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AJS-
Original Poster
10,013 posts
105 months
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Bit of a follow up to the life after sales thread. I'm currently 34, running my own business and doing OK, though not as well as I want. My only real skill is sales. I have a decent BSc Economics degree, and plenty of experience in that. I am practical and able to fix things, but no other marketable skills or qualifications.
I would really like something that allows me to work on rotation, month on month off or similar. And in the next couple of years I would be in a position to train to do something else, and pay for some qualifications.
Barring a lottery win, and losing 10 years somewhere it's not likely to be an airline pilot, but I'm open to all suggestions. Blowing stuff up might be a good one, but I was never in the army. What is required to get into explosives technician type work? I am mobile enough to be practically anywhere for the month on.
Any and all other suggestions are welcome.
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rog007
3,045 posts
93 months
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Assume you want out of your current business? Otherwise I'd do a full analysis to work out why it's not going so well and work out what I can do to make it better first.
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AJS-
Original Poster
10,013 posts
105 months
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Well I'm not desperate financially, and it's not dead. It's not doing as well as I had hoped by now, but still making money in a tough market.
It's more the life that goes with it that I want to change. I'm stuck having to be in a big city, I'm working until 7 every evening, and thinking about work 24/7.
I'm incredibly envious of those guys who can go away for a month and come back for a month with enough cash in their pocket and time on their hands to do stuff they enjoy.
I've even looked at labouring jobs, but since I'm not in a desperate position financially I'm able to spend a bit of time and money on retraining.
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rog007
3,045 posts
93 months
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OK; then to make the break and find something that meets your new lifestyle requirements is not going to be easy, otherwise everyone would be doing it. From my experience, to achieve the 1 month on/1month off type role you're either going to have to have a very scarce skill so that you can dictate those terms or you're going to go somewhere that so few people want to go that they have to let you do those terms; and so it's likely to be very dangerous!
Back to reality; if you were a client of mine, I'd want to do an honest and thorough review of where you are now and why you no longer want to be there. Once we'd got to the bottom of that, we'd attempt to identify your core competencies, where you want to be both career and salary wise in 5 years, and then start looking at options from there. PM me if I can be of any further assistance. Good luck!
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AJS-
Original Poster
10,013 posts
105 months
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I understand that. No problem with going somewhere remote and inhospitable. It's more what I'd be able to do when I get there. What are the scarce skills, and how do I obtain them from my current position?
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Donatello
1,034 posts
30 months
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I'm not sure I can offer any real advice but I think you are looking at off-shore work for terms like that.
If you have time and are interested, look into an engineering field. Be quite specific, I don't know what you'd need but well stimulation is a good field and I imagine, as it is 'better for the environment' than most of oil extraction techniques, it will be around for a while.
My OH's Dad is incharge of a vessel and he goes over almost every week to where it is based, but his crew are two on two off and are a very happy bunch. Has to be one of the nicest working vessels to be on, very hotel-esque.
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AJS-
Original Poster
10,013 posts
105 months
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Offshore would be the way. Just not sure what qualifications. Just now trying to figure out what qualifications/courses and experience I should be trying to accumulate in order to land such a role in the next couple of years.
Unless someone wants to tell me otherwise, at 34 going to get a new degree in geology or similar would probably put me comfortably into the too old category, if I'm not already.
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Chicken Chaser
3,335 posts
93 months
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I think you'd need to do more than just a degree. I've got a degree and dont seem to have the required to go into that kind of work. Masters or PhD seems to be a minimum requirement.
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davepoth
19,910 posts
68 months
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Chicken Chaser said: I think you'd need to do more than just a degree. I've got a degree and dont seem to have the required to go into that kind of work. Masters or PhD seems to be a minimum requirement. It needs to be a masters at a minimum, everyone and his dog has a bachelors these days. That has its bonuses, as you will likely be about right age-wise for a masters. You may be able to go straight into something at masters level. Generally applications are open until the first day of the course in September, so you've still got time for this year.
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simonej
741 posts
49 months
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If you're wanting month on, month off then as someone mentioned before you're pretty much looking at off shore or international jobs. Africa has plenty of opportunities to do this, for example Nigeria and Sierra Leone are places where there are lots of people doing this kind of rotation. Admittedly a lot of the roles are fairly specialist engineering jobs but I've seen jobs advertised for more basic roles in the Niger Delta and I think in Freetown there's a fair bit of mineral mining going on. Other areas you could look at would perhaps be aviation or shipping as they may need operations type people. (The company I work for had a couple of chaps doing a rotation working operations and I don't think they had prior experience of the job. They've got rid of them now as they've found local chaps to replace them for 1/3 of the money.) I currently do month on month off and it is a pretty good work pattern (all expenses paid for 6 months of the year and you only have to commute to work 6 times  ).
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Terzo123
1,354 posts
77 months
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Commercial diving?
A recent colleague of mine left our work place last week to go work in Russia.
2 months on, one month off. Something like £350 per day.
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johnfm
9,018 posts
119 months
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There's another thread on here about ROV training etc.
Seems to be a shortage, so well educated, motivated, mature people with good networking skills could probably get on a trainee path.
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AJS-
Original Poster
10,013 posts
105 months
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Commercial diving sounds good. What tickets are needed typically for that? Having a google now, but if anyone is in that and would share their thoughts it would be much appreciated. ROVs look interesting too. Thanks for that chaps! Ok first question - just been having a look here http://www.theunderwatercentre.co.uk and it looks fairly comprehensive. What would my actual chances of finding work be though, aged say 35 by the time I finish training, with no actual commercial experience, but a bunch of tickets?
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