It's taught me a lot - mainly that I screwed my own career!
I moved from sales into IT 12 years ago after spending a lot of time and cash on a cobol course. My first role was a y2k code monkey in a blue chip retailer. In the first 3 months I also learnt IMS and DL1 (I know ). Within 6 months I got the opportunity to work on a brand new 2 year project...my new career was flying! I picked up DB2, done business analysis, process designs, requirements gathering, tech specs, coding, testing, implementation, support - basically full SDLC. Everyone was telling me that is so important for your career. A guy that started at the same time as me jumped ship to a bank and stayed as a Y2K code monkey - I thought he was a mug! Little did I know...he is now a VP of some sort earning sh*t loads.
At the end of the project it got outsourced and the consultancy I worked for got canned. I then went to another large blue chip company within manufacturing. Again I done more coding, learnt Telon (i know ), plenty of BA work, systems analysis, Project Support stuff, testing, Team Leader and Application support manager. I put myself about as much as I could to learn new skills - mainly soft and business. Got a chance to do some Oracle stuff so just as I started to learn that it got binned! Dropped my studies as I thought it's not worth learning unless I am going to use it. Career wise I thought I was sorted and safe as houses. With all round software app experience and 12 years loyal service in two big companies whatever happened I would be alright. Over the years a lot of guys learnt Java and eventually moved on BUT with massive pay cuts. The old school M/F guys used to laugh as they've seen these technologies come and go and reckoned COBOL was for life and the more people moved out of M/F the better as the skill base would shrink and rates would rise. I listened to that cr*p!
One year ago I got made redundant but wasn't bothered as I was good at what I did. Oh dear.....so I thought. Didn't even see a Cobol job for over 3 months and then I needed Java too. Panic. Decide to work on the Project Support route so studied and got Prince2 then did ITIL V3 foundation and learnt Project 2007. Applied for well over 100 Project Support/Admin roles at a massively reduced rate and not a sniff...in part as I don't have a degree! Seems like 12 years solid experience counts for jack sh*t these days. I've now started looking at BA roles too BUT 80% of them are in banking and finance and unless you have experience then forget it. The other 20% require additional skills such as UML, RUP, AGILE etc all of which I have no experience and all along I thought the BA stuff I did was on the money.
So it's time to start again from the bottom. I want to go the PM route and can't think of anything else training wise that's gonna help me so maybe time to add another tech skill like Java maybe but doing a course without experience isn't going to get me role. Just wondering if maybe a degree would help more as a colleague of mine who by her own admittance was useless and was made redundant at the same time as me got a Cobol role on the basis of her degree - i applied too and didn't even get an interview and trust me her CV looks like a 5 year old wrote it!
Anyway boring sob story over - time to keep the faith, keep plugging away and pray things will turn soon and put this nightmare down as a serious wake up call!
I moved from sales into IT 12 years ago after spending a lot of time and cash on a cobol course. My first role was a y2k code monkey in a blue chip retailer. In the first 3 months I also learnt IMS and DL1 (I know ). Within 6 months I got the opportunity to work on a brand new 2 year project...my new career was flying! I picked up DB2, done business analysis, process designs, requirements gathering, tech specs, coding, testing, implementation, support - basically full SDLC. Everyone was telling me that is so important for your career. A guy that started at the same time as me jumped ship to a bank and stayed as a Y2K code monkey - I thought he was a mug! Little did I know...he is now a VP of some sort earning sh*t loads.
At the end of the project it got outsourced and the consultancy I worked for got canned. I then went to another large blue chip company within manufacturing. Again I done more coding, learnt Telon (i know ), plenty of BA work, systems analysis, Project Support stuff, testing, Team Leader and Application support manager. I put myself about as much as I could to learn new skills - mainly soft and business. Got a chance to do some Oracle stuff so just as I started to learn that it got binned! Dropped my studies as I thought it's not worth learning unless I am going to use it. Career wise I thought I was sorted and safe as houses. With all round software app experience and 12 years loyal service in two big companies whatever happened I would be alright. Over the years a lot of guys learnt Java and eventually moved on BUT with massive pay cuts. The old school M/F guys used to laugh as they've seen these technologies come and go and reckoned COBOL was for life and the more people moved out of M/F the better as the skill base would shrink and rates would rise. I listened to that cr*p!
One year ago I got made redundant but wasn't bothered as I was good at what I did. Oh dear.....so I thought. Didn't even see a Cobol job for over 3 months and then I needed Java too. Panic. Decide to work on the Project Support route so studied and got Prince2 then did ITIL V3 foundation and learnt Project 2007. Applied for well over 100 Project Support/Admin roles at a massively reduced rate and not a sniff...in part as I don't have a degree! Seems like 12 years solid experience counts for jack sh*t these days. I've now started looking at BA roles too BUT 80% of them are in banking and finance and unless you have experience then forget it. The other 20% require additional skills such as UML, RUP, AGILE etc all of which I have no experience and all along I thought the BA stuff I did was on the money.
So it's time to start again from the bottom. I want to go the PM route and can't think of anything else training wise that's gonna help me so maybe time to add another tech skill like Java maybe but doing a course without experience isn't going to get me role. Just wondering if maybe a degree would help more as a colleague of mine who by her own admittance was useless and was made redundant at the same time as me got a Cobol role on the basis of her degree - i applied too and didn't even get an interview and trust me her CV looks like a 5 year old wrote it!
Anyway boring sob story over - time to keep the faith, keep plugging away and pray things will turn soon and put this nightmare down as a serious wake up call!
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