1 year to change life

[mickythefish]

What ideas to change life at later age in a year. Not much money but basically retrain so after a year can enter a new career?

I'm doing some free computer data analysis courses

[Countdown]

What do you like doing? What interests you? Do you prefer office based or out and about? Do you prefer physical work or mental?

[mickythefish]

Countdown said:

What do you like doing? What interests you? Do you prefer office based or out and about? Do you prefer physical work or mental?

Like outdoors and computer work.

Just struggle with being around people.

[RizzoTheRat]

If you're looking at data analysis, then spend a bit of time on Excel macros, Power Tools, and Power BI. Loads of video's on youtube on how to use them, and while there are far more powerful analysis tools out there, a huge number of organisations use them for quite big analysis tasks because they already have Excel.

The OR society have various info on thier website that might be of use, and thier volunteer program, where they do some analysis work for free for charities, could be a way of getting some work experience that might help when applying for jobs in analysis roles.
https://www.theorsociety.com/

[Craikeybaby]

Have a look at freecodecamp.org for programming/tech type stuff.

[98elise]

mickythefish said:

Countdown said:

What do you like doing? What interests you? Do you prefer office based or out and about? Do you prefer physical work or mental?

Like outdoors and computer work.

Just struggle with being around people.

Sounds like IT is for you (other than the outdoors bit)

If you're into data analysis learn SQL. It's what I started with my IT career doing and it developed into a lucrative 30 year career.

SQL is the language of databases. I started out in Application Support and users often wanted a subset (or summary) of business data. SQL allows you to query (or manipulate) data directly. Easy to learn and freely available.

If you don't like being around people then developer/coder (or whatever they are called these days) is a good career. You generally don't deal with end users, and you can sit at a keyboard typing all day with your headphones on.

I've met many antisocial/oddball developers

Edited by 98elise on Friday 28th February 17:16

[mickythefish]

Cheers I've found a few courses and applied for work experience. I just struggle to learn without being forced to, like a work environment. Let's see his it goes.

[conanius]

If you like the idea of outdoors and IT... why not look for some sort of infra based field engineering like for example Openreach or one of the other fibre companies like Gigaclear or Hyperoptic (etc) ?

[mickythefish]

conanius said:

If you like the idea of outdoors and IT... why not look for some sort of infra based field engineering like for example Openreach or one of the other fibre companies like Gigaclear or Hyperoptic (etc) ?

ok will have a look.

I applied for a right of access entry level job with the council, would be dream job, as realise now i love being outdoors. I wanted remote work so can basically work from a van.

Problem is getting entry level role a at 44 with no real experience and a few past issues, just related to heath which is getting better now.

Just been looking at work experience even volunteering , would be a struggle but could do it for a few months.

[conanius]

Don't worry about that. It is never too old to learn something new. I'm 41 this year and I've got no idea what I want to do with my life !

Have a look at places like QA for apprentice schemes - https://www.qa.com/apprenticeships/apprenticeship-... but BT ones are good too. I know it will seem like everyone will be 16-21, but actually plenty of older people do them too.

When I worked at an employer that had a huge drive to use apprentices - through QA in fact - I always wanted a mix of candidates. Know that as someone who is a bit older, you have all sorts of additional value you bring to the table.

Don't let it put you off finding something that works for you.

[mikef]

mickythefish said:

What ideas to change life at later age in a year. Not much money but basically retrain so after a year can enter a new career?

I'm doing some free computer data analysis courses

I don’t want to add wee to your weetabix, but you may find it hard to get taken on in a data analysis role without job experience and on the back of those courses

I’ve just come to the end of a career in data from hands-on roles with leading database companies, through teaching data modelling and database programming around the world, to managing large global teams working on data pipelines and petabyte-scale data repositories, and if I look I’m seeing few roles in data analysis - except from data engineering, but that requires a degree or preferably degrees in data science as well as experience or solid grad-level research projects

I honestly can’t visualise the companies that I’ve worked at in the last 20 years offering to a retraining later-career applicant (sorry, but trying to set expectations)

It may be worth looking at the other options you’ve identified

[mickythefish]

Yeah tbh you are probably right. I think at my age I looking at more manual jobs, and like being outdoors.

Looking at horticulture roles, going to try and get some work myself and training. Applied for some work experience.

[mikef]

A friend of mine, also in IT, took redundancy and is now working for the Forestry Commission at a local forest. He’s spending time outdoors and happier than ever

[MitchT]

I sacked off graphic design in September 2022 at 48 years of age and started retraining in IT. Now well on my way to becoming a cloud engineer. I was fortunate in that I was taken on by a financial services provider who were willing to train people with zero experience and pay a decent amount from Day 1... quite a bit more, in fact, than I was on as an experienced graphic designer, though that's as much a reflection of the diabolical state of pay in the creative sector as anything else.

[mickythefish]

Tbh I think due to health issues just finding something that works for me. Maybe in two years I'll update the thread but currently just got a few issues to sort hopefully get on track.

[SteRB5138]

MitchT said:

I sacked off graphic design in September 2022 at 48 years of age and started retraining in IT. Now well on my way to becoming a cloud engineer. I was fortunate in that I was taken on by a financial services provider who were willing to train people with zero experience and pay a decent amount from Day 1... quite a bit more, in fact, than I was on as an experienced graphic designer, though that's as much a reflection of the diabolical state of pay in the creative sector as anything else.

I have worked in the print/graphics sector for 25 years and I need to get out while I'm still in my mid forties.
I find the standard of work and what you have to put right with what is supposed to be print ready is getting worse every year.
Did you have do any courses before being taken on as a trainee cloud engineer @MitchT?

[RizzoTheRat]

mikef said:

I don’t want to add wee to your weetabix, but you may find it hard to get taken on in a data analysis role without job experience and on the back of those courses

I’ve just come to the end of a career in data from hands-on roles with leading database companies, through teaching data modelling and database programming around the world, to managing large global teams working on data pipelines and petabyte-scale data repositories, and if I look I’m seeing few roles in data analysis - except from data engineering, but that requires a degree or preferably degrees in data science as well as experience or solid grad-level research projects

I honestly can’t visualise the companies that I’ve worked at in the last 20 years offering to a retraining later-career applicant (sorry, but trying to set expectations)

It may be worth looking at the other options you’ve identified

But there's a huge difference between the kind of data analysis you're talking about, and the level of business analytics, logistic requirements, etc that a massive number of smaller firms need on a day to day basis. There are a huge amount of people out there who don't know how to use a simple spreadsheet and think a pivot table is some kind of magic. However those jobs often aren't going to be described as data analyst roles I guess.

[MitchT]

SteRB5138 said:

Did you have do any courses before being taken on as a trainee cloud engineer @MitchT?

Just a few short introductory courses on Codecademy - Javascript, Python, etc. and I already knew HTML and CSS. All that I really learned about scripting langauges from Codecademy is that they're too complicated to learn in isolation - you need context. Working with scripts in my job is much easier to grasp because you can relate them to things. When I started the new job I was initially put on a 12 week online tech bootcamp which gave me a little bit of everything, then focused onto cloud where I started learning on the job.

[SteRB5138]

MitchT said:

Just a few short introductory courses on Codecademy - Javascript, Python, etc. and I already knew HTML and CSS. All that I really learned about scripting langauges from Codecademy is that they're too complicated to learn in isolation - you need context. Working with scripts in my job is much easier to grasp because you can relate them to things. When I started the new job I was initially put on a 12 week online tech bootcamp which gave me a little bit of everything, then focused onto cloud where I started learning on the job.

Interesting thanks for that, I have no previous experience of coding, but it sounds like I need to look into a new career path that is not going to be too affected by the introduction of AI.

[98elise]

RizzoTheRat said:

mikef said:

I don’t want to add wee to your weetabix, but you may find it hard to get taken on in a data analysis role without job experience and on the back of those courses

I’ve just come to the end of a career in data from hands-on roles with leading database companies, through teaching data modelling and database programming around the world, to managing large global teams working on data pipelines and petabyte-scale data repositories, and if I look I’m seeing few roles in data analysis - except from data engineering, but that requires a degree or preferably degrees in data science as well as experience or solid grad-level research projects

I honestly can’t visualise the companies that I’ve worked at in the last 20 years offering to a retraining later-career applicant (sorry, but trying to set expectations)

It may be worth looking at the other options you’ve identified

But there's a huge difference between the kind of data analysis you're talking about, and the level of business analytics, logistic requirements, etc that a massive number of smaller firms need on a day to day basis. There are a huge amount of people out there who don't know how to use a simple spreadsheet and think a pivot table is some kind of magic. However those jobs often aren't going to be described as data analyst roles I guess.

Agreed.as I said earlier I sent a lot of my career helping business users with data, just using SQL. It's was basic stuff and often done by my team who were second line support guys.