Career change dun dun duuuuun

Look at cloud certification. I would recommend either AWS or Azure. Then a subscription to “a cloud guru” . Give it 6-12 months plus £1000 for actual certification exams. Then Lambo 🚘 🙂

IT Security. It's a deep and dangerous road to start on, but going for training that will give you an entry into this is (IMHO) a good thing to do. SOC is generally where people start, but you can look at CISSP for a "broad bu shallow" view of what the subject is about, then choose areas to go more deeply into with SANS or GIAC courses.

Support/Networking should put you in good stead and, being honest, nursing and high stress/monitored environments will probably mean you can cope well with dealing with serious incidents in security.

No advice but good luck

There is a free course + exam that is a mini CISSP called Certificate in Cybersecurity that is available at the moment. https://www.isc2.org/100k . It might only be free for UK people - I'm not outside the UK so cant check

Good luck. Its a shame its come to that but I totally understand. My last couple of years I had begun to lose my compassion.

Thanks StuF looks like UK only but I'm sure there's something similar.

TJ - Yup. When I seem to care more about a patient than their family does, or I'm putting in more work than them, you're compassion does dwindle somewhat! Did you retrain?

ITIL is good, but honestly to start out fresh you don't need the £1000 qualifications - especially not if that only gets you fundamentals. You can do plenty of online learning and then all you need to be able to do is demonstrate sounds knowledge of ITIL fundamentals - no company I have worked for yet has required you to be able to recite parts of the ITIL handbook as part of an employment test.

That said, if you like the technical element of IT more than the process side, don't spend too much time on it. THe mention of AWS is a great one - I work in technical operations for an organsiation where almost all the infrastrucre is in a combination of AWS and Azure - completely cloud based. Getting some knowledge in these technologies will be paramount.

As someone who has in the past 18 months moved from a supporting a legacy technology stack to a fully cloud based one all I can say is do the work, get some qualifications, but be completely honest about your actual skills. The right company will support you growing your knowledge and demonstrating an enthusiasm to learn is just as important as rocking up with a bunch of certs.

Good luck, there is plenty of opportunity out there at the moment!

Did you retrain?

I kept plodding on until 60 then retired

@aphex_2k If you are a UK citizen but living abroad, you qualify for that ISC2 course.

Q:
If I live and work abroad, but am a UK citizen, can I participate?

A:
Yes, you can.

Pick an area of focus, networking, security, systems etc then focus on that. Cloud seems fairly in demand from what I see (AWS, Azure).

For networking everyone loves a CCNA and that would get you in the door for entry level support.

Security is quite a broad topic and while you could look at traditional networking vendors security certifications, there’s a whole lot more to it than that.

You could get a sub to something like pluralsight for training videos on a whole range of topics.

I started out with no certs, entry level support position and chose a direction from there. Since then it’s been the experience employers have valued with less of an emphasis on certifications.

Cheers Rikk

I did prefer the hardware side of things 20 years ago (which then got me into ADSL support as a contractor with BT) but this was before wife / kids / mortgage and I'm well aware there's going to be financial limits to my current skill set!

Fortunately there does seem to be a whole heap of training I can do at home in my own time and some fairly cheap courses which seem to offer fundamentals in Cloud and Cyber Security. Thanks for the supportive comments. It's a tough one as looking at my current CV it's unlikely many IT companies would employ me. But perhaps given a few updates and foundations in certain areas might get my foot in the door.

TJ - I'm 46 and there's no way in hell I can keep doing this until I'm 60 I'll end up (even more) bitter and twisted. Pays well, it's just the clients that spoil it. 😉

willard
Full Member
@aphex_2k If you are a UK citizen but living abroad, you qualify for that ISC2 course.

Q:
If I live and work abroad, but am a UK citizen, can I participate?

A:
Yes, you can.

Dual citizen so I'll look into this. I skimmed over it and saw $50 to register for something so perhaps I'll re-read it properly when I'm not alt-tabbing at work 😉

Just some general advice and I guess this depends on if you can afford it but twice now when I've changed careers I've worked part time somewhere then volunteered at a place doing what I'm wanting to get into...

Experience and enthusiasm trumps paper qualifications I'd say.

e.g Before I got into IT support I asked a local college if I could shadow their staff to learn the trade. Did this for awhile plus some self study and eventually got accepted for a support job elsewhere.

Must be lots of money supporting AWS. I started playing with it recently for work, assuming a nice Amazon esque UI - but it's almost as if they set out to make it as complicated as possible and then hired consultants to mess about with it some more just to add confusion. Then, they seem to random change their web interface on a weekly basis, so thinks keep moving about / changing name.

Terraform fixes all the UI problems 🙂. OP should learn that as well!

I did agency and bank work in nursing for a decade in my 40s. You might find that is a lot more bearable. None of the office politics and you can just do a job and go home with no other thought.

Cloud companies have captured something like 4% of the current market, so there is a lot of room for growth and if you are interested in something with a fairly buoyant job market then having a core understanding of cloud technologies (pick a vendor - AWS, Azure, GCP) then if you want you can specialise - networking, security, storage etc. However, I work with cloud technologies now and most days I still miss being out and about travelling to sites and physically fixing problems. You don't get that unless you want to specialise in data centre management.

Also, you've not mentioned much about your home life, but factor that and work life balance into the direction you want to go in. I cut my teeth, as many others do, in an entry level position that involved a huge amount of oncall/weekend work. The overtime in my twenties was great. Not so good now I have a family and a desire to do something in my spare time other than work.

Cheers people, some big decisions to be made as to which direction in IT I want to take. I'm fully aware I'll be taking a step backwards to move forwards. I'm well prepared to do some weekend work. What I won't be suffering with is the sleepless nights and the stress of dealing with 80+ clients, their families, the NGO's, pharmacies, phlebotomists, consultant psychiatrists, the Mental Health Commission yadda yadda.

I'm in the process of application to the gov't nursing agency so I can pick a few shifts across the various hospitals / units. We're super short staffed so I might even be able to get 3 days a week in another health service's community team as regular work while I'm retraining, once I've decided on the direction I'm aiming for.

Spoke to my boss this morning. She wasn't surprised - she was asked by many if I was coming back after my six months long service - she knew I was using the time to make some decisions. She's sad and happy for me but very supportive. She asked me to leave her office while she had a "wee cry". Aww.

ITIL Fundamentals - as others have mentioned, don't spend any money on this. Yes, it's good to know the principles involved but you can learn those via free online content. As a certification it's next to pointless.

Cyber Security - to get into this fresh late on in your career I think would be a big step. A lot of cyber security either needs a deep understanding of various technologies (and familiarity with different operating systems) or good programming & scripting skills (and usually both). Yes there are junior roles where companies are willing to invest and train people up but I think you'd struggle at 46 finding such a role on a career switch - I think many companies would view it as too risky a proposition.

Cloud - probably a more realistic choice but most pure cloud admin type roles (rather than general support etc. that requires cloud knowledge) need automation/dev ops skills these days. For junior roles you probably would need to fund some training and certs off your own back, just to get your CV noticed.

Sorry if the above sounds a bit negative, I'm just trying to be realistic. If you're someone that picks up IT stuff quickly and has sufficient motivation to self-study etc. there's no reason you can't make a successful switch back into IT but I don't think it will be easy. There are a lot of IT vacancies at the moment but most will want (recent) experience so you might have to look at junior roles (e.g. service desk) to get your foot in the door and spend a year doing that building the experience whilst getting certs in the area you want to focus on - that would require a lot of hours though so wouldn't be great for any work/life balance.

You can pass an ITIL exam by skim reaing the booklet. It's absolulte bobbins.
If you want to do networking, then you can 'acquire' GNS3 or similar and work through stuff using that prior to getting a cert.

The infosec thing is blowing up at the moment and therefore attracting a great many people with freshly minted certs who are stealing a living. could be a good way in. Lots of young folk who want to be pentesters ending up in corporate Jnr roles confused as to why all they're doing is getting other people to patch stuff and trying to persuade HR and marketing not to click the links in every email they receive.

If you want to do cloud stuff then learn the basics of coding - its aimed at being developer friendly and deploying everything by code, so if you get the fundamentals of that then applying anything else you know becomes easier.

If you can get a basic cert and do a contracing gig doing 1st line or desktop roleouts initially then that gets your foot in the door and starts building your list of contacts - as with many things, it's not necessarily what you know, but who you know.

Funny old world. There's lots of "you can't do that" and I'm more like "well why not I'll prove you wrong". Lots of do this do that don't do this don't do that. X is the way, y is the way"

Is this IT now? Are people that insecure? It's seeming that way. Pretty sad. Elitist? You'll not make money doing this. You'll end up working many hours doing that. Cliquey. Kinda makes me more determined. Each to their own eh?

but I think you’d struggle at 46 finding such a role on a career switch – I think many companies would view it as too risky a proposition

Conversely others have said its largely a customer facing role and people skills are valued. Tbh I'd value a 40 year old who listened over a 20 year old who thought they knew it all.

What about looking at a role in electronic prescribing? I’m a pharmacist and like you was getting burnt out in a clinical role in the NHS. Moved into an electronic prescribing role 18 months ago and has been the best career move i’ve made. Can still use my clinical experience but now work in a small team working to roll out electronic prescribing in the north of Scotland. I really enjoy it. We have nurses in the teams across the regions too. Our nurse still does some bank shifts to keep her hand in. If IT is a passion then it could be a good way of moving into it without wholesale retraining. Can give more details if you want.

Scotland is a fair trek from Western Australia. Sadly we're technologically way behind (still writing written clinical notes!) the world when it comes to clinical technology.

Sorry yes, missed that bit! One of our pharmacists has just moved back to scotland after 10 years in Adelaide and they were introducing EP there when he moved back last year so may not be too far away?

Is this IT now? Are people that insecure? It’s seeming that way. Pretty sad. Elitist? You’ll not make money doing this. You’ll end up working many hours doing that. Cliquey. Kinda makes me more determined. Each to their own eh?

My negativity is more just railing against stuff like the training provider ads suggesting do a couple of expensive courses with them and you can walk into a mid/senior IT position, possibly 1 in 1000 might but it's not realistic. I still think IT certs without experience are next to pointless when it comes to getting a job but sure if you're only interviewing against people that don't have experience or certs then they lift you above them but most of those roles would be more general support type roles rather than more specialist security or cloud roles.

Conversely others have said its largely a customer facing role and people skills are valued. Tbh I’d value a 40 year old who listened over a 20 year old who thought they knew it all.

I wouldn't say much of cyber security is customer facing but for sure some roles are, it's a broad area so it depends what you'd want to do. Pentesters need a good understanding of operating systems and vulnerabilities, be able to pick up using hacking toolsets quickly and be able to write reports. There is a customer facing aspect to it but my experience is once you've given them an overview of the infrastructure & provided them with the credentials and IP info they need they mostly just disappear into their own world for a few days/weeks and then emerge with a report that I have to defend against some of the 'issues' they find :p

Then you have roles like Patch Managers who need to be able to liaise well with the business and technical teams so having some social skills is a plus. Although our Patch Manager seems to mostly just forward on any emails they receive from various vulnerability bulletin sights asking me if it's an issue or not...

But for sure having a 40 year old that listens and adapts is much better than a 20 year old who thinks they know it all but there's 20 year olds out there that are willing to listen and adapt - that's your competition.

Well in a whirlwind....

Saw a job advertised and went for a chat with the boss last night. A bit random. AV and hifi sales.

I know, right?

The base salary is terrible. But they sell high spec home cinema upwards of 10k going up to... Well, one of their Av cinema rooms has 250k of kit in it. I make base + 10% of sales. Krix, Macintosh yadda yadda. They do commercial too so large cafes and restaurants, sports venues. Oh they do high end home cctv too.

I love hifi and music so figured that if you work where your passion is that's hskf the battle?

And if not.... Well let's give it a shot for 6 months. Who knows.

Holy Plot Twist Batman! Good luck 😃

Mega plot twist eh?

So he had a guy start a couple of weeks ago, but he wants me. So the plan is to move the new guy to a different store and take me on at his store.

Just waiting for an official email so I can hand in my notice and 4 week period. Also got an interview with NurseWest which covers agency / casual shifts across the south metro health service.

So.... Imminently handing my notice in, just in time for Christmas. I'm going to miss the "cyber weekend" but that's probably for the best given I'll be as green as a very green thing and doubt I'd be much use in selling when it's such a huge store with tonnes of stock.

I'm quite looking forward to playing with speakers and AV kit. Will it last? Who knows. But I'll give it a shot.

Offer letter came in.

Wants me ASAP.

4 week notice period for my nursing role (but keeping this on the back burner)

New career in hifi and AV awaits!! Looking at starting around 13th December.

Congratulations!

Congrats, sounds high-end enough that it hopefully won't be impacted much by a recession either

Congrats! Great result.

Is there a bass salary, could you treble it or, stay in the mid range?

Congrats- can you set up a STW discount?

Exciting. If I’m ever in Perth and have a serious shortage of high end av equipment I’ll be sure to drop in on you.

So, directional cables then? Where are you on that?

Good luck!

theotherjonv
Full Member
So, directional cables then? Where are you on that?

I have a.... balanced...opinion. 😉

Not sure about a STW discount. Postage might be a killer.