I have been involved in AIX support and administration for neigh on 10 years and have over 15 years experience overall in many aspects of IT from service desk implementation to service management and problem management. After a couple of bad career moves within my last company I found myself faced with redundancy thanks to outsourcing to India.
I’ve never been mentored and really want to move into solution design and architecture. I felt opportunity had finally found me when I took on a position on one of the largest IT projects in the UK as a senior AIX sys admin which I hoped I could use as a springboard to move on after a year or so working on the latest Series-P kit.
After fighting to get the basic controls in place whilst also building the infrastructure and working closely with project management, my current management team has done nothing but seek to push me backwards and away from infrastructure builds back down to basic support and change management, and I can’t get a straight answer as to why. Consequently after 18 months my confidence is at rock bottom and my skills are becoming extremely rusty because I just don’t have the opportunity to use them.
I now feel stuck because I’m not allowed on any courses, we have no test environment so I can’t practice anything unless it’s in support of a production environment issue. I don’t feel capable of fulfilling the most basic of user roles, nevermind sys admin, and don’t know how I can make the move into architecture.
I just don’t know what to do to move on.

Continue reading “AIX Angst” »

Im in a situation where i have just left a 6 year career in retail management. I now wish to move onto something else preferably HR based.
Can I do this without firstly gaining a CIPD qualification?
My previous experience led me to deal with all aspects of Recruitmant and Retention, Training and development as well as disiplinaries, grievences and investigations. I have a sound knowledge of employment laws and legislations and used to practice them everyday.

Continue reading “HR without CIPD” »

Hi there – I am currently working as a Marketing Assistant for a BTB FTSE 100 Company in Gatwick. I have worked for the company for 3 years – first of all as PA to the Marketing Director and due to the Company shuffling the business around I am now a Marketing Assistant. Alas, I am not keen on the organisation as it is too ruthless for me and I don’t feel like I am going to progress within the Company as I am a bit too easy going and the Corporate environment bores me!! The role I am doing at the moment is mainly admin and I don’t feel like I am learning anything new. Also, there are no other roles within Marketing I would be interested in within the Company.
I have, unfortunately, never had an “ideal job” and so am not sure which way to turn now. I feel like I am at a cross-roads and I don’t want to go into another role where I will be eventually be bored and have no opportunity to progress within the Company.
I graduated from Brighton Uni back in 2000 with a BSc (Hons) in Biology and Computing. I took my first job as an Energy Analyst for an Energy Consultancy but this bored me. So, as I have always had an interest in the Medical Field I decided to do a year’s course to attain an Advanced Diploma in Medical Secretarial Studies whilst working part time as an IT Assistant/Medical Secretary at a local doctor’s surgery. I really enjoyed the role is it was varied and the nature of the business was to help people! Which is something that gives me great job satisfaction. Unfortunately, the money was not good enough and would never equate to much working in the NHS.
So, I moved to my current role thinking that it’s a big Company and I would hopefully progress and pursue my career. It hasn’t worked out that way!
Now, I have no idea what to do! I have been searching for a job for the past year but there is nothing that particularly takes my fancy. Most of the jobs advertised are sales/recruitment/telesales…. none of which interest me at all.
I still feel that the only way i would get job satisfaction is by helping people. I don’t know whether to go and do another course or what direction to go into. The only trouble is that I don’t live at home anymore and have mortgage etc. to pay…
What would you do?!?!

Continue reading “Stuck in a Rut” »

I am stuck.
I’m well educated; I spent 5 years undertaking an undergraduate degree in Spanish with Marketing, with two years spent in Spain. I thought about becoming a modern foreign languages teacher, but half way through the Postgraduate course I realised that, well to put it bluntly, I am not too keen on kids!
I desperately need a job that pays well and more importantly one that poses a challenge and is interesting – but since finishing university I seem to have been shuffled between one temp clerical or telephony job to another.
I am really creative, buzzing with ideas, full of potential, but I can’t even get my foot on the ladder as a marketing junior. It’s the same old catch 22, you can’t get a job without experience, and you can’t get experience without a job.
I’m now having to sell my home to pay back student loans and the bills -please help- my life is going nowhere!

Continue reading “The First Step” »