Career Change Advice please..

safc1979

Hi,

I'm thinking of changing career by studying AAT starting at level 2, as i'm being made redundant soon. The problem I have is I earn in excess of 25K now and wouldn't want to drop salary significantly. Would it not be worth doing?

amurray

Hi Safc1979,

Sorry to hear your being made redundant.

I'd defiantly recommend studying AAT, it's a fantastic qualification and can open many doors, also its Internationally recognised

What kind of work are you looking to move into? - Unfortunately if you were looking for a job within accounts and just starting with no prior experience/qualification in Accounting, depending on your area you'd probably be on 20K or less. Although this is a rough guess I am in no means a recruitment professional. I am just going on when I started and the jobs I saw advertised at the time.

Rgds.

CeeJaySix

From experience, it is just about possible to get a job offer at £20k with level 2 (although you won't see many adverts at that level - I had more luck with speculative applications). Whilst I was job hunting £15-£20k seemed to be the range of offers I had with level 2 and some transferable skills, but pay does seem to rise reasonably fast if you're going through exams quickly if most other firms follow the same pattern as ours. Like you I had to take a big pay cut to start out, but when you consider there are college-leavers who are as qualified professionally as you who will work for £10-£12k, a £5k premium for the life experience and transferable skills seems reasonable enough. Sadly that's the price to pay to start at the bottom again!

safc1979

Thanks you two..appreciate it.. In answer to you amurray..i'm pretty open at the moment into what field to go into.. just enjoy financials and figures etc. I do have a lot of transferrable skills from my current role. Supervisory, organisational etc... I would maybe be able to get through levels 2 and 3 before i leave and we have some money to spend on training. Just the worry is it would be a worry to have to drop significantly in salary when i have a young family to support, big mortgage to pay etc..

amurray

If they were to take into consideration your transferable skills and also supervisory roles, this may be an aid. However normally with first jobs within accounts its 'work your way up!' , and after qualifications, experience the money comes.

Good luck anyway and I do hope it works out for you

Just completed Level 2 and now on Level 3 so any questions feel free to ask, will try and assist.