Hi everyone

As it turns out im sick to death of my job. its one of two jobs ive dont full time since ive left school and i dont really know what id like to do next. I have no qaulifications but am thinking of getting some, just dont know which ones to get lol

What do you do?

Im thinking of making the switch from manual labour to office work, what kind of jobs are good and what kind are bad? i dont like wearing suits either :S

Any suggestions?

get into sales if you have the personality for it
otherwise IT is for you, middle management is right where you want to be

don't worry, you sound like you have a long way to go before you'll be needing to wear a suit

forget IT

last edited by paveway at 09:02:32 12/Feb/09

Yeah, f*** IT and definitely f*** middle-management unless you want to have no life outside of work.

Definitely recommend the switch from labouring to office though, as long as you can handle the 'downtime' of some jobs - some people can't.

As for suits, I used to live and die by the phrase, "Accountants wear ties - engineers don't" (I'm an engineer) - but in the past few years I've settled for suit slacks and a shirt with no tie, and most people seem happy enough with that.

I think with no experience and no qualifications you're really going to need to get a foot in the door. I'd do two things: start asking everyone you know if there are any positions vacant where they work (and they can recommend you), join an agency.

Main thing I think for you will be not to be too picky for your first job. Just take whatever, and get picky when you have some experience (aka bargaining power).

pinky has a lot of good things to say.
middle management is for losers, full stop. 9/10 middle managers just f*** things up more, it's rare to find one that can actually defend and protect their staff rather than just s*** on them all the time

IT is ok if you're an employee. Never do it freelance as such. Actually, that goes for anything. Basically get a full time, 9-5, Monday to Friday Job, it seriously is the best. Leave work at work, Get paid a good, regular salary plus full entitlements of paid public holidays, paid annual leave, paid sick leave and good super. Its the easy way to win in life.

lol @ taking seriously the 'middle management' joke

you guys are too easy
also the whole 'never try freelance' from mrh, wtf !@
thats the only way to get rich, you never get rich working for someone else

yeah pinky i don't think engineers wear ties and suits much anymore these days

black pants + long sleeve button up shirt is what i wear, could wear jeans and a polo if i wanted to stay as a drafty, but you dress for the job you want not the job you have eh

ok maybe i should have specified a bit more
'dont do pcs for home users'

Thanks for the advice guys!

With the economic situation getting a job is getting harder. If you find it difficult, just go to uni or tafe or something and get some quals and by the time the economy starts recovering you'll be all ready to take the jobs :)

At the moment, I wouldn't be quitting any job without another lined up no matter how much you hate it. As for your next career choice well only you can make that one really.

Write down 3 things you want from a company (eg; social culture), 3 things you want from a job (eg: loots) and 3 things you want to achieve by the time you retire (eg; travel the world). Once you do that you can make a rough idea on what path to follow.

If I had to start my choices all over again I'd probably go into the defence force.

Good luck finding a job. The place where I work (Pharmaceutical Packaging) just put an add looking for someone for quite a trivial job (deblistering bulk medication from packets). Add was placed Monday evening, by 9 am Tuesday, 290 applicants. We've had everyone from architects and engineers applying. Looks pretty grim out there :(

QLD Police. Need more Officers!

Join the Army.


last edited by IncrEdible_vEgetable at 10:20:47 12/Feb/09

Become a judge.

i could use a man servant

You don't need any qualifications to be a pimp.

The plus side is you get to wear fur coats, gold chains, cool hats, black boots, have a walking stick and lean to one side.

yes, black boots are very pimp
try alligator shoes

If I could start over I'd actually become a sparky. It's like the easiest of all the trades, and you can start in a safe job doing menial tasks (like fighting points and lights in apartments) and then move onto eventually starting and running your own business without a large investment.

The only problem with that path is the $5/hr apprentice entry point. Good if you're a 16yo living at home, but for anyone else practically impossible.

We've had everyone from architects and engineers applying.

Thats more to do with universities milking those degrees rather than to do with the economic crisis. Last year I remember sitting through a graduation ceremony and there was something like 60 Masters of Architecture graduates. And engineering numbers are stupidly through the roof, iirc EE has like cohorts of 400 at the moment. IIRC there were only about 40 people graduating with BIT there.

last edited by simul at 11:23:00 12/Feb/09

f*** being a sparky, you've obviously never been up in someones roof

You could a job sucking the s*** out between homeless peoples feet. Or if that leaves a bad taste in your mouth you could always become a lawyer. Tough call, I wouldn't want to make it.

being in a roof isnt that bad, its pretty s*** if there is heaps of rokwall/ dacron s*** up there. But good luck gettin an apprentiship for anything these days. Works drying up pretty quickly everywhere :(

Yeh my brother's coming up from NSW soon to get some work up here (f*** being a roof tiler in Cairns tho!).

Pretty ordinary down there apparently.

Thats more to do with universities milking those degrees rather than to do with the economic crisis.

+1

Universities have become really commercial, and hell-bent on attracting the international dollar. Sometimes at the expense of quality. Quality of local entrants is guaranteed through the various ENTER/HSC score systems, but quality of international students seems to be judged mostly on the thickness of the wad of cash they have in their wallet.

I like office work. I rank jobs on how easy they are to do with a hangover, and sitting down and not having to talk to customers ranks very highly in my book!

I have worked on ski fields and stuff and everyone there usually acts like having to put on a shirt and sit behind a desk is the worst possible thing you could do. Perhaps they don't know how easy it is and how good the money can be for what you are actually doing?

If I wanted to get into that sort of thing with no experience, I would try local government. Check all their websites and see if there are any jobs you can do. It's easy, it's stable, it pays decent and once you are in, you are in for life. There are lots of different departments so you can always look around for something better once you are in.

My time working admin in the rates department of one council should help me when I give up on my dream of finding a gaming programming job and settle for the IT department of another council.

Sucks right now though, I've been on the dole for 7 weeks and I thought there was no chance I'd be on it that long. Should have gone straight to Canada and done another ski season :(

Yeh I passed up an easy as s*** local government webdev job last year.

I may yet regret it I reckon, stupid f***en financial crisis.

councils need all the IT help they can get:

ive seen their data o_0

You could be a sparky and only to construction work, so then you wouldn’t have to climb into old, rat invested and asbestos infested roofs. My man is currently a third year apprentice and getting really good money because of all the extra allowances that you get working in construction. For a third year to be bringing in nearly a grand a week is pretty good.

I suggest not going to uni unless you are definitely sure that you have found what you want to do and are sure by having gone and done a bit of work in that field. Even if its volunteer work it will give you an idea whether or not that is the career for you. Otherwise you'll end up not being able to earn any decent money for 3/4 years and will end up with a hecs debt. If you deceide you dont like what you have chosen to do half way through then it is alot of time and money wasted adn this happens to a lot of people.

Good luck on you search for a new career, try lots of new things, move on if not happy and im sure you'll fall into something you love.

lol yeah be a sparky just like the 1 billion other people trying to get into electrical at the moment

How Strong are your Maths and CAD skills?

If you want a Job thats both office and working in the field, with little manual labour (when you have the qualifications,) then being a Surveyor is pretty good.
Healthy mix of Office and Field work (Would change depending on where you work, I'm ~65% office 35% field.)
Could get a Full time job as a Chain Hand and do a Surveying degree through somewhere like USQ. Being a Surveyors assistant (Channie) would be fairly physical work sometimes, if you do mainly construction set out. Detail Surveying isn't hard, but still outside in the sun.

If you like working in the office, no suit and have Cad Skills. Civil Designers (Cad Monkeys) are always in short supply. Not sure on the TAFE certs needed for those types of jobs. I know a few firms that offer pretty decent cadet pay while they pay for your study.

Both those 2 positions (Surveyor and Civil Designer) are starving for people. Even now.

Sucks right now though, I've been on the dole for 7 weeks and I thought there was no chance I'd be on it that long. Should have gone straight to Canada and done another ski season :(

It's a s*** season, very little snow and unusually warm for this time of year.

Also, +1 for join the army. But then again I'm also in the anti-office job camp.

We've had everyone from architects and engineers applying.

I'm talking about guys 30-40 years of age that have been let go from their previous positions due to downsizing etc.