How to safeguard my career/life in Ireland?

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johnno09

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Maybe Im completely paranoid from listening to the ongoing media doom and gloom but at this point in time Im consistently worried about my career and future income etc. and am looking for advice I suppose on any further measures I should be taking.
For the last 4 years Ive worked in public sector education after 5 years in two private sector organisations which i left to pursue a masters degree. I have a bachelors degree, masters and am currently working on a BSc in another area part time which will take me about 3 years in addition to a few more bits and pieces. I do have fulltime hours at the moment but not a permanent contract (should be due CID) but I cant help worrying that the way things are going it could all fold anyway. Im generally careful with money and work a part time job too because im financing my brothers college education at the moment and helping out my elderly parents financially too. I resisted the urge to buy a house throughout the boom times and so dont have a mortgage/any debts at the moment thankfully.

I cannot think/research of anything else I can do to help secure my future. I know there are tens of thousands worse off. Ive spent the last 15 years accumulating qualifications and am trained to do several different jobs, love the one I have but as I say I am annoyingly concerned that efforts to date still might not be enough to stay afloat. Maybe I should just turn off the radio?
 
johnno09 said:
. Maybe I should just turn off the radio?
Click to expand...
That would be a good first step.

Be wary of qualification accumulation that doesn't fit a clear career strategy.

Most employers want the minimum qualifications necessary.
But look for lots of evidence that you can do an excellent job in real life.

So if you are doing the minimum in your current job and studying every evening and shooting out of work to get to classes, for random qualifications. That is not an optimum strategy IMHO.

A better one would be to engage in active development in your existing job and be able to present your rationale, experience, outcomes and learning points to your current and potential employers.

Be able to show how you have made a significant contribution in your current role.

At the moment you sound like you are spread pretty thinly.
 
College leavers

My very own father along with many of his associates, are lecturers at university, has always said that good degree passes are no longer the main ingredient to getting on in Ireland.
He maintains that foreign investment will eventually dry up in Ireland, and that to really get on young people leaving college will have to travel either to UK/Europe or the USA for long term employment.
We are seeing this exodus already, and it does not look like the well educated will return.
 
Its more like working full time, doing the best job I can there to develop the department. I tend to do short course workshops during holidays and weekends and the BSc is via the UK- distance learning and workshop attendance over holidays, so it doesnt interfere with the day job and my current employers know about it. All of the strands of what i qualified to do are related in different aspects of the same broad industry.
 
If I were just finishing college, there would be no way I'd stay in Ireland, especially after last Thursday's events.

Even as it is, lots of my friends (late thirties/early forties) are expressing a desire to get out of Ireland while they still can. I suppose they have no appetite for an Irish depression.
 
Foreign multinationals used to be the goal for graduates with very good degrees, but with the threat of tax incentives being scaled down in future, these companies will find new bases elsewhere. Already there is a distinct lack of opportunities in these companies.
Local Government, Quangos and the HSE will provide some employment., but here it is still a case of who you know and not what you know., when applying for work in these. Thousands of current employees in these bloated organisations were given jobs because they knew someone!
Hard to believe but true.
 
I'd suggest that foreign language skills would greatly increase your future prospects. If you think of European people who have your skillset or similar, they probably also have additional fluent English, therefore they already have an advantage.
Even the American company google employs 70% non-nationals in their Dublin office because Irish graduates don't have the language skills.
 
dontaskme said:
I'd suggest that foreign language skills would greatly increase your future prospects. If you think of European people who have your skillset or similar, they probably also have additional fluent English, therefore they already have an advantage.
Even the American company google employs 70% non-nationals in their Dublin office because Irish graduates don't have the language skills.
Click to expand...
I totally agree, a second fluent language is a valuable asset in the current work/jobs climate. The students who were forced to take Irish by their parents or school/colleges are now finding out that Irish is not worth anything on a cv., especially in the jobs market abroad.
 
I'm very much a planner with a long term view of things, so I set the wheels in motion to protect my career a few years back.

I'm currently studying towards a data mining qualification as this area is going to be huge in the future, and hardly anyone can do it.

You need to be quite mathematical and it is a very difficult area, but in my opinion that's a good thing as it means few people will continue to study it.

I've also chosen to get the best qualification possible (Stanford) to help me stand out from the (relatively small) crowd.
 
johnno09 said:
Maybe Im completely paranoid from listening to the ongoing media doom and gloom but at this point in time Im consistently worried about my career and future income etc. and am looking for advice I suppose on any further measures I should be taking.
For the last 4 years Ive worked in public sector education after 5 years in two private sector organisations which i left to pursue a masters degree. I have a bachelors degree, masters and am currently working on a BSc in another area part time which will take me about 3 years in addition to a few more bits and pieces. I do have fulltime hours at the moment but not a permanent contract (should be due CID) but I cant help worrying that the way things are going it could all fold anyway. Im generally careful with money and work a part time job too because im financing my brothers college education at the moment and helping out my elderly parents financially too. I resisted the urge to buy a house throughout the boom times and so dont have a mortgage/any debts at the moment thankfully.

I cannot think/research of anything else I can do to help secure my future. I know there are tens of thousands worse off. Ive spent the last 15 years accumulating qualifications and am trained to do several different jobs, love the one I have but as I say I am annoyingly concerned that efforts to date still might not be enough to stay afloat. Maybe I should just turn off the radio?
Click to expand...

The reality is that with the best will in the world, you can't choose an occupation that will guarantee employment over the lifetime of your working career. You can make an choice that's informed by all current relevant factors and based on what's likely to occur over the next 10-15 years but beyond that, you're into speculation.

An initiative to address long-term employability was launched by the European Commission earlier this year. I found it very interesting. What I took from it was that labour will need to increasingly mobile in the future if it needs to protect its value. The notion of finding work to match one's skills close to home is becoing increasingly outdated. Low-skilled jobs, to which anyone can turn their hand with minimal trainng, are on the way out.

Might be some food for thought here: [broken link removed]
 
UFC said:
I'm very much a planner with a long term view of things, so I set the wheels in motion to protect my career a few years back.

I'm currently studying towards a data mining qualification as this area is going to be huge in the future, and hardly anyone can do it.

You need to be quite mathematical and it is a very difficult area, but in my opinion that's a good thing as it means few people will continue to study it.

I've also chosen to get the best qualification possible (Stanford) to help me stand out from the (relatively small) crowd.
Click to expand...
This course?

Looks interesting.
I'm assuming you'd need a mathematical/engineering type undergrad degree first? Are you doing it on line?
Sorry if I'm nosy, but interested in similar upskilling myself.
 
In my current job, we can't get staff, jobs there but not the people... shows me people r leaving Ireland very fast
 
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