No career path in late twenties, seeking help

[ASDnocareer]

Late twenties earning only 33k in London (money is very tight!) seeking advice. I also have autism so I struggle with catastrophising, and am terrified I won’t find a career path.

Graduated with a 2.1 in 2021, and had already done a placement year in digital marketing and was even offered a part time role during my final year. Once I graduated I left the company to do a very similar digital marketing role which paid slightly more. Despite graduating during pandemic I was very lucky to have no employment gap.

My graduate salary was £25k but after a year due to my performance it went up to £31k in the North East. However after a year, I wanted a fresh start so moved to London. I wasn’t able to find a similar job in Marketing that paid at least 30k or more, so ended up taking another job as a ‘manual test analyst’ for a very large financial services company (I naively thought at the time, despite the job not being something I was interested in long term having such a big name on my CV would still look good and I could find a similar marketing role soon in financial services). Saw it as a stop gap.

Except now I’ve been stuck in this dead end role since early 2023 with no future prospects and my prior experience is becoming very stale. Despite applying for similar marketing roles for over a year in London, I have only had one interview (final stage but didn’t get it), and no other company has even shortlisted me. I find marketing roles in London either don’t pay more than 33k (can’t afford pay cut) or my experience doesn’t meet their criteria (I still apply but not surprised I don’t get the job!).

I’ve since decided I’d really like to pivot roles within financial services industry to anything which has career prospects that pays more than 33k+ but I’m getting really depressed that it seems impossible without any prior related experience. I only have ‘soft’ skills, and no company is willing to shortlist me.

I’m taking advantage of disability confident scheme and applying to any junior roles when I clearly meet their minimum requirements but still not getting shortlisted. I’m feeling like I’m in limbo, without a career path I can progress in. Once I get my foot in the door despite the autism I know I can put effort in and work hard - every single job I’ve had I’ve been given very positive feedback during performance reviews. No one seems to want to take a chance on me.

Apologies for writing long essay - just to add there are no long term prospects with my current role as ‘manual’ testing is dying out, automation and niche technical skills are required if you want to make a career out of testing. Also, I really find the job very boring and antisocial and don’t enjoy the thought of upskilling in automation / programming languages etc.

desperate bump

I would suggest moving again and trying to add to your skills while in work. Would your work help with training courses?. Think part time MSc or some OU courses.

The main thing I'd say is please don't worry about not having a 'career path' in your late 20s, you are still very young and a non-linear early career path is really not a thing frowned upon by employers anymore, in fact I'd say it's pretty normal. Lots of people move around, including between fields, well into their 30s.

I'd just stay in your job and keep applying and plugging away at new things.

Marketing is particularly difficult right now from what I gather. I was applying for some roles in it when looking recently but people with a lot more experience than me were having difficulty. There are various online qualifications you can do, so that could help give you an edge.

Can you not build on your manual testing skills and move into more of a junior business analyst role? Starting as a tester can often be a tried and tested (pardon the pun!) route into business analysis and project management, assuming you have the right mindset/way of thinking.

How about something like compliance / financial crime?

Hi thanks for your suggestion! Funnily enough I had been exploring becoming a business analyst as a future dream role, it has great long term career prospects and seems interesting. As a tester, I work alongside many on a daily basis. I have applied for a few junior BA roles in my industry and am continuing to do so (prioritising marketing roles only as I have direct experience in it). However, not one company has shortlisted me unfortunately. Even junior “entry level” BA roles still ask for specific qualifications (prince 2) or some previous experience as a BA.
I tried to tailor my CV and focus on the transferrable soft skills (eg explaining technical information to non technical stakeholders) I’ve gained so far as well as the fact I’m experienced with Agile environments, Jira, Confluence and Visio. No luck sadly

Life is one long rollercoaster with many different paths to take. Whichever path you take, you will be missing out on many others.

‘They’ say most people have 3 careers in our lives.

Just be open to new things and put yourself out there and say YES when things feel right. I had an existential crisis constantly until I was 33, now 34 I’m starting out in a really exciting and fun new job which feels really good in my guts.

Things will work out!

You should get Prince 2 as it would open doors and your marketing experience would indirectly prove useful I am sure. You can do Prince 2 at colleges in a week, I think? It would cost but it would be a financial investment that would pay off, and there are loans.

Thanks for your suggestion! I would be open to try something like that but truthfully I don’t know much about how to break into compliance or financial crime. I’m not sure I could pivot roles without taking a pay cut as other than the fact I have always worked in financial services, my current/previous roles seems rather different. I have no experience of regulatory reporting or FCA regulations and I’m not fresh out of uni so won’t be eligible for grad schemes.

Do you want to stay in FS or go back to marketing?

If you want to stay in FS, your best bet is an internal move with your current employer. If you're proactive and demonstrate you have the necessary capabilities, it shouldn't be too difficult to move from a tester to a junior BA role. But you need to network, be proactive and show what value you can bring.

I'm in FS and I've never come across an employer asking for Prince 2 for a BA. Unless you're not in the private sector? I'm in banking and we don't even care about Prince 2 for PMs let alone BAs. If you want to stay in FS, you should be leveraging your Agile experience. That may mean you might be better looking at the Product Owner or even Scrum Master route. But you need to be honest with yourself - do you have the interpersonal skills for either of these roles? Business facing will be more of a struggle if you don't.

Just to add, you've only been working for 3 years. Most people don't have a defined career path at that stage as they're still working out what they like/don't hate as well as what they're actually good at.

So try to stop catastrophising. It will work out in the end. And try not to compare yourself to other people as that will just mess with your head. Focus on what you value you can bring, build your network and work on self-development. Try to understand your strengths and weaknesses (in a work context). There is no point if you're a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. It will make your miserable - unless you're completely self-unaware in which case it will make your colleagues miserable instead. Either way, you will fail. So work out who you are and what makes you tick, and how you can use that to your advantage for your future career.

Apologies, I didn’t make it clear in my original post but I have always worked in the same industry (FS). My graduate marketing role I worked in an agile ‘squad’ reporting to a product owner. Even in that role I had experience of Jira, backlog prioritisation, and Visio (some transferable soft skills for BA related role).

I would happily go back to a Marketing role as it could then help me get back on track to form a career path with future prospects. (Earn more than my current salary so I don’t have to live paycheck to paycheck!) I am prioritising it with job applications as I presume it would give me the highest chance of success as I at least have some direct experience in the role.

However, this is proving very hard and presumably my experience is becoming more stale. Also, probably doesn’t look great I’ve been stuck in this testing role for so long.

Would be very keen to become a BA but I worry if I’m finding it this hard to get back into Marketing (with 2+ years Marketing experience in the same industry), my chances would only be slimmer for BA roles.

In regards to an internal move with my current employer - I have briefly discussed internal opportunities with my manager in my 1to1. I got the highest rating in my performance review this year, and my manager said I’m more than capable of applying for any role one ‘grade’ above mine as long as I meet the minimum requirements. However, at my company you’re only supposed to apply for roles one ‘grade’ above, and unfortunately they haven’t been recruiting for any junior BA roles since I’ve been here, only senior ones.

I’d like to think I have interpersonal skills for these types of roles as have always had good feedback, good working relationships and genuinely enjoy working with lots of different stakeholders.

Thanks again for your help, I really do appreciate it!
It probably doesn’t help that I relocated to London of all places. Where many friends I’ve made went to excellent uni’s, speak more than one language, were the top 10% of graduates so bagged the prestigious grad schemes with plenty of training and prospects. Comparison is the thief of joy!

I guess I just really hoped I would have at least found some career path by now though, with progression / prospects.

I work in marketing, self employed copywriter, no training but have natural writing skills. Can you get a side hustle doing social media marketing, writing blogs for people, doing their LinkedIn etc? It might not be forever but there's a lot of room to gain experience and boost your income. You can schedule a lot of the work to suit your lifestyle. Works for me.

Applied for a job at a company which funnily enough is extremely similar to my current company, and actually works quite closely with my company.
It was an entry level role and I met all of the minimum requirements as well as many of their desirable requirements (reflected in my application). The company claims to be disability confident and willing to offer a guaranteed interview to candidates who meet the min requirement. I still got declined from the first stage.

I understand entry level roles may have more applicants considering it’s entry level, but I work in such a similar environment (can’t think of any other companies more similar to theirs than mine) and meet their requirements 🥲 pointlessly ranting but it really makes me doubt my prior experience.

Thank you, I guess as my experience is still very junior I don’t think I’d be able to make it a side hustle yet but think even volunteering on the side would help improve my CV / add to marketing experience.

I’ve just been looking for voluntary marketing roles on indeed near me but some still request for ”extensive experience” even though it’s unpaid. 😩