The 5 year plan to £50k

[FortuitousFluke]

I do enjoy reading people's success stories but I wish I could get some more detail on how they jumped up the ladder, one rung at a time.

For me it often comes back to the chicken and egg problem.

I can't speak to IT but my suggestions would be:

• Loyalty within industry isn't the virtue it used to be, be willing to move employers to get what you want, in particular if your current employer won't offer training look for a step up or even a sideways move and make the key factor of your job search the availability of training and progression
• Get involved in as many projects that stretch your comfort zone as possible, even if you can't get certified in something if you can evidence experience that may well be enough.
• Take any promises from employers with a pinch of salt until they actually materialise. I spent probably 1-2 years too long at my previous employer because they kept promising and I liked the team and management.
• Be mercenary, when I'm working for a company they get my best work beyond what I am employed for probably. But if and opportunity arises that is the right fit for me I don't have an issue moving on. You've got to find that balance between what you need to offer the company and looking out for your own development.

A lot of it is down to a minor switch in focus. Most people who stagnate apply the majority of their focus to the job, you do need to be focussed on the work you're doing but at the moment the highest level of my attention is what I can do within that job to allow myself to make the next step.

 

[Ayahuasca]

well he's obviously quoting contractor rates so making a comparison with a perm salary isn't going to match

Indeed, I just don't think it's that realistic to expect someone (FoxEye) to walk into a contracted role like that within 5 years but there'll be people who've proven otherwise I'd imagine. It would take a complete shift in attitude and mindset and a lot of work within other areas of his life.

 

[Maccy]

Been reading this thread since the start but chose not to post originally, however since seeing @FoxEye's recent bit about asking how people worked their way up, I thought I'd share my history (well as much as I can remember!) I've highlighted pay increases in bold if you don't want to read all the details.

I started fresh out of uni in 2011 applying for graduate roles or junior web dev roles, as that's something I'd been doing on and off since school. I stumbled across a graduate role on Reed and it was fairly local to where I was living, back at my folks, so I applied for it. It was for a testing consultancy who were looking for 5/6 graduates, I had no idea about testing or that it was even a field in IT that was so big(!!) but I sent my CV, which was awful looking back, and got called by the internal recruiter to have a chat. I must've made a good impression as I was invited for a f2f interview with HR - bear in mind I was fresh out of uni with a music degree, applying for a grad role in IT, so the questions weren't technical, just HR-type questions!
I expected to have done really badly so was surprised when I got an email later in the day inviting me to their graduate interview day, to be hosted at the Holiday Inn, Borehamwood - delightful. I had been to large interview sessions before but this was a more focused day on ~20 potential candidates rather than a group interview.
The day was structured as follows:

• Welcome and introduction about the company, with a background on software testing and where the company's specialties lie
• A f2f interview with 2 people from the company - these were split into groups, half of us were interviewed by the technical director and head of operations, half of us were interviewed by the service delivery manager and....the founder/MD - guess which group I was in! We also had to do a presentation on 'Ambition' so they could assess our presentation skills and how we approached this task, I think I broke up the word 'ambition' and used each letter to describe a quality of a model employee; can't remember what I did for each letter but I do remember that for O I did " 'onesty" which got a few chuckles! I've always found humour to be a great tool when trying to leave an impression/get people to like you
• After lunch, they cut the group down to about 8 people and somehow I made the cut! This was to be followed with an interview with me against everyone, so the 4 people above plus HR, so I felt like I was being grilled by 5 people - looking back I don't think it was a grilling at all, I was just naive and had no interview experience!

I got a call back a few days later asking me to come in and meet some of the team as they had a question mark against me and wanted to see how I'd fit in, it must've gone well as they made an offer later in the day and I was over the moon - my first job application after uni and getting an offer starting at £23,000.

I started in September 2011 and had a training course on the ISEB/ISTQB Foundation level in software testing (everyone seems to have this useless qualification and I'm amazed it's still a requirement for some jobs!) as well as training courses in some software tools and core skills. We then practiced the technical skills using a range of training material that the company had developed internally for the next few months, until I had my 3 month probation meeting and was told I was the first graduate to be put onto client work, focusing on developing test scripts in our in house 'silo' for one of our biggest clients. I did this for a few months until I got my first pay rise, an increase in £500!!!

As well as the scripting work, I tried to help out in other areas of the business to gain more experience and just make a good impression, be it marketing or business/operations related. Most of 2012 was busy with the client work but I think by the time pay review came round in April 2013 I was given an increase of £2,000, taking me up to £25,500.

I then came up with the idea of developing a blog for the company to use as a marketing tool and they were very impressed by this, so we implemented a basic wordpress blog which I designed and set up the theme for, with my basic CSS skills! Doing that, plus developing training material in another software tool meant that by April 2014 I was given an increase of £4,000, putting me on £29,500.
By this time, I was actively out on client engagements - I spent some time in London, Coventry, Birmingham, Norwich as well as work for clients back in the office. We had it pretty good most of the time when in the office, it was a group of young guys doing the odd bit of work and pratting around - on a few occasions we brought in remote controlled helicopters and started having wars whilst trying not to get caught! All of this work downtime meant that I got another payrise of £4,500, taking me to £34,000.

Fast forward to 2016 and the work had dried up at the company, I could see that it wasn't doing so well as so many of us were on downtime and not actively engaged on billable work. Coupled with the lack of payrise in the April I knew that I had to make a decision - start looking for another job or sit it out and take redundancy if/when it came round. I chose the former option, playing it safe.

I applied for a role at a large supermarket chain in London and had an interview with a guy that had previously worked at the company I was at, and a more junior member of staff that I'd not worked with directly but she had worked for a client who I had worked for too. I knew the more junior member of staff fairly well through info I'd picked up from other people and I felt like they tried to abuse their position during the interview and try and throw me off. The other guy, the current team lead at said supermarket chain, I felt like I got on well with and made a good impression. Clearly it didn't work because I was rejected - I have a few feelings why but it's of no bother to me now.
Instead, I reached out to a chap who used to work at the current company in sales, he left to join a competitor; I had always got on well with him and he was able to recommend me and find a position at his new place. I didn't need to have an interview here, I remember having a phone call with the director during my drive home from work one afternoon on the M25 and we got on well. I also had a chat with the technical director, I think I was working away in Nuneaton doing a short engagement for Unipart, and had the phone call with this guy after work when I was in the hotel room! The chats went well and I was asked what salary I was looking for; not looking to undersell myself I felt I was being reasonable asking for £45,000 which was the average for a mid-level consultant.

I enjoyed working with these guys and did some work for the Bank of England as well as a lot of time working in Swindon. Unfortunately the time in Swindon was taking it's toll on me after 6 months so I started looking for other opportunities closer to home. I'd always wanted to work in house somewhere and one day was contacted by a recruiter for a position at CurrencyCloud, based in Liverpool Street. I tailored my CV for the role and sent it off, not expecting to get very far as I lacked a lot of the required skills on the job spec. I learnt a valuable lesson here - always take job specs with a pinch of salt, you do not need to have all of the required skills to be successful, and I still stand by that today. I also was contacted about a job at Asos based in Camden so applied for that as well. After reviewing my CV, I was invited for a face to face interview.
Back to CurrencyCloud, I had a phone interview with the Head of QA and we got on very well, had a lot of things in common, so I was invited for a face to face interview - I scheduled both of the face to face interviews for the same day, Asos in the morning and CurrencyCloud in the afternoon. Here is a good opportunity for me to cross reference with the recent thread about suits for job interview - I turned up in a suit (no tie) for these interviews and was overdressed. Asos is a very relaxed and trendy place to work, although having said that the two guys who interviewed me were in hoodies and jeans! I thought the interview went well, but later found out I had been unsuccessful and they went for someone with more experience, fair enough, I didn't have all of the skills required vs someone who did!
On to the afternoon interview, and again I felt overdressed as I was going into a relatively young, start up company. I was interviewed by the Head of QA and one of the QA team, followed by some questions with the Head of Infrastructure and Head of Security. This was a very interesting opportunity as I was asked some questions I was not expecting, such as 'compare these 3 £1 coins and note down all of the differences', 'write out the SQL statements to query a table and to insert a new value into a row' (I had no SQL knowledge!!) and most famously 'are you any good at Fifa'

The recruiter got back to me a couple of days later and told me that I'd been unsuccessful, I was gutted because I really wanted this job and had tried to make a good impression and research the company well. Sadly, again, they offered it to someone with more experience and knowledge of Ruby, which was the core of their application (but not listed on the job spec!).
I was surprised then to get a call a few days later by the recruiter asking if I had applied for any other jobs and would I still be interested in CurrencyCloud? Apparently the Head of QA was asking after me and what my situation was. Turns out that they had been let down by the guy who they made an offer to and wanted me based on the impression I left! We spoke about salary and I asked for £50k, we agreed on £47,500.

That took me up until the start of this year, my role at CurrencyCloud changed towards the end of 2017 when I had to lead the QA team after the Head of QA left and I was offered a pay rise I think to take me up to £55,000 (can't remember the exact figure!) in January 2018.

I was then contacted out of the blue by a recruiter offering me a 6 month contract for Ikea, based in Sweden. My first thought was '**** no!' but then thought about it a bit more and remember that I'd worked with someone down in Swindon who was now at Ikea. I reached out to him and asked him about the place, the team etc and got some positive feedback, so I went for it - tailored my CV to the job specs (again, I didn't have all of the required skills!!) and off it went. I didn't hear anything for a week or two and then was suddenly called by the recruiter with an invitation for a Skype interview with the team manager and a developer (who I work closely with now). Being my first contract role, I had no idea what the interview would be like!
It started with an introduction to the company, the team, the vision etc before asking about my history and my work and then the developer asked about my technical skills and some specific questions around the test tool that they were using. Being a contract role, they wanted someone who could come in and start straight away with what was already in place, no time for introductions and getting up to speed.
I thought the interview went terrible, there were times when I just couldn't give an answer because I simply didn't know and I was not going to try and blag my way through it, you'll always be caught out. I later learnt that the way the questions had been structured meant that I knew how to tackle them, they'd just been asked incorrectly.
Coupled with this, and a few strings pulled by my contact who already worked here, they offered me the role! Being a contract role, they wanted me to start asap; I managed to negotiate my notice period down to 2 weeks and started at Ikea at the end of February. I was gutted to be leaving CurrencyCloud, it was a great place to work and bar 1 or 2 people, I got on with everyone and could've stayed there for my whole career if possible!

I won't share my day rate, but it puts me on considerably more than I was on previously - the only issue is the cost of living out here is much higher (food and drink, coupled with the fact I'm now paying Swedish tax) and I'm not renting our house out in the UK as I like to return to it every now and then, so after expenses I'm not really that much better off. Sure, the money is good but I'm doing it for the experience and hoping that 6 months working for such a big company, in a different country, and working on a pretty niche technology will look good on my CV and help my employability in future!

Wow I've written a lot, there's my career history for you all to peruse as well as my salary increases - I didn't do £50k in 5 years, more like 6 and a bit, but I've learnt a lot along the way and gained some good experience.
I guess I can echo others who have said jumping ship is the best way to get a bigger payrise. I've found that loyalty doesn't count for much nowadays sadly, you have to be a bit selfish and look after yourself and your family. It's normal for people to hold down a role for a few years and move on, or for 3/6/12 months if contracting. Gain experience where possible, learn from others, and don't be afraid to seek out new challenges and put yourself outside of your comfort zone

 

[pioneer2000]

Update:

So, having decided I could do without the additional 2k, I verbally accepted the role.

Had the contract through email today, turns out it's a 37.5 working hours (9-5:30)... I've had several London (city) roles over the years and have only ever seen 9-5 (35 hours), so hadn't even thought to ask this.

So in effect makes this 7% less of an offer once you factor in the additional hours.

I imagine i'm going to look faintly ridiculous if I go back and question this now? In my experience you never work purely your contracted hours anyway (I totally expect to be doing well over the contracted hours, as I do often currently, accountancy if anyone's wondering), but this being within the contract has rubbed me up the wrong way somewhat.

I thought 35 hours was/is the norm for city based accountancy roles...

Update:

Handed in my notice yesterday and had a counter offer come my way this morning. Amusingly for 2k more than the job I just accepted (so what I wanted originally).

Anyone got any experience of accepting counter offers? I’ve always read that you shouldn’t do so, though I partly think in my situation I was moving due to the potential for redundancies (and for more money). As part of the counter offer they have verbally affirmed that my job is 99% likely not to be affected. Obviously not any guarantee but I take that as a reasonable reassurance (as best as I would be able to get).

Overall the package is still better at the new role (once pension, bonus etc is considered), and I have mentioned this to my company but nothing has come of that. I guess haggling on a counter offer would be seen upon pretty poorly?

I guess an issue that now arises is if I stay put, am I likely to been seen as a flight risk I.e held against me? My intended move was only a result of the poor communication over potential cut backs and the poor annual salary / bonus as a result of the company performance.

 

[rexehuk]

Update:

Handed in my notice yesterday and had a counter offer come my way this morning. Amusingly for 2k more than the job I just accepted (so what I wanted originally).

Anyone got any experience of accepting counter offers? I’ve always read that you shouldn’t do so, though I partly think in my situation I was moving due to the potential for redundancies (and for more money). As part of the counter offer they have verbally affirmed that my job is 99% likely not to be affected. Obviously not any guarantee but I take that as a reasonable reassurance (as best as I would be able to get).

Overall the package is still better at the new role (once pension, bonus etc is considered), and I have mentioned this to my company but nothing has come of that. I guess haggling on a counter offer would be seen upon pretty poorly?

I guess an issue that now arises is if I stay put, am I likely to been seen as a flight risk I.e held against me? My intended move was only a result of the poor communication over potential cut backs and the poor annual salary / bonus as a result of the company performance.

General rule is, never accept a counter offer.

You've shown your hand, and there will be a bit of discrim in my eyes (even if not intentional).

A move is good, there is plenty of experiences out there to be had, different ways of working, different people, different cultures. Try experience as many as possible.

 

[Holst1981]

Update:

Handed in my notice yesterday and had a counter offer come my way this morning. Amusingly for 2k more than the job I just accepted (so what I wanted originally).

Anyone got any experience of accepting counter offers? I’ve always read that you shouldn’t do so, though I partly think in my situation I was moving due to the potential for redundancies (and for more money). As part of the counter offer they have verbally affirmed that my job is 99% likely not to be affected. Obviously not any guarantee but I take that as a reasonable reassurance (as best as I would be able to get).

Overall the package is still better at the new role (once pension, bonus etc is considered), and I have mentioned this to my company but nothing has come of that. I guess haggling on a counter offer would be seen upon pretty poorly?

I guess an issue that now arises is if I stay put, am I likely to been seen as a flight risk I.e held against me? My intended move was only a result of the poor communication over potential cut backs and the poor annual salary / bonus as a result of the company performance.

I think you have put yourself in a better position whatever happens.

Fundamentally do you want to move or not?

If you do want to move then dont mess your current employer around and enjoy the new job.

If you want to stay this is a good chance to renegotiate. Or maybe a further increase in salary in a years time (this has worked for me before)
I would ask for as much as you think you can reasonably get them to pay, but only you can judge that. Ask for too much and they make think you are taking the ****

As for them holding this against you..
If they hold this against you then you shouldn't want to work for them anyway.

 

[FoxEye]

<snip>

Thanks for that post.

I do think to myself reading some of these replies, "How did they have the courage to do that?" Like jumping into a field you have absolutely no experience of. I mean, I've never applied for any job if I couldn't tick every box in the job spec. Bad mistake I guess. I've looked at great jobs in my area and thought, "Shame they want xxx; I can't do that but I can do 50% of what they're asking for."

But then the other thing I think listening to your experiences is, "These guys have basic social and inter-personal skills, which is definitely helping them. Networking ability seems to be a important factor in success." And that is one box I am just not capable of ticking. That is not an excuse - I could still be doing a lot more than I am - but I know this is going to hold me back always. I'm socially retarded

Anyway, I'm not looking to bump this thread, so will just stick to reading and not responding from now on. There is plenty of good stuff in this thread, and a better person than me would be able to put it into action. And I know I wind a lot of people up with my responses, so I will butt out now.

 

[Fusion]

Stuff

Thanks for the post, nice when people give this kind of detail.

 

[Maccy]

@FoxEye when I came out of uni I was the same to be honest, the core skills training I had in my first job and essentially being thrown into working on client sites really helped. Being put out of our comfort zone is something I've banged on about for a while now and I firmly believe it's worth it's weight in gold when you look back on it.
Also when you look at a job spec and see areas that you can't do - why not do something about it, push yourself to research and learn it. Then you can be open and honest with recruiters/interviewers and say "I lack the required experience here, but I'm actively learning it via x y and z" - you can easily turn a negative into a positive just by showing some initiative.

 

[randomshenans]

"Shame they want xxx; I can't do that but I can do 50% of what they're asking for."

As someone who has written these things as well, they are an "ideal candidate" and I've applied for roles with not all of the things on the list every time! Don't let that put you off at all.

the core skills training I had in my first job and essentially being thrown into working on client sites really helped. Being put out of our comfort zone is something I've banged on about for a while now and I firmly believe it's worth it's weight in gold when you look back on it.

I do think it really helps. It was good for me working for a couple of smaller places that chucked me out to manage my own clients early on. Daunting at first but it's really **** easy and you learn a lot.

 

[El Pew]

I do think to myself reading some of these replies, "How did they have the courage to do that?" Like jumping into a field you have absolutely no experience of. I mean, I've never applied for any job if I couldn't tick every box in the job spec. Bad mistake I guess. I've looked at great jobs in my area and thought, "Shame they want xxx; I can't do that but I can do 50% of what they're asking for."

You need to learn to carpet-bomb your CV. If you want a new job, then you need to apply for anything and everything that looks like it might be close to what you want, and even some that are a bit of a reach. You need to get your CV in front of as many eyes as possible. And you never know, maybe those lists of requirements are an unrealistic wishlist, and you might be better than most of the other candidates they've had. Maybe they're having trouble hiring, and they'd be willing to relax some requirements for the right candidate. More importantly, most jobs these days are listed via recruitment agencies and applying for them gets your CV in their databases. This means that if you have the right skills, you might get a call from a recruiter before a job is publicly listed - this happened to me when I got my current job.

It costs you absolutely nothing to apply for a job, so there's no reason not to click the button and submit your CV. The worst that will happen is that you'll never hear anything more about it.

Another approach is to buddy-buddy up with a recruiter. Wait for one of them to call you - if you're carpet-bombing, sooner or later someone will give you a call back. Then you have a contact that you can exploit. Call the recruiter weekly, asking about any new positions that are coming up. Ask what are the hot industries in your area. Ask what skills people are after, and tailor your CV to big-up any relevant skills you have.

What I would like to know for a start is: the people like randomshenans, who joined a company doing basic IT - just how did you move into a more advanced role? Did your first employer elect to train you up? Did they offer to train you, or did you have to push them into it via persistent pleading?

Did you instead teach yourself entirely via free online courses/ Google? Did you manage to land a more skilled job just by applying for something you weren't really qualified to do? Bluff your way in? Bluff your way up?

I guess I'm confused because none of the companies I've done basic IT work for have ever allowed me to train up for anything else. So I've been doing basic IT for over 10 years now :/

You need to take some responsibility for yourself. If you wait for someone else to offer you training then you'll never go anywhere in life. You need to get in the habit of doing self-study, on evenings and weekends if necessary - switch off your TV, Xbox, whatever, and learn a new skill relevant to your career. I put myself through the CCNA qualification when I was desperate to get out of my first 'basic' IT job, and that got me a role with a consultancy firm that kick-started my career. But that cost me hours of time to study, and I had to find a bit of spare cash to buy some second hand networking gear to practice on. There are thousands of online IT courses out there, free and paid-for, there's literally no reason why you can't do this if you put your mind to it.

e: right now I'm teaching myself automated containerised application deployment on Kubernetes. It's not directly relevant to my job but there are an awful lot of transferable skills. A couple of hours a day working on it should get me to the level I want in a few weeks. It's not going to cost me a penny.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Excellent post @Maccy

In a similar vein, I thought I'd share my background... if anyone is interested.

Didn't know what I wanted to do after school, but knew I was good at two things (computing and music) so I went to university to study something that I enjoyed without really considering what I'd do afterwards. Anyway, I graduated university in 2006 with a degree in Acoustic Design and Sound Technology and spent time working for BBC Wales, doing sound for the evening news. It was good as it gave me lots of practical experience, but it came as a 6 month contract and they made it clear that budgets wouldn't support my contract permanently.

After I was made redundant I started looking locally for a job. I was adamant that I would "make my own way in the world" and did everything possible to avoid claiming job seekers allowance. Not wanting to retrain so quickly after university I quickly realised that it would take a minor miracle to find something locally that would pay anywhere half decent and I wasn't of the maturity that I would have considered moving. Weirdly, a few days after being made redundant I was in the town centre when I saw a vehicle for a sound and light installation company and stood (much to my ex's dismay) behind the vehicle writing down the contact details. That night I did some Googling and found that the company was a rather large affair that was 15 minutes down the road but formed the basis of 1 of 3 businesses under a group. Each group had a speciality such as services, site installation or lighting etc... a nice mix which intrigued me.

Their website was advertising jobs but it mentioned that candidates could send CVs in to one of the directors who would review it. I kid you not, I drafted an email with a CV attached (decked out with so much waffle I had to list the modules I'd studied at university because I had no other work experience except a weekend role at Tesco) and clicked send. Now, the internet as my parent's house was **** and it had failed to send. Not thinking too much about it, I clicked send again when the connection came back up and it went. I forgot about the application, half-expecting nothing to come of it until about a week later when I received a call from the director, whilst I was filling up my car. Not to be rude, I asked if I could call him back on the same number after I'd filled up to which he agreed. When I finally got through to him he took great pleasure in telling me that my email consisted of "Hello" and an attached CV and that he liked what he read, but he'd like me to come for an "informal chat" to discuss opportunities... Looking back, I'd written a lengthy email describing who I was and what I could offer the business, but the net connection had dropped at just the right wrong time which had caused the latest version of my message to not save. That meant that when I'd clicked re-send it sent the earliest draft and not the message I thought I was sending. Oops.

A week later he called me to arrange a time for the informal chat, to which I was really excited. Not only because this was my first ever job application since being made redundant but also because I assumed that I surely must have a job if I've got it based on "hello". I asked loads of questions on the phone about the chat, namely what was the dress code, a bit about the business and ultimately what I could expect at the meeting. He assured me that it would be a "casual chat" with the MD and directors about a graduate role, with the emphasis on the chat being very much "not-formal".

Regardless, I showed up in a suit and tie expecting a nice easy chat "thank you, here's a job", a done deal.... but then I proceeded to be grilled for an hour . Being not prepared for it, I was taken aback and panicked. Here I was, fresh out of university with minimal practical experience being asked silly questions by 4 business men in suits and a woman taking notes. I must have downed the whole jug of water because I remember drinking cup after cup of water as my stalling tactic whilst I thought of answers on the fly. To this day I've never made the mistake of going in to an interview for a role without being prepared because that left me feeling like I'd babbled, stuttered and froze my way through the longest 60 minutes of my life. As I left I remember shaking everyone's hand to which they said they'd let me know they'd be in touch.

A few hours later they'd called and offered me a graduate role starting on £17,500 with a 6 month probation which would involve working across the group, with my first assignment working in the warehouse building and wiring racks of audio equipment. Not to drag this out too long, but I would be responsible for unpacking and testing the equipment, installing it as per a schematic and then prepping it for shipment. In the first 4 months I wired something like 20 racks for a contract they had with Liquid/Envy around the UK. Those first months were awesome, the pay was crap but I was happy to be doing something I liked and they promised that I could switch over to the site installation business to oversee the installation in the clubs. Lots of travelling round the country later and I was starting to enjoy seeing the fruit of my labour... the equipment I'd wired actually was now being used to opened the student union for the University of Chelmsford and used by Radio 1 who had made a big deal about the makeover of the union. I was proud as punch and enjoyed the site side of things, but wanted to earn more.

Later that year I'd impressed so much that the MD came to shake my hand and said that he'd been reviewing the workmanship of the latest job I'd put out and said he was going to make me permanent. Oh, and he had secured funding on a contract to retrofit all Disn.ey stores in Europe, I just had to come up with a method of creating a 360 degree screen as the centrepiece of the store. It was the time that "Cars" was launching, so we had loads of promotional material given to us to test some concepts. Anyway, I came up with the idea of using 4 projectors and an image matrix to stitch the feed together to create a seemless display... they were blown away with the proof of concept and immediately told the head of their UK retail operations that we'd mock up a demo for them. In a warehouse just outside Heathrow airport we were tasked with putting the tech in a mock store (created to look exactly like a real shop) and their big bosses from the US would come to approve the design. Awesome... everyone was happy with the demo and we secured the contract. I took a few photographs of the setup along with some of the other guys and was happy with my work.....

Fast forward another 3 months when I got a call from the MD. I'd been asked to return to base to discuss an issue but he wouldn't say what. That was weird considering how well we normally got on, but whatever. I returned at 4pm to be greeted by the director that originally hired me who informed me that the MD was raging. I could hear shouting but still didn't understand what the fuss was about until he blurted out "Did you take photographs of the mock up?". Realising that it would be silly to deny anything and not realising in my naivety that I'd done anything wrong, I admitted that I had but confirmed that I hadn't shared them.... it turned out that someone had seen me taking photographs and reported me. He made me delete all photos, videos etc on the spot and said that if the contract fell through I'd be fired but if it didn't then he'd keep me. Fast forward 2 months and they'd kept the contract, but insisted that I should be fired to appease Disney... and that was the end of that!

For a period of about 8 months, I took a position with my father doing general office work for his recycling business whilst I continued searching for jobs but nothing came up. I'd blown my only chance at a career in the field and was distraught with my own stupidity. At one stage I thought about going back to plead for my job but decided to cut my losses and carry on with whatever dignity that I had left. It was at that stage that I knew I had to retrain but I didn't know what to do. IT didn't excite me and I didn't know anyone in the industry that could guide me, so I put that off. My dad suggested doing some safety qualifications as "businesses always need them" and off I was doing a 15 day crash course to sit the NEBOSH certificate. It was hard but I got the qualification and enjoyed the challenge of learning something new.

Shortly after, I saw a job after for a graduate H&S officer with a glass manufacturing company just up the road. The advert deadline was the same day as I'd discovered the advert, so I rushed like a fool to email an updated CV to the contact listed on the recruitment site and followed it up with a call at 4pm to be sure they'd got it. They did get it and I got the job! Asking me what I was on I lied and told them that I was on £18,000 in my last role and so they offered me £20,000 and the chance to earn more if I did well. 5 years later, I'd worked my way up to be responsible for quality, safety and environment but due to the recession (I'd started there 2008) and it being a family-run business, my wage was never more than a frugal £23,000. It became a bit of a running joke because I was known for doing all the work for my boss including developing incident tracking databases, various excel spreadsheets that they still use to this day whilst he was on double the wage! That's when I knew that I had to switch.

In 2012, I applied for a position in the NHS as a regional H&S advisor. Starting on £25,000 I could hope to hit the heady heights of £31,000 if I played my cards right and didn't mind crawling my way up the pay scale. Annual pay rises were kicked in to touch by the government freezing all public sector pay so at best I knew I'd be looking at 6 years to hit the top of my band. Despressing, but I knew that when I accepted and actually believed that within a year or 2 I'd be able to transfer to a trust closer to home. How wrong I was! That said, the job was amazing, it was varied, gave me the freedom to travel and manage my own time and the team of people I worked with was largely excellent but the payscale and the commute was terrible. I went from 15 minutes to 1hr 15mins each way... in a way it was a pay decrease but I did it because it would open doors. Previously, I'd only really worked for a family run company and I couldn't count on a reference from the lighting place, so I needed something substantial on my CV. Anyway, whilst chugging away there I'd managed to do some distance learning (a PgC and several other courses) and work my way up to become a chartered safety professional, which instantly made it easier to get interviews.

In trying to find something local, I again considered taking a pay cut by interviewing at the local council and I applied at loads of industrial sites in the area all to no avail. I began getting frustrated as I ticked all the boxes for the job specs but almost always lost out to the "internal candidate" BS that seems to go around. An ex-colleague of mine sent me a job advert on WhatsApp for a job with GE, for a position 15 minutes up the road. As with all of my jobs, I tend to find the best ones through chance as the latter paid off and 3 interviews later I had secured the job and a significant pay rise taking me to £41,000. This year I would have been there 2 years, have traveled the world on business, got to add a multinational conglomerate to my CV and can say I'll join the £50,000 club.

In short, I doubled my salary in 4 years but it took me 10 years and a change of career to get there

 

[CaptainRAVE]

Meh, I just lucked out and married someone rich. I achieved plenty of other things in my 20s - worked for NASA by age 21, house, car etc by 25. Money makes life easier, but it isn't everything. I am actually quite bored now. Don't fancy having kids yet. Most of my friends have, none of them seem happy though. Will probably move to Dubai for a bit and see how that goes.

 

[randomshenans]

Meh, I just lucked out and married someone rich. I achieved plenty of other things in my 20s - worked for NASA by age 21, house, car etc by 25. Money makes life easier, but it isn't everything. I am actually quite bored now. Don't fancy having kids yet. Most of my friends have, none of them seem happy though. Will probably move to Dubai for a bit and see how that goes.

Hahaha I do agree. It's makes things easier, but as BIGGIE & Puff Daddy so eloquently put "Mo money, Mo problems" and it's true. I love my kids and yea, you don't have that same freedom, but they'll be running free in the world and I'll hopefully still be young enough, and liquid enough to do what I want.

 

[Ayahuasca]

Lucked out and working for NASA by age 21, does not compute.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

Lucked out and working for NASA by age 21, does not compute.

The NASA part wasn't luck

 

[Deleted member 651465]

The NASA part wasn't luck

What do you do now and how’d you get in at 21? Really good at making tea?

 

[MooMoo444]

Suction greater than that of a black hole

 

[CaptainRAVE]

What do you do now and how’d you get in at 21? Really good at making tea?

I was working on a project for them involving DNA microarrays and mouse brains looking at the potential long term effects of space travel (I guess it was early prep for the Mars project, just didn’t realise it at the time)

Now, I manage an independent school. Hoping to move to Dubai to lead a new school out there in due course. That or have kids of my own

 

[dowie]

I was working on a project for them involving DNA microarrays and mouse brains looking at the potential long term effects of space travel (I guess it was early prep for the Mars project, just didn’t realise it at the time)

That's cool, was it like an internship after uni or something or did you move to the US for a perm role with them?