Struggling to change role within Motor Trade?

[anonymous-user]

I'm a relatively young (22) fully qualified motor vehicle technician with all the associated NVQs and qualifications, plus I was fortunate to do my apprenticeship with a top prestige brand that seems to look good on CVs. Unfortunately it has taken me 4-5 years being in a workshop to realize I utterly hate working on cars in a pressured environment and desperately want to do something else with my career, to the point where I've turned down technician roles and am currently working twice my usual hours for the same pay because my current role isn't workshop based (however due to the hours/pay/lack of career progression, I want to get out ASAP).

I would have thought that with my previous experience in the trade I'd be an ideal fit for a service advisor role, something to do with warranties or perhaps an insurance assessor, but I cannot get so much as a call back for such roles let alone an interview, whilst in comparison I could probably get a job as a technician by the end of next week).

Granted, I don't have masses of experience in the workshop and none directly in a customer service role (although to think that means that I've never spoken to a customer is very short sighted), but surely some experience doing a related role should count for something!?

I'm at an utter loss to be honest. I think my CV is good (specifically tailored to show the transferable skills between the workshop and office) and I'm applying for realistic positions and yet nothing.

Can anyone give some advice?

[toohuge]

279,

It sounds a tough gig to be honest.

I find a lot of recruitment agencies are massively short sighted, given they are swamped with applications for each role they actually don't have to extract any value from a candidate - this is your problem.

Try these guys:
http://perfectplacement.co.uk/

I used them once for a sales role, which was a disaster, but as an agency they were surprisingly proactive.

To me, I would prefer to have a technician as a service adviser as at least you have half an idea about what could be wrong, how much it will likely cost and the turn around time.

Chris

[anonymous-user]

Cheers chris. Perfect placement have been great in the past when looking for tech roles, but unfortunately they (and all other recruitment agencies I've spoken to) have seemed to try their upmost to steer me towards a tech role, and once I make it very clear that the role isn't what I want to do the phone stops ringing quite as much.

It seems that dealers only want proven advisors with experience and my time in the workshop counts for very little. I have a feeling is a lot of it is due to me not using software like kerriage, but then I like to think I'm a computer savy person and could have that bossed in under a day with minimal supervision. I have put that I've built computers and am generally good with it but again, I don't get past recruiters

[rog007]

Happy to look over your CV to confirm if it's hoping to do what you want it to. In the meantime, get down to your local dealer and ask to be able to do some work experience on the service desk. You're free so they should say yes; you get some experience to add to your CV; and you never know, if they like you...

Good luck!

[edc]

Have you tried to make the sort of move you describe internally? This is often the easiest way.