Brick wall !!

[tshirtsuntan]

Hi I'm new so hello to everyone!

I will try and get straight to my point,but may waffle,sorry in advance.

I am at a loss job/career wise.
Some 5 yrs ago i changed career, i took redundancy from a job at the time i did not enjoy it was a packaging job at a pharmaceutical company and i had been there for 8 years i had aspirations of working in the IT sector and took the chance to go and pursue this.

i have always enjoyed working with computers and as a sideline really liked it just helping others with their pc problems etc. I managed to find a job almost straight away I had completed a Microsoft course to put me in a better position,The job was a junior role in support,this was fine for a while about a year and then my world fell apart personally with the breakdown of my then relationship and before i knew it i had to give up the home we shared and was reduced to seeing my daughter every other weekend.
As you can imagine this had an affect on my work and gradually started to show (over the course of a year and a half)
The company i worked for were a small firm all younger than me,no one had children or were married etc,so there was know one i could relate to and know one that could even begin to understand what i was going through,the job eventually ended and the company had tried to push me out anyway they could, thankfully i had been a member of a union and left with a compromise agreement.

From there i worked in an IT call center on contract and for another small it outfit on contract aswell- that was my last job. Im unemployed at present.

I find myself competing with a lot of bright young things in IT that have had a better grounding in the industry,this has left me feeling inadequate in my somewhat limited knowledge by comparison. It has also left me disliking my chosen profession. I am fully aware that my grounding in IT was not the most solid and as a result I have not a lot of confidence in the technical side of things.

I could,you are probably thinking do another course and update knowledge which i could your right but this costs money and it is ever changing,im 37 i do not have parents to fall back on and even when i am working have very little money to put towards courses.IT support pays very little unless you can specialize in something.

I just do not know what to do. Im out of love with IT and the only thing i know im good at that has come out of it is that im great with people.I love talking to people and was often tasked with dealing with a dis-gruntled end user.

Trouble is im 37 as ive said i need to earn money to get by like everyone so i just cant change career again just like that. And to be honest im scared because i really do not know what i want to do.

Hope some one out there can give some advice or even share their experience if it is similar to mine, thanks for taking the time to read my post!!!

[CleeIB]

Hello, tshirtsuntan! Thanks for sharing your situation. Let's try to figure a way out.

In a way, your options are very simple. You can either choose to continue in IT, or you can pursue something new. Both are valid approaches, and deciding what to do must ultimately be up to you.

As for continuing in IT, yes, the field is ever-changing, but that is true for everyone in it. If you want to be competitive with the bright young things, well, you can do that. You just have to be prepared for the costs of doing so. Maybe you'll have to go to classes at night; maybe you'll have to work a second job; maybe you'll have to take out a loan. There are 24 hours in a day. We spend 8 hours sleeping (if we're lucky!), 8 hours working (again, if we're lucky), and the remaining time is up to us to maximize.

Many industries require investment in order to have long-term return. If you have a good goal in mind, it's worth the investment and short-term pain for the long-term reward.

As for pursuing something new, you would look at your skill set and experience and see how to leverage it towards other contexts. You're great with people, and you love talking to people. Maybe you could go into sales? Counseling of some sort? Even teaching? Also, your IT experience could perhaps land you somewhere else in the tech industry.

You may want to take any number of the free personality tests out there. Some of them are surprisingly accurate in gauging what professions you might be suited for. (I say this from personal experience.) They can help get your thought processes going as for what you want to pursue next.

Good luck!