Govt Sector vs. Private Sector Careers

T

TisMyself

Guest
Hi All,

I’m doing a private careers project from which I hope to make my career decisions once and right. I’m interested in learning the real differences between Govt Sector careers and careers within the private sector. So far I’ve heard the main differences are in the Govt sector, while they may lack transfer opportunities, they have a “job for life” quality. I’ve also heard they have better pension schemes.

Can I ask anyone who works in the Govt Sector (and in particular, a Govt Dept) to tell me what they consider the main advantages/disadvantages to be? TIA
 
Hi TM,

when you say Gov Dept are you talking about the civil service.....or perhaps you are talking about the broader public service (guards, nurses, defense forces, judges,teachers,university professors etc) or perhaps you are talking about the broader public sector (which includes ESB, Bord Gas, etc)?

Are you talking about entry level clerical work or perhaps you are talking about higher level management or maybe you are talking about professionals such as teachers, nurses, engineers, vets, doctors etc .

Like it or not the public sector is a very large diverse entity. You will need to be a little more specific.
 
TisMyself said:
while they may lack transfer opportunities
Click to expand...

Not sure about that - have you heard of decentralisation. It's suspended now, but the damage is already done. Besides that, I can think of numerous public sector employees I have dealt with over the years transfering into and out of IT departments of their organisations without any prior IT experience (or qualifications).
 
rmelly said:
Besides that, I can think of numerous public sector employees I have dealt with over the years transfering into and out of IT departments of their organisations without any prior IT experience (or qualifications).
Click to expand...
That is one thing I also think is a disgrace.

To the OP, there is a huge variation in the nature of work in the public sector, and even within the civil service, and consequent differences in the type of job experience, e.g. a technical member of staff has much less opportunity for interdepartmental transfer, and within the department there are often limited roles, while on the other hand, the general Service grades in the main have good access to a variety of other posts, either within the same department, or in other departments.

I work in a body that was up to recently part of a government department
The primary benefits are;

  • Job security
  • Good pension
  • Family friendly work practices (term time working, worksharing)
  • Promotion primarily on merit grounds

The drawbacks are

  • Limited access to interdepartmental promotions (this is an issue particular to my workplace)
  • Limited structures to reward achievement/initiaitive
  • It can be difficult to address underperformance which is not good for morale
  • The office is slave to the demands of the parent department which means limited autonomy, which can restrict initiative as you can have all the ideas and implementation plans you want, but if the department wants it done a certain way, it will get done that way.
  • A certain arbitrariness (as alluded to in rmelly's post) in the allocation of staff, and no structured way to allocate staff to the areas of their particular talent.

Also, according to these boards we;

  • Are overpaid
  • Have no work to do
  • Are incredibly inflexible
  • Are all surly with customers
  • Have excessive amounts of time off for spurious reasons
  • Get huge pensions that we shouldn't be getting
 
j26 said:
Also, according to these boards we;

  • Are overpaid
  • Have no work to do
  • Are incredibly inflexible
  • Are all surly with customers
  • Have excessive amounts of time off for spurious reasons
  • Get huge pensions that we shouldn't be getting
Click to expand...
Thanks, that's my PMDS done for 2009.
 
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