How many years experience to become "something"

[Terribleluck]

I just received my fifth rejection. All have been automated "no reply" emails so unable to email back for feedback. Four out of those five were for wildcard jobs, so fell OK about it, but this last one I actually did think I had a chance. However, I've only been doing this for 6 months. My previous role although related I did it for about 9 months. Before that it's definitely completely unrelated, although there's transferable skills.

Hi op im confused by your post

Are you asking how long it takes to get a job?
Or to build a career?

What are your skills and what do you want to achieve? Whats your past role experience? Whats your goal?

Sorry dont really understand your question but want to help!

Surely it depends on the field??
I my case 3/4 years at university, 5-10 years experience to apply for Chartership.

An anaesthetist I know, once told me they’d taken exams every year for 20 years bar 2. Including the year they has a 3 month old baby. On the other hand, another friend went straight from school to an accountancy practice, and was chartered at 20? 21? Unusually young, and youngest person that year.

Is that the kind of thing you mean.

I think OP is asking how long you need to be doing a job/skill before it’s considered relevant experience to be considered by a potential employer?

It totally depends on the skill, I used to be a dental nurse and job applications were a minimum of 3 years experience most places I looked. Now I’m just a IT support and more similar roles ask for 1 years experience. I think 1 year would probably be reasonable.

I think anything less than a year may be looked at as “why didnt it last very long?”

The problem is that I've been a few things, all somewhat unrelated. For many years I was the manager of call centre type operations all very corporate, but I've found that's very niche and people (apart from a few employers) think it's hard to classify me as something or I'm overqualified. My last two roles are fairly connected in type of responsibilities but the sectors are completely different. You can say I have about 15 months experience in account management, about 3 years in people/operations manager, and about 3-4 in user generated content.

10,000 hours of practice at something is supposed to make you an expertly isn’t it? (Very broadly speaking obviously)

Yes, @mymabel exactly that!! I don't have many years experience in non-niche roles. There are thousands of account managers... With only 15 months of experience I don't think I have something to make me stand out (apart for my employer of seven years which is a very big name, but that was almost 4 years ago, and not as an AM).

I always find it takes about 2 years to really get to know a job.

I definitely don't have two years experience, unless I massage my CV to look like i started doing that role once I went onto maternity leave (which was the original idea) but then COVID happened and they needed me somewhere else.

What kind of positions have you been applying for?
What transferable skills do you have do you think ?
Would volunteering help you with gaining relevant experience in a certain field.

In my field (healthcare) your expected to have 2-3 years experience to know what you are going in an area.

I'm applying for the AM type roles as that's what there's most of, that and CSM and that's what I did in my latest role. I have 15 months experience in that. My biggest selling point is that I'm multilingual and have worked at a big .com for many years. No sales nor marketing experience.

As an accountant you need 3 years of professional qualification and at least 2 years of experience in your chosen specialist niche to start to be properly useful. So the grad I took on and has been working 4 years managed to be quite useful because he had relevant degree and picked up some of it in his training years but is still learning now and a lack of extra post qualification experience shows

So what's the answer for me? Entry level? Junior jobs? I'm not a spring chicken, I graduated about 13 years ago! I've been working all of those years, but in a niche field. I'm very good with dealing with disappointed clients. All of my experience has been with digital companies, but I'm a bit of a jack of all trades master of none.

Apprenticeship? These days but just aimed at school leavers, and more business related skills rather than just plumbing/bricklaying type trades.

I need more money than what an apprenticeship can give... Besides I've had a very senior role about 4 years ago, so that seems too many steps backwards?

Do a scrum master certification and go into Product if you've had senior management roles.

I actually have some experience as a PM . In fact my last job title was that! (Although not in reality). What I've learned while networking in that world is that certification are hit or miss and recruiters prefer experience above anything else. Not the same with project management, where certifications are vital. I actually quite like product management, but as with everything else in my professional life (apart from content moderation) I don't think I have enough experience. However, I do think CSM is a very good step into PM.

Yay! Got filtered to a phone interview and fast tracked to another one :)