Careers advice? Becoming an ISO9001 consultant/auditor?

[CardinalFang]

Afternoon all,

I'd really appreciate some advice on a career change I'm considering. My long term options are limited, in terms of both earnings & managment responsibility: I'm currently working for a small family firm & the bottom line is that I'm not the son & heir. Having spent 20+ years in sales & management for a range of small, medium & large organisations, I'm thinking of doing something completely different & it seemed like the ISO 9001 consultants/auditors we used have an interesting job, working in a variety of locations and industry/firm types.

Does anyone on here do this as a job? How did you start? Did you take courses and exams, then join a consultancy firm, or the other way round? Do you think it's an in-demand service or growth industry? I know the daily rate we were charged, but what would be the earnings potential? Or are you self employed?

I'd be very interested in hearing anyone's experience, whether good or bad & am grateful for any advice on where to start looking or companies to speak to.

Many thanks

[CardinalFang]

anothernameitist said:

My only advice would be to broaden your scope, environmental standards and the rest rather tha n ISO 9001

Good info thanks, but, just to check I have it right....get myself qualified & then offer my services to consultancies who could farm me out? ( as opposed to contacting consultancies now, unqualified, to pitch myself as a trainee consultant in e.g. environmental standards).

Are these roles freelance, booked by a consultancy/agency with a revenue split, or would I more likely be an employee? Again, thanks. Much appreciated.

[CardinalFang]

Vanordinaire, thanks for the response.

[CardinalFang]

anothernameitist. Thanks for the follow up. :thumbs up:

[CardinalFang]

mike9009 said:

Personally I would not recruit a consultant for one of the quality accreditations (or ISO14001/ OHSAS 18001) as these management systems need to be owned by the management team, not have an alien system thrust upon the business. The business needs to own the system.

Understood - ours is a very small company (6 staff), so we decided to bring in an outside consultant to help us start from scratch & also with the annual (bi-annual?) review/progress updates. This was the interesting part for me - his role in coaching/advising/reviewing for similar SME's. (I now have his contact details & will be picking his brains too)

mike9009 said:

Also, if I was looking to hire a consultant I would want to see many years practical experience rather than classroom training.

Point taken - I don't know what business background this guy had as a "lead auditor", (according to his business card), but will find out when I speak to him.

mike9009 said:

An auditors role for BSI/ Lloyds would be an interesting role. The examinations/ testing can be quite stressful (from what I have gained) as your livelihood depends on passing them.

Can you expand on this? I realise BSI are the standards Institute & have their own consultants/contractors, but Lloyds? Insurance? banking? What did you mean? Sorry if I'm being thick...

Exams are an interesting subject. I've seen plenty of "3 day course, 2 hr exam" options, which sound fine, but I had to do the FSA exam a few years ago, having not studied since Uni, 18 years previous. The job depended on it. Terrifying at the time & the thought of having to go through that again isn't pleasant, right now. Passed though, but I'm pretty sure when I heard, I was the only candidate sneaking off to the side of the trading floor failing to hold back tears of relief...

thanks again Mike - good info - much appreciated

[CardinalFang]

Mike,

I take your point about outside consultants - the buy vs build dilemma must apply in this field too.

Thanks for the info about certification bodies. I'm only a couple of days into looking at this, finding plenty of unknown unknowns, so this is good guidance.