Education and career progression in the UK

(I’ve put this in Expat Life, but I’m not really sure which forum would have been best to post in.)

I moved to the UK when I was 39, and before that I had a very varied educational and career history while in the US.

When I went to high school, I did a lot of science and mathematics, as well as writing, and I was involved in dramatics as well.  I entered a bachelor’s degree program in chemistry at an out-of-state university, but left at the end of the first year when I became ill and eventually had to be hospitalised.

I then got a job as a cashier making minimum wage  did cashier work for a while, and then took a civil service exam and worked in the criminal justice system (for the state court) for a few years.

After that, I got a job as a marketing assistant for a manufacturing company.

Later, I got a job as a secretary in the advertising department of a national US magazine and worked my way up into higher level positions.

While I was there, I went back to university (this time to a local one) part-time and got a Summa Cum Laude bachelor's degree in political science , with a scholarship to study law, by attending uni at night over a nine year period.

I didn’t continue my education. Instead, my degree helped me to get an additional promotion in my advertising job.

I spent over 15 years at that company, frequently getting promotions and raises.

Like me, a lot of the people that I worked with, who were in higher level positions than me, had a variety of past experiences, with degrees in many different subjects and experience in many different industries. One of the Senior VPs in my company started out as a part-time typist.

I’m finding that things in the UK are very different.  It seems that people start out their education aiming toward a specific goal and their career is geared toward that goal.  If they want a change of direction, they need new qualifications.

For example, I was having a conversation with someone about how I used chemistry in uni but eventually went into marketing, and he said “I studied physics, so I have to work in physics.” He didn’t seem too thrilled about what he was doing.

DH has degrees in English, history and art, but in order to get a job as a support worker, he had to get NVQs in that field.

With me, after I got my FLR, I was able to get a job as a marketing consultant for a large insurance company.  I was probably the only person in my role who did not have an official marketing qualification.

I left after a few years because of things that changed in my job that were making me physically ill.

I found that while I was working for that large company, it was almost treated like a continuation of school; I was constantly having to justify my work, constantly having to put together evidence for performance reviews, meetings with managers, etc. I probably spent as much time putting together my own appraisals as I did doing actual work - it was like being in school and constantly being tested.

Very different from my experience in the US, where it was assumed that you didn't know what you were doing, you wouldn't have been hired, and if you did screw up, then you'd receive warnings and eventually get fired, but you wouldn't have to constantly prove yourself if everything was going well.

I’m now writing content for websites that my husband owns (he’s a web designer), and we're doing pretty well,  but I’d like to have other options for myself so that we’re not putting all of our eggs in one basket. I’d like to have the option of being able to work for another company or in another industry if I had to.

And pyschologically, I'd like to feel that I'm working with DH because I want to, not because nobody else would hire me.

At the same time, I’ll be 45 in August and I don’t like the idea of spending time and money in classes,  rather than just working and earning money.

I’ve looked at things like getting a foundation degree in business management or a diploma in marketing, and they are expensive and time consuming, and I would have to do them part-time.

I was even advised to get the ECDL (European Computer Driving License) to prove that I know things like Excel, Word, etc.

Huh? I’ve been using these programs for 20+ years and I publish website content.

In the US, if a company wanted to know that you knew how to use Excel, they’d give you a short test  (based on how you would be using it at the job) and that would be that.

I don’t know if, in the UK, it’s worth it to do some type of training, or if I am just wasting my time and money.

Opinions?

ETA: For those who don't know, I'm a dual US/UK citizen so I don't have to worry about international student fees or anything like that.

I think, as always, it depends on the standards and traditions of the industry you are aiming at.  I have an...unusual? selection of degrees, but the degrees were only a very small part of getting my job (two people also interviewed had higher level qualifications in the particular field), it was my experience that tipped the scales in my favour. However, I have been busy "converting" as much of training and education as possible just so it's there.  I think that a lot of the justification you experienced may be industry based (I know I had to do a lot of that as a teacher in the US and as an employee of a consulting firm), but I don't know that any of those lower level certificates are really worth it. Have you looked at Open University? I've been working with a few people there lately, and they really impressed me.
But yes, people do "aim" themselves at particular areas earlier here, I think, (just because of the choosing of A levels and etc), but they aren't stuck. I know plenty of people who went from an Art degree to accounting or a Physics degree to work in a charity organization, so the flexibility is there.

I think that there is a focus in some industries on process, structure and targets in terms of how your career progression and competency is managed. This is (from what I can tell from people I've known) often true of larger organisations. The balance between doing and auditing varies - I spend about 15 minutes each year doing my appraisal form followed with an hour of formal appraisal conversation with my manager. Nobody dies if I screw up though. Even then, it is a corporate culture thing, and not all corporations or departments thereof are like that.

Also, I think it is possible to hop careers - but there is a presumption (not always completely wide of the mark) that specific experience in a particular career path is useful. I started off doing Computational Physics, then more lab-based physics; a brief spell in an advocacy/casework role; self-employment in IT, working for an e-commerce company, doing more self-employment, archaeological fieldwork for the money when the IT didn't pay ... and finally my current job where I am essentially some kind of systems engineer/troubleshooter... There is a thread of having a core set of skills through all that and I think there are employers who value that.

There are also employers whose approach to personnel career development is very much focussed on ticking boxes and acquiring certificates. Some of this is a lack of confidence on the part of companies and their managers that they are able to hire the right people. There used to be a saying in IT that "nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM" - well, maybe they feel that "nobody ever got fired for hiring the guy with the PhD/ECDL/First Aid Certificate...".

All my experience is in the UK, so I find it difficult to offer transatlantic comparisons here.

John
PS My current employer does actually use a "test" as part of the selection process - though it is not a formal recruitment device, it is a useful way to tease out what candidates know before speaking to them at interview. But we're not recruiting standard skills and it infuriates my boss that the (box-ticking) corporate recruitment process appears to insist that the only IT skills that can go in formal job descriptions and requirement lists are "Word, Excel & Outlook" when we are more interested in SQL, programming languages, server admin skills...

I think it also depends on the fact that a lot of professions have cultural variation, especially true in the helping profession where government policy in a given country shapes practice and the related language barriers.

I think the key is understanding what you want to do career-wise and get advice about how to achieve that goal.

Maybe this will help?
http://careersadvice.direct.gov.uk/helpwithyourcareer/

Interesting.

My experience in the US was that there was a much greater emphasis on general intelligence, creativity and adaptability.

Employers were not just interested in what you already knew, but in your potential - how quickly you learned a new skill and to what level you could take yourself in that area.   In other words, not  just "Do you know SQL?" but "How quickly can you learn SQL and once you learn it , what will you be able to do with it?"

Because in the end, you might turn out to be a better SQL programmer than the ones who come into the interview with the box already checked.

There are so many skills that I've obtained just because I was forced to teach myself how to do things in order to get a job done.

As someone who is currently on the employer side of things, I place a great emphasis on employee potential.

Interesting.

My experience in the US was that there was a much greater emphasis on general intelligence, creativity and adaptability.....
.......
As someone who is currently on the employer side of things, I place a great emphasis on employee potential.

I never said that these things aren't present in potential employers in the UK.  TBH, in my experience, the biggest barrier to employment in any country has been any work experience in that country i.e. Brits favour British work experience and Canadians favour Canadian work experience, but this is a generalisation.

Regardless of the country, I would want to work for an employer that values potential and offers me potential to develop. 

Hope you find something that works for you.

I agree with cabbage that it has probably something to do with larger organizations.

My DH is a UKC who has a degree in History. He started in a small marketing company where he worked his way up from a part-time call centre employee to marketing manager, and now he manages a large call centre for an international company, so it is possible to work in the marketing field with no formal qualifications.

I worked in advertising in the States and it was all who you knew and your portfolio, where the ad jobs I applied for here they asked for my grades. I was never even asked what school I went to in the US! It is weird to me that larger companies want to know your Uni grades after you've been working in the field for several years. Who cares if you got a C in Art History, if your budget can save them £2 million?

My background is graphic design but I now do the web development and marketing at a small start up, neither of which I have a qualification in. IMO smaller companies in general will count your experience and personality over qualifications because they don't have to check boxes given to them by corporate.  

And psychologically, I'd like to feel that I'm working with DH because I want to, not because nobody else would hire me.
At the same time, I’ll be 45 in August and I don’t like the idea of spending time and money in classes,  rather than just working and earning money.

If you like what you are doing, and it keeps food on the table, I don't see the point in going back to school, especially if you don't love school. Even if you get a degree, would that have made you happy at the last corporate job you had? You would of still had to do the performance reviews. If you like it, maybe you could do more web content writing freelance? Or seek out the kind of company you would like to work for (one more laid back than the last, probably) and see if they would require qualifications on top of your experience.

If you like what you are doing, and it keeps food on the table, I don't see the point in going back to school, especially if you don't love school. Even if you get a degree, would that have made you happy at the last corporate job you had? You would of still had to do the performance reviews. If you like it, maybe you could do more web content writing freelance? Or seek out the kind of company you would like to work for (one more laid back than the last, probably) and see if they would require qualifications on top of your experience.

What about joining a professional organisation to develop contacts?

You could look here as a starting point:

http://ww2.prospects.ac.uk/p/types_of_job/web_developer_resources.jsp

I agree with cabbage that it has probably something to do with larger organizations.

My DH is a UKC who has a degree in History. He started in a small marketing company where he worked his way up from a part-time call centre employee to marketing manager, and now he manages a large call centre for an international company, so it is possible to work in the marketing field with no formal qualifications.

I worked in advertising in the States and it was all who you knew and your portfolio, where the ad jobs I applied for here they asked for my grades. I was never even asked what school I went to in the US! It is weird to me that larger companies want to know your Uni grades after you've been working in the field for several years. Who cares if you got a C in Art History, if your budget can save them £2 million?

My background is graphic design but I now do the web development and marketing at a small start up, neither of which I have a qualification in. IMO smaller companies in general will count your experience and personality over qualifications because they don't have to check boxes given to them by corporate.  
If you like what you are doing, and it keeps food on the table, I don't see the point in going back to school, especially if you don't love school. Even if you get a degree, would that have made you happy at the last corporate job you had? You would of still had to do the performance reviews. If you like it, maybe you could do more web content writing freelance? Or seek out the kind of company you would like to work for (one more laid back than the last, probably) and see if they would require qualifications on top of your experience.

I think you're probably right about large organizations. The only company I worked at in the UK was a large organization that wanted all my GSCE scores. I gave them all the info on my high school transcript with a long-winded explanation about US high school grades and diplomas. How silly was that.

I think a lot of it must have to do with the fact that that in large organizations, hiring is farmed out to a separate HR department who don't really understand what goes into doing a particular job.

I never went through anything like that when working for large US organizations, though, not even when working for the State of New York.

At an interview 5 years out of school for a job in the US, (large asset management firm), I was asked about my GPA from college.  Which sucked, but I still got the job.  I do think it depends on the organization.