I want to work but have no skills

Chloe_Alumni

Hi @66Mustang, I hope the advice above has been useful. I just wanted to jump in and say that you have a lot of potential! I'm glad you feel the economics will be helpful.

Have you ever looked at The Prince's Trust? Here is what they offer:

How we support young people

We are open to young people aged 11 to 30 from all over the UK - no matter if they have been facing some serious issues such as homelessness or if they've been in trouble with the law. If they're willing to aim high - we are here.

We have returned £1.4 billion in value to society through our help for young people over the last 10 years alone.

We work with delivery partners across the UK to offer hundreds of free courses, grants and mentoring opportunities to inspire young people to build their confidence and start a career. We will be there to support them to achieve their full potential. 

It looks like they can be really flexible and the website also has success stories.

66Mustang

@Chloe_Scope thanks, I did get in touch with them for help with funding towards my economics course but they said they couldn’t help as the maximum help they give is £500 and the course cost over £500. Apparently I was not allowed to take the £500 then make up the difference myself.

That said I think I will look to them for advice and maybe mentoring when I am ready to start work, hopefully they can help with that thank you.

66Mustang

@woodbine yes I would love to go to university but I don’t think I would cope with student life at the moment. I do live quite close to a university so if I got in there it would be ideal as I could commute from home rather than live in digs. Unfortunately, the university I live close to is Cambridge which is rather tricky to get accepted to!! 

In all seriousness though university is something I plan on doing in the future though as a mature student.  

Thank you for the post.

Geoark

I spent around 10 years unemployed, previous to that I had always worked in warehousing and had no qualifications. Knowing it was extremely unlikely that I would be able to return to the type of  work I was used to I did start to wonder if I would ever get back to work.

Volunteering during those years meant I could further develop minor skills I had and learn new ones. It also gave me a wealth of experiences I could draw on when it came to answering their questions. Volunteering also has another aspect to it that is often over looked. I did volunteer as a receptionist at a homeless charity, it took me less than three hours to work out that it was not for me. That is fine, it is not failure but part of the learning experience, especially as I was considering to start applying for reception jobs as way into a company. I ended up in their volunteer recruitment team and loved my time there until I got a job.

Something I would recommend is learn how to use Microsoft Office, especially Word and Excel. I thought my skills were fairly basic, however one reason I have stood out was my skills in these two programs were above what most of my colleagues were capable off. To give an example, one of the early tasks I did was to divide costs between different types of clients. It took me ten minutes to write a quick calculator in Excel which sped up the process and was always accurate. While I had a basic understanding of some of the functions it was only when I got into work I could put them into practice. Having a good understanding though meant it was easy to pick up. Even now I am still learning, yesterday I used merge field codes to resolve a formatting issue with a mail merge file. Because I am very much self taught the senior officer just needed to give me a clue for the direction to go and as I explained to him, if I simply follow his instructions I would likely forget, researching how to do it would be the best way for me to learn not just for then but for the future.

I now work with large data sets and need to make some sense of them. Understanding pivot tables, vlookup, and some of the less used formulas makes life a lot easier, not just for me but my seniors and line manager. Most of my work is finance based, scrutinising accounts and fixing mistakes, pulling together different invoices from different sources, understanding what can and cannot be charged and responding to queries, validating some invoices and authorising their payments, going through legal contracts to see who is responsible as well as understanding the legal, regulatory and procedural structures which I work under. 

My highest qualifications now are level 4 and not related to any of these. When I started after being unemployed for so long we were actually financially worse off, having to use public transport through the centre of London, I now earn above the national average wage, something I never thought I would achieve.

It has  not been an easy journey, health scares including at one point being tested for cancer, ongoing health issues, and some really blinding mistakes. Having an employer who doesn't have an issue with mistakes, but insists you sort it out, with support if needed, and learn from it helped a great deal. I have days where I feel I am out of my depth and drowning but have pulled through it. There have been some funny moments. 

Where does he live?

7 Sisters Road

What number?

7.

The name of the road of course being Seven Sisters Road.

Or the poor young lady I was shadowing to see what they do in a department on a Friday and she asked when I would like to do it. As I sometimes forget words and use different ones she managed to keep a straight face as I said she wouldn't want me dogging her all day so the morning would be fine. I could not understand why the rest of her team were laughing and one or two even had tears in their eyes. The word I meant to use was hounding. I could not even work out what was so funny until I mentioned the incident to someone I worked with. 

So yes, I can understand where you are coming from. However from what you have said it seems that you have given it a lot of thought and doing the right things to enable you to move into the work place when the time is right for you. My own belief is a passion to life long learning and developing new skills will always go a long way to future proofing your work prospects. 

66Mustang

@Geoark

Thank you very much for taking the time to share all that.

It sounds like you were in quite a similar position to me and it is really inspiring to read about how you progressed into a job that is not only well paid but from your other posts on this forum I know is fulfilling for you as well.

What you say about acquiring/developing minor skills makes perfect sense. I like to think I gained some minor skills from the meetings I go to at my clinic but I understand volunteering is the best way to properly immerse yourself and really develop.

I always thought I was pretty good at Office at school, but I haven’t used it now for almost 10 years, so things could well have evolved a lot by now. I’d best get up to speed and brush up on my skills.

Thanks for sharing the funny stories as well, haha.

Again I really appreciate you sharing all that, it must have taken a while to write.

Cress

" I want to work but have no skills"
I'd say you were perfectly suited to a career in counselling...I'm only half joking!
Good luck  and best wishes for whichever path you choose.

SallyH

Hey there! I just wanted to give my thoughts! 

Have you ever thought of trying the Open University? If you're not up for the student life but have thought about uni, it might be a good thought! I know employers absolutely adore seeing a OU degree since it means you can be self reliant and don't need micromanaging. They also love people who went to uni 'late' since it's seen as self development rather than an obligation. 
If you don't have any A Levels you could try a flexi college course? Or even a foundation course to get you into a uni thing too! Distance learning is your friend! 

There's tones of free courses online too to help develop skills. And if you don't like them you can just stop doing them without question or money lost. OpenLearn and FutureLearn are the biggest ones, but if you have a little money spare you could try something like SkillShare where there's thousands of short courses taught by people in those industries. They're less 'structured' but usually involve activities to help you get the taste of something!

Also, I currently work in an accountants. If you do try to pursue accountancy here's some advice: You don't need a finance/maths degree to do it. At least two of our current trainees hold history degrees, and one has a geography one. As long as you get a good grade and have a passion for it there's a large likelihood of you being picked up as a trainee. Also, there isn't an age limit. Although Accountancy isn't for me, if you wanna go for it, do. Don't discredit yourself! 

66Mustang

Thanks @SallyH for the great advice.

I’d never considered that about an OU degree being desirable because it displays self sufficiency. Or, about going to university late displaying that you did it out of choice rather than because you had to. Both very good points and make perfect sense.

I’ll have a look at the online courses you suggest. If nothing else it will give me something to do as I am always bored at the moment!

Thank you for the tips about accountancy as well. That’s really good to know.

Just to say to all that this thread has turned out much better than I thought it would and I just want to say I really appreciate every reply, it does mean a lot to me.

Chloe_Alumni

We're always happy to help @66Mustang, you bring a lot to the forum and it's the least we can do.

66Mustang

Thanks @Chloe_Scope that’s really kind of you to say

dkb123

I suppose one of the best things I inherited from my father was his love of gardening, the time he took to teach me as a child how to plant and grow things set me up for life, I didn't use my knowledge until many years later because I never lived anywhere with a garden, but now 50 years on I have one, and it's one of the joys of life, you say you are calm and relaxed, which you have to be when being outdoors in all weathers,
Its what you make it, just a hobby, or a sideline, or a full-time job, it pays very well, you can work for yourself, others or create a landscape company, the choices are very wide, you can study horticultural or be a permaculture gardener  or a smallholder, homesteader,

I work from home, I am my own boss and make enough money to be very comfortable, I sell plants and do a farmers market stall once a week, and I live an organic life, that's the key, to find what you are happy doing.

My father said if you can find a paying job that you would do for free, you will never work another day in your life. 
God bless him.   

OverlyAnxious

I'd like to be a gardener in a large park or stately home.  Mostly working alone but with directions from a head gardener (I'm rubbish with people but much more a sheep than a shepherd!).  Outdoors, giving hundreds of people a lot of pleasure without having to interact with them, and you can always see the visual reward from gardening. 

dkb123

The walled Victorian gardens with the sunken sections and high south-facing walls and  seats for quiet contemplation seem to me, to be magical places  

66Mustang

That does sound like a really nice and fulfilling job to do. A family member is actually in that kind of profession albeit more tree surgery and ground maintenance type roles and they like it on the whole.

@dkb123 those sound like some very wise words from your father.

66Mustang

OverlyAnxious said:

I'd like to be a gardener in a large park or stately home.  Mostly working alone but with directions from a head gardener (I'm rubbish with people but much more a sheep than a shepherd!).  Outdoors, giving hundreds of people a lot of pleasure without having to interact with them, and you can always see the visual reward from gardening. 

This might be a stupid question but could you cope with the mud? Mud does not trigger my contamination OCD I think maybe as it is not made by a human but not sure. Maybe you are the same?

dkb123

I don't think anyone should be afraid of mud, its only water and soil, and they are the basic life-giving properties of the earth 

OverlyAnxious

66Mustang said:

OverlyAnxious said:

I'd like to be a gardener in a large park or stately home.  Mostly working alone but with directions from a head gardener (I'm rubbish with people but much more a sheep than a shepherd!).  Outdoors, giving hundreds of people a lot of pleasure without having to interact with them, and you can always see the visual reward from gardening. 

This might be a stupid question but could you cope with the mud? Mud does not trigger my contamination OCD I think maybe as it is not made by a human but not sure. Maybe you are the same?

Depends where it is...  On outdoor clothes/gloves?  Yeah, no problem.  On my face from over-zealous weed pulling?  Not a fan!! 

I used to do a lot of gardening and rarely had any issues with the contamination side of the OCD.  Always wore long sleeves and gloves so didn't get any contaminants on my arms or hands, and was careful not to touch my face or 'splash' anything onto it.  I got more anxiety from the injury risk with tools instead.  Even something as simple as weeding a patio can lead to a nasty scuffed knuckle and blood appearing...  I rarely used power tools and prefer to do things manually.  Sadly it's the stomach issues that stopped me doing any gardening last year, could no longer do the bending and lifting etc.  As I keep mentioning on here, I'm really hoping to move somewhere with a garden to try and get back into it a bit.

dkb123

raised beds are very good if you find it difficult to bend and lift 

66Mustang

dkb123 said:

I don't think anyone should be afraid of mud, its only water and soil, and they are the basic life-giving properties of the earth 

To be fair, and I will be the first to admit this being an OCD sufferer, the whole point of OCD is that it is irrational. So while you may be quite right, there may be people who are afraid of mud and need to work on it.

dkb123

yes you are right, it's a difficult illness to overcome