being stale). Maybe, come to think of it, that should be my sole 'realistic day job' focus, as opposed to just one of many. Something to consider for sure...thanks!

As for roles extending from interests/hobbies...I suppose writing-related would some sort of editing, journalism...that sort of thing...which would be cool, but again I have no credentials so probably best avoided.

 

[CharliePA]

Thanks a lot for the replies, everyone... Apologies for the silence...I've been away doing some thinking, despairing, and some applications...

My problem is I'm interested in too many things. To me, everything has an interesting aspect, and it leaves me somewhat lost or overwhelmed at all the options. And unsure of what my passions are as I don't know how to identify when an interest is a passion.

I'm also trying to keep my scope realistic. As in, not applying for anything too high-calibre: my degree is a 2:1 from the Open University, which is definitely not even mid-tier, and I wonder if that's partly why I've received only a muted response so far.

I've been applying for analyst roles, as I did earlier in the year, with a view of getting into BA, but we'll see if anyone bites...

Also, I'm still considering getting into coding. That'd make my skill set directly relevant to roles -- do you think it'd mitigate the negatives of my age (34) and unimpressive CV when applying for coding jobs? It's definitely not been a life-long passion of mine, but it does interest me how you can make something from nothing.

Cheers for any responses!

 

[CharliePA]

(Trying to be kind and stop you wasting your time) - you won't get coding jobs. You'll be up against people with degrees in computer science and years of experience, and younger so easier to push around, you won't get interviews. You also won't be able to self-teach to a sufficient level on your own.

There are jobs around the edges of coding, e.g. project manager, product manager, manual software tester. You might be able to get basic qualifications fairly easily to get your first job in one of those positions. Then you can really see how coding teams work and decide for yourself.C

Honest responses is what I like/need! Thanks.

So you think those fields you mention look more kindly on older applicants?

 

[CharliePA]

Some programming roles are to some extent self-selecting, granted plenty of people can learn a bit of python or java and work on simple problems, likewise plenty of people can build a UI or do some web development etc. if you can tackle more difficult problems then there is potentially more $$$ available.

You don't necessarily need any qualifications in order to be a programmer, it's useful to have a degree of course but if some crypto firm wants to hire a smart contract developer or whatever they're going to be more interested in what you can do, especially if such a job is remote too, for that sort of role it's more likely your GitHub or similar that will be relevant.

That would be a nice lifestyle to have for sure, working remotely in crypto!
I think what i need is for one application to succeed, then I'll just roll with whatever career path that starts me on...till then I'll be somewhat all over the place.

 

[CharliePA]

Well I guess you could always get a QA job as per the suggestion of the other poster and then transition into a dev role from there if you find you like it, application support analyst is the common entry-level type positon in software firms (note not IT helpdesk but actually analysing issues with the software and liaising with development teams etc..).

In both those cases, some coding skills can be usefull, if you're a support guy then digging into the code to try and solve an issue can be useful (certainly could make you stand out vs the typical application support types) - general all round techie skills count there too; good knowledge of SQL, basic unix/linux command line stuff etc.

QA and software delivery teams (these might be colocated and managed by the same overall manager) sometimes have internal developers - these people don't work on the application itself but write code for internal automated testing tools for the QA analysts to use and tools to automate aspects related to the delivery of software upgrades, fixes etc.. so that could be a very easy dev job to progress into as a QA analyst, it doesn't even necessarily require you getting approval from a manager for an internal move, you could stay in the same team you're in as a QA analyst and start picking up a little bit of dev work in addition to your QA/testing stuff. It's perhaps a bit less pressure too, you potentially break an internal tool and look a bit foolish to your immediate colleagues rather than break a client's production system and look foolish to a whole bunch of people it gets escalated to.

Thanks for the response, very detailed and a whole new branch of jobs to consider...which is somewhat overwhelming. I have no idea about QA but it what you've plotted out there certainly makes sense as something that could work.

I'll have a look at QA roles in my city, and perhaps even London if that's where I have to go for work, and see what sorts of 'requirements' the roles tend to have. Cheers!

 

[CharliePA]

You're right. It does seem like a lot of creative as well as technical endeavour to undertake, so without passion for it...it'd be somewhat challenging.

My main passion is writing (fiction), as well as some other financially-challenged pursuits, so finding another 'true' passion would be quite difficult. I think that's the appeal of business analysis; it seems engaging and I like the sound of the analytical elements, among others.

Obviously, now I wish I wasn't a 'creative' sort, and had just one financially-sensible pursuit from high school age that I wanted to focus on...that's part of the awkward position I'm in, I guess. I know what I like, and who I am, but I'm having to pretend that side of me doesn't really exist.

 

[CharliePA]

Yeah, you did it the sensible way around...I really did put all my eggs in one basket, like a genius, and I'm not scrambling to make up for that mistake. Still wanting to write, though, but need to 'get real' and get that foot in the door.

I've tried grad schemes, yeah -- many of them. I've wondered about the preference for younger grads, as I always made solid applications and did well in aptitude tests, but who knows...I've tried applying to enough of them to know they're not the best time focus, I think.

I think trying to get some sort of analyst role, to then move into BA eventually is my best shot. Maybe take some Tableau and SQL courses on the side or before the analyst positions to make it clear what my focus is. Even so, finding a job description that doesn't ask for some experience is extremely rare. I seriously wonder where on Earth people get their first jobs! Maybe I'm not looking 'low' enough, even with junior/entry positions.

 

[CharliePA]

What do you mean by "some sort of analyst role, to then move into BA eventually"?

A BA is a "Business analyst", there are also data or business intelligence analysts, support analysts, quality assurance analysts etc..

SQL is useful in general, tableau is perhaps useful for BI/data analyst roles though some BA roles might overlap a bit and be quite data-focused.

I've heard people describing a possible path to becoming a BA involving being an analyst in a focused area, such as a data analyst or QA, then move into BA. Of course, it seems those are also pretty tough to get, but besides junior BA roles, I haven't found another path into BA.

 

[CharliePA]

What are the other financially-challenged pursuits? If you have a passion for writing could I suggest that you also try and get some sort of paid work doing this as a sideline, and keep thinking how you could make money from this. In general, writing jobs seem hard work and poorly paid, but just do it almost as a hobby and as a channel to indulge your interest. Writing for websites and magazines would pay you something, I know it's hard to start, but just keep trying.

The lack of focus thing is something I can relate to. You really do need to focus your mind on what you would enjoy spending your time doing that also pays you enough to get by. I know that's not easy, but the key thing is to choose something you actually enjoy, as that will make things a lot easier for you. Do some hard thinking about this, and then you can identify what you actually are / want to be, and then you can start working towards it. Put a time limit on how long you will allow yourself to decide though, otherwise you will remain unfocused. In the meantime, keep up the writing as a sideline to keep yourself busy, and you never know, it might open some doors.

Financially-challenged pursuits are all the usual creative suspects: writing is the main one, then there's an interest in acting, film-making and other things, but I've tried to just focus on writing to avoid being spread too thin.

Something I'd actually enjoy in the world of work...I have no idea what that'd be, to be honest, even after much consideration. I suspect the closest I can get to that is something that's engaging enough to make the hours pass quick, and which perhaps includes an aspect that I'm interested in, such as global affairs or the business world. I actually tried to focus on 'finance' jobs, but didn't get anywhere; I think the demands from employers are understandably high -- too high for my CV.

 

[CharliePA]

What kind of things have you written and have you ever got paid for anything?

I write prose; genre fiction is the main focus, but really I just like strong concepts in any genre. And no, I have never been paid for any writing.

 

[CharliePA]

In a strange way, that's why studying business management worked: it was the complete opposite of writing, and yet had aspects that interest me, such as strategy and business world. I'd tried academic degrees before and couldn't sustain interest.

So I think that's another appeal of BA, that it's the opposite to my passion in many respects.

It's just a case of getting my foot in the door.

 

[CharliePA]

I'd say SQL is more useful than Tableau because most data-related jobs can make at least some use of SQL somewhere along the line, whereas Tableau is a proprietary tool that a given organisation simply may not use.

As for people getting first jobs I think it is a mix of:

• Graduate entry
• Recommendations / family ties
• Taking a rubbish job and then moving internally (this is what I did when starting out) - a lot easier to give confidence to the hiring managers if they have evidence of what you can do
• Really tailoring their CV / application for a particular role, maybe even exaggerating their experience
• Scattergun approach, just blasting out dozens and dozens of applications until something sticks
• Undertaking some sort of vocational training with close ties to getting taken on afterwards / work experience / apprenticeships etc
• Recognising what really is a junior job that more experienced candidates are unlikely to apply for, and taking the requirements with a pinch of salt. e.g. they want a couple of years experience in the domain, but they aren't paying enough for that

Thanks a lot! That's a great list...1, 3, 4 and 7 seem like good shouts. 3 might actually have to be what I opt for...again...having tried really basic admin jobs before but getting nowhere because of the high temping rate for those jobs, so they all asked for a lot of experience. Will give it another try, though...

 

[CharliePA]

Set yourself a challenge of trying to get paid to write something. There are various freelance sites out there that will pay writers. Otherwise try writing on topics relevant to the job application and submit articles to relevant websites. This is just as a sideline though, carry on with a focus on getting a job.

Maybe. Seems like a whole additional thing to learn and adapt to, on top of the job search, so maybe not now, though.