The 5 year plan to £50k

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Soldato
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27k at 30 is nothing to be ashamed off. Like I said, my aim in life was to always earn more than my age each year which i have achieved despite starting my first full time job at £7,500 when I was 21 so it seemed a pretty good ambition.

This was with having a degree as well.

You graduated into a 7.5k job? How many years ago was this?

Foxeye /OP have you got any updates?
 
Soldato
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27k at 30 is nothing to be ashamed off. Like I said, my aim in life was to always earn more than my age each year which i have achieved despite starting my first full time job at £7,500 when I was 21 so it seemed a pretty good ambition.

This was with having a degree as well.

Perhaps I was a little harsh. I'm just surprised one would settle for so long.

I personally find it difficult to understand why some simply prefer to complain about their situation. When what they should do is get up and change it. I have a friend like this. He's an accountant (from london). And for the first time we openly discussed each others pay. And I surprised to learn out much he was on (a lot less than me). My initial thought was why he would choose to live on such a low salary ... It just didn't make any sense to me.

I've always been a very money motivated person. Always on the look out for jobs that'll give me the best opportunity to do some great work. And in turn offer me a decent salary for that work. If what you've been saying in this thread is genuine than I sincerely hope you reach this goal. And then later on surpass it.

Just know that talk is cheap lol. I've been trying to help my mate out and offer him advice. But in his own words..... he lacks the commitment to put in the extra work to climb up that pay ladder. I think that is what upset me the most lol... Just when you think you know someone. Anyway his life. Good luck to him.

I hope you're committed and not just talking trash.

My advise. Learn something valuable. Move to London (or an area surrounding it. I here Watford is nice) and then secure a job over in this part of the country. Less talk more action.
 
Soldato
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27k at 30 is nothing to be ashamed off. Like I said, my aim in life was to always earn more than my age each year which i have achieved despite starting my first full time job at £7,500 when I was 21 so it seemed a pretty good ambition.

This was with having a degree as well.

Thats one hell of a climb... And with a degree too.

I started off on 15k. After college when a was a young horny pup... 19 lol
 
Soldato
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24 years ago :o

Didnt stay on £7.5k for long, went up to 10k the next year.

But i think I was 30 before i reached my target of earning more money than my age.

That explains it! Was gonna say I could pro rata my old asda wages to more than that..

Its easier to beat these days, most graduates will earn more than their age (21 to 23 year olds)
 
Caporegime
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That explains it! Was gonna say I could pro rata my old asda wages to more than that..

Its easier to beat these days, most graduates will earn more than their age (21 to 23 year olds)

True but for the op with no qualifications/skills to speak off, an ambition of earning mroe than his age each year isnt a bad one.
 
Associate
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Perhaps I was a little harsh. I'm just surprised one would settle for so long.

I personally find it difficult to understand why some simply prefer to complain about their situation. When what they should do is get up and change it. I have a friend like this. He's an accountant (from london). And for the first time we openly discussed each others pay. And I surprised to learn out much he was on (a lot less than me). My initial thought was why he would choose to live on such a low salary ... It just didn't make any sense to me.

I've always been a very money motivated person. Always on the look out for jobs that'll give me the best opportunity to do some great work. And in turn offer me a decent salary for that work. If what you've been saying in this thread is genuine than I sincerely hope you reach this goal. And then later on surpass it.

Just know that talk is cheap lol. I've been trying to help my mate out and offer him advice. But in his own words..... he lacks the commitment to put in the extra work to climb up that pay ladder. I think that is what upset me the most lol... Just when you think you know someone. Anyway his life. Good luck to him.

I hope you're committed and not just talking trash.

My advise. Learn something valuable. Move to London (or an area surrounding it. I here Watford is nice) and then secure a job over in this part of the country. Less talk more action.

any particular reason why you suggest moving to london?
 
Soldato
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True but for the op with no qualifications/skills to speak off, an ambition of earning mroe than his age each year isnt a bad one.

I had no qualifications, past A levels, so no degree or skills really as the OP hasn't, when I was 22/3 and made redundant from a recruitment job (where I earned way more than my age, as that used to be my goal, until I realised it was too easy).
That was not much over 5 years ago now, ok 6-7 (losing count of my years). I'm 29 now and do well. Sans willy waving.

I don't see why it's not possible to do whatever you want, as long as you're prepared to make the sacrifices to get there, which is why I think people are a bit :rolleyes: as he might have ambition but people have given good advice, but he's not willing to do anything about it, so will no doubt still be seeking this aim in 5 years time.
 
Soldato
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All a balance though... you have to work out where would be best for living costs vs. max potential earnings. You might start off taking a hit as cost of living is higher somewhere (not saying it should be london) but overall your options for progression are increased and wage cap will be much higher than where he is. That said, I'd be flexible and move wherever the best jobs are each time. Do that for 3 years and suck it up and you'd shoot up.
 
Caporegime
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I may well end up moving. I have no experience in anything other than basic 2nd line IT, and there's less and less of that down here every day. Plus I don't want to still be doing basic 2nd line in 5 years time. I know some coding, but have never worked as a developer. So it doesn't really matter that I've played with coding in various languages for a few years, because I have nothing to show for it.

The biggest problem with me is still not knowing what I would enjoy, or be good at. Other people just seem to know exactly what they want to do. I have never known what I wanted to do. I got into 2nd line because I played a lot of games in the 90s and knew how to tweak config.sys and autoexec.bat, and basic troubleshooting. My major skill is that I can use Google and type a few words into the command shell :p Perhaps that's underselling what I do but you get the gist.

Currently btw I'm looking for a job, having been unemployed a couple months. It's really a barren wasteland down here for IT work. I'm also not good at playing the game. The game of selling yourself, of bigging yourself up. I constantly question myself and my abilities, and end up convincing myself that I have no right to apply for such and such job - there must be someone better qualified than me. Now I understand that this is not the right approach. But what would happen if I got a job through bluffing and was later revealed to be useless at it?

I don't know. Other people who are/were probably worse than me managed to get highly paid jobs at the council. I imagine they must be very good at over-selling themselves. But the managers would always moan how after hiring someone they were completely useless. On the other hand, I've never taken a job where I was out of my depth. All of my jobs have been in my comfort zone. Is that bad? Should I apply for jobs that are out of my depth? Would I even have a chance of getting them?
 
Soldato
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I live in Kent now and just accepted a new job at a new company on £53k I've gone from unemployment to this in 5 years. Now bought a house on HS1 line so life is going well.

I have 5 yrs experience then had a mid life crisis at 25, went back to uni. it was a disaster. then got a job £19k > next job £28k had to move out of home town> next job moved again for £36k > got promoted to £42k > got badgered on linkedin for a 53k job + Company car, got it.

The South East is the place to be :)

Next step find woman to create spawn with...
 
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Soldato
Joined
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France, Alsace
I may well end up moving. I have no experience in anything other than basic 2nd line IT, and there's less and less of that down here every day. Plus I don't want to still be doing basic 2nd line in 5 years time. I know some coding, but have never worked as a developer. So it doesn't really matter that I've played with coding in various languages for a few years, because I have nothing to show for it.

The biggest problem with me is still not knowing what I would enjoy, or be good at. Other people just seem to know exactly what they want to do. I have never known what I wanted to do. I got into 2nd line because I played a lot of games in the 90s and knew how to tweak config.sys and autoexec.bat, and basic troubleshooting. My major skill is that I can use Google and type a few words into the command shell :p Perhaps that's underselling what I do but you get the gist.

Currently btw I'm looking for a job, having been unemployed a couple months. It's really a barren wasteland down here for IT work. I'm also not good at playing the game. The game of selling yourself, of bigging yourself up. I constantly question myself and my abilities, and end up convincing myself that I have no right to apply for such and such job - there must be someone better qualified than me. Now I understand that this is not the right approach. But what would happen if I got a job through bluffing and was later revealed to be useless at it?

I don't know. Other people who are/were probably worse than me managed to get highly paid jobs at the council. I imagine they must be very good at over-selling themselves. But the managers would always moan how after hiring someone they were completely useless. On the other hand, I've never taken a job where I was out of my depth. All of my jobs have been in my comfort zone. Is that bad? Should I apply for jobs that are out of my depth? Would I even have a chance of getting them?

I got into support because I realised I had no skills (back when mentioned above) and I had always tinkered with computers. I did support for 1yr, while I was there I pushed to get more work on top of what I did, ended up in projects as well. I had no idea what I wanted to do when I was younger...or now.
I wanted to design boats when I was a kid, then wanted to be an architect as I liked graphical drawing, did uselessly on my A levels, went to uni to do Motorsport tech, hated it, dropped out, did recruitment as it paid well, then wanted to kill myself doing it, lost that job, IT seemed solid, pushed/trained/ hard up that ladder, don't like IT now... built elearning company, love business, have developed a prototype consumer product I'm also going to launch...

Basically, do anything. You never know where it'll lead as long as you make the most of it and make it lead forwards.
 
Caporegime
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I may well end up moving.

probably a good idea

you've left a gap on your CV now which isn't ideal, would have been better if you'd decided to get a job elsewhere a few months ago and/or applied when you had advanced knowledge of your previous role coming to an end

don't let the gap get any bigger and start applying outside your current area now, you're already over a year into your 5 year plan :)
 
Caporegime
OP
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probably a good idea

you've left a gap on your CV now which isn't ideal, would have been better if you'd decided to get a job elsewhere a few months ago and/or applied when you had advanced knowledge of your previous role coming to an end

don't let the gap get any bigger and start applying outside your current area now, you're already over a year into your 5 year plan :)

Do employers really care about gaps in employment history? I'm sure the answer is "yes", but I genuinely don't understand it.

If somebody decided to go for a 6 month round the world tour between jobs that would probably even be a talking point on a CV, but if somebody just takes 6 months off and "chills", that's suddenly a big no-no.

It's like we as a society want to punish people for not working solidly from 18-65. I just don't get it, when other countries like Greece (maybe bad example) don't seem so hung up about it?

Appreciate this is a slight tangent.
 
Soldato
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The job market and skills move quickly, you're not getting better and learning more and you're stale. People would also look at it as someone with no drive. I would. 6 months out to travel the world, at least shows you have ambition to get out there.
 
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