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Need advice on a career change

TonyAdams1998

Preface:

I'm a 28 year old male with a 2.2 (embarrassing I know) in an Arts degree, out of college two years. Currently working in the golf industry as part of a sales team. Money is not good at all, less than 30k and no commission. In the job 6 months.

No mortgage, wife, children or any superfluous expenses. My GF (5 years my junior, whom I plan on spending my life with) is starting her teaching masters in Sept so I'm lucky in a way that there'll be no disgruntlement from her in terms of income as she'll be earning very little too.

Career change:

I'm looking to start an apprenticeship in network engineering. My concern is that I'll be far too old. What driving this change is that I want to specialise in something, IT is an ever growing industry and it is something I've always had an interest in.

Rationale:

The main driver is salary, I can't foresee my wage every being substantial enough to support me and a family comfortably. I'm not looking for a house on Ailesbury Rd or a yacht in Amalfi, just to be comfortable. I'm not one unnecessary excesses

Question: Do you think in the long run it will be worth my while to switch at my age into a totally new industry. Has anyone done the apprenticeship and found a solid career on the back of it?

Apologies if this has been long-winded

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Strumms

You are 28, not 58.

If the driver to job happiness and satisfaction is a career change as you have outlined.. do it, do what you need to do...go for the apprenticeship, get qualified and look forward to a new career

_Brian

Plenty of time to get in and do that apprenticeship if you can get accepted.

You’ve no responsibilities so it’s perfect.

I did a Second business degree part time at 32 which I use full time now and I’ll probably never need my primary engineering qualification for employment ever again.

Tom Dunne

Rather than go back to do a full 4 years, you may also want to consider what are called conversion courses with Springboard.

These are, as their name implies, for people in one discipline (we'll use the term discipline very loosely when we refer to an Arts degree :pac: ) who want to convert to another (e.g. Engineering or IT).

So have a look at at www.springboardcourses.ie to see if there are any that suit you. Just another option to conside, plus it may end up costing you a lot less.

[Deleted User]

Thinking you're too old to change career at 28 is absurd.

salmocab

I know nothing about what you want to get into but your certainly not too old, I have a construction background and always felt the best apprentices were the older lads who had done other things first. I know job wise it’s not relevant but from the point of view of having somebody experienced showing you what to do it probably is.

BhoyRayzor

You have about 40 years of working life ahead of you so think of it as 'I get to decide now what that might look like'

So think of it as a positive, not a negative.

As posted above, look at Spring Board to see what's out there

scaldy_balls

TonyAdams1998 wrote: »

Question: Do you think in the long run it will be worth my while to switch at my age into a totally new industry. Has anyone done the apprenticeship and found a solid career on the back of it?

Apologies if this has been long-winded

Can't speak for the network engineering course, but I did the software engineering apprenticeship in 2015 when I was 29. Company kept me on after the apprenticeship and I'm still working for them.

scaldy_balls

TonyAdams1998 wrote: »

My concern is that I'll be far too old.

There was a fairly wide age range when i did the course. I'd say I was in the middle age-wise.

OMM 0000

Interested Observer wrote: »

Thinking you're too old to change career at 28 is absurd.

I agree.

Where does this mentality to come from?

At 28 you've only been working for a few years. You've got about another 40 years of work ahead of you. It is obviously not too late.

Especially when you add in the current job pays crappy and you've no commitments.

[Deleted User]

I was in the pharmaceutical industry until the age of 30 when I completely changed career into IT industry.

ironictoaster

Deleted User wrote: »

I was in the pharmaceutical industry until the age of 30 when I completely changed career into IT industry.

This is it wrote: »

I went back to college to study computer science as a mature student via Springboard and I was one of the youngest in my class at 26. Got my foot in the door at a Telecoms company when I finished and worked my way up to network engineer.

You're definitely not too old and Springboard is a great help. Continue to work and study part time.

Do you mind saying what courses you did?

I am also 28 years old and working in the pharma industry. After a lot of thought, I don't think this industry is for me

[Deleted User]

another springboarder here, i was 32 when i switched from business/admin to IT.

absolutely nothing stopping you.

nb 30k aint *that* for generic sales tbh

SozBbz

If its just money thats driving you, have you looked at software sales?

Even the most basic job will pay more than €30k and + commission.

Sales is tough though, but I don't understand a sales job with no commission.

Homelander

Also be realistic about the salary. 30K for a sales job you are in 6 months requiring no qualification isn't bad at all. Is there salary scales or whatever in place at this firm, or room for advancement?

Again, 30K after 6 months in a job that doesn't really require any qualifications is not at all bad. Plenty jobs requiring strong qualifications have much lower starting salaries than that, but rise with time and experience.

Jim2007

TonyAdams1998 wrote: »

The main driver is salary, I can't foresee my wage every being substantial enough to support me and a family comfortably.

Then it is probably not going to work out very well. IT is not a job, it's a way of life, you have to be passionate about it and will to put in a lot of hours outside and in the job to keep up and hold the top jobs. The landscape changes very regularly and need a lot of commitment to do it. And based on 30 years experience, I'd say a high percentage of marriages survive it.

OMM 0000

Jim2007 wrote: »

Then it is probably not going to work out very well. IT is not a job, it's a way of life, you have to be passionate about it and will to put in a lot of hours outside and in the job to keep up and hold the top jobs. The landscape changes very regularly and need a lot of commitment to do it. And based on 30 years experience, I'd say a high percentage of marriages survive it.

I agree completely with this.

IT has to be something you enjoy. It's not like other jobs because it requires you to continuously learn new things, for your entire career. I've over 20 years IT experience and I'm still constantly studying.

For sure, some people in IT don't do this, but their career goes nowhere and they hate their jobs.

Augme

I agree with the two posted above. A career change at 28 is very possible but I'd be wary of going I to IT. I have a friend who is very early 30s and he already he is looking to get out in the next 6-8 years. It's almost constant stuying and upskilling. The stuff he learnt in college is nothing compared to that stuff people in college learn now and that's gonna be the same for the people in college now in 10 years time.

He knows by late 30s he won't have the interest or drive to keep up that level of study and upskilling so is looking to get out.

I'm not saying you should go for it but that is very much something to consider.

scamalert

pff 28 is nothing actually bad if you got some basic experience with pcs. As someone who did springboard at networking thou, its a tough market.

firstly time required is a lot especially if your starting almost from scratch - 20-30hrs a week to study and practice 6-12months if you want to get it all right,not just bootcamping trough, thats just for basic CCNA - which sounds big but in reality most places at best will let you patch new users into switch - forget console access etc - as it gives you basic understanding on how netorks layers work, not much into setups beyond small labs practices.

second -experience depending what you do now it might help but with little previous, your looking at internships, or tech 1-2 jobs at best call support etc wouldnt be much in actual networking.

Then as someone pointed its cert after cert, networking cert alone is useless, you need to be basically on target with win7-10, active directories, and thats where it branches out to likes of VMs, citrix firewalls,cloud, security,linux - where you need to study for certs and upskill, and to top it off, every few years you do need to renew them, and add new ones - as last time its been like 3 years until they add new stuff, so constant learning.

as basically if you want netowking job you need some place that will take you and will invest to upskill you, to likes of CCNP. And then maybe 3-5 years later if your still up with the current tech you can pick nice jobs that offer good wages progress.

also neworking often requires lots of travel, so depending where your based further down the road you could be all over country on notice call.

its a good career to choose and age is perfect def not late in any way, but it costs money time and self investment. As studing training labs, on 10-100k equipment is nice in controlled environment where you set it up and see how it works, but once you get dropped to spot where all has been done and some enterprise stuff that runs into hundred thousands been setup already - its not smth 1-2 years will bring you up to that level of being able to work on own initiative with deadline hanging over head.

So if have passion for IT networking isnt only thing that has good career path, you could spend same amount on Unix system admin training,programming with same salary and progress down the line.

Eire Go Brach

Ah your a funny guy. 28 is old (o:
I changed from being a printer to IT.

It’s one of the easier areas for a career change, excluding coding as you can upskill with Certs.

Just do it. You will be happier in the long run.
It can be hard financially though. Getting the apprenticeship will be hard as well. Just go down the cert route in the case.

beauf

TonyAdams1998 wrote: »

...

Career change:

I'm looking to start an apprenticeship in network engineering. My concern is that I'll be far too old. What driving this change is that I want to specialise in something, IT is an ever growing industry and it is something I've always had an interest in.

....

A slightly different perspective. A low end job in IT is generally going to pay better than many other low end jobs in other sectors, and will have a higher ceiling. Probably better conditions aswell.

If you like the work. You won't know unless you try.

I switched into IT later, but it was already my hobby. While I've done and do a lot of programming I'm not really a Programmer/developer. A lot of the more negative opinions about IT on boards are from a programming point of view. Which is very specialised. On other forums there's more feedback from people working in other areas of IT so you get wider perspective.

OMM 0000

I agree beauf. There's a huge difference between being a network administrator and being a programmer.

Gavin1986

Interested Observer wrote: »

Thinking you're too old to change career at 28 is absurd.

Totally agree! I'm 33, and I've changed my profession last year. Never too late to look for a work that you’ll enjoy and what will make you some money.

Johnny Sausage

has football management not worked out Tony? :pac:

28 is never too late, i changed career path at 28 from a call centre with limited progression and stuck in a rut going nowhere to a job i really enjoy now so it can be done

closifer

I changed career path completely at 29. In the midst of recession I tried to choose a profession I thought I would have some hope of getting a job in and it all worked out. I had a new baby at the time and getting to college in the evening and starting afresh wasnt easy but we made it work . You are not too old at all and the fact you don't have massive commitments yet makes the time just right.