to ask if I've f*cked up

[pipandco]

Sometimes I have these moments of panic that I've fucked up in terms of a career...so here we go. Sorry if this ends up pretty long!

So I graduated 2015 age 23.

I'm from Surrey and most people I know went straight from uni into London on graduate schemes. I didn't feel at all ready for this- mainly because most were 2 year long schemes and I didn't want to commit to that especially as I was clueless as to what I wanted to do. On top of that (and this may sound silly to some or like a cop-out) but my self esteem was at it's all time lowest around this time. For various reasons my confidence had taken a dive from around age 19 and I almost didn't feel good enough for a "proper adult job." I just didn't want the suit-tie-commute-into-london-corporate-life that my peers were going for.

Not wanting to move home, I decided on a total whim to take a job in a hotel in a very remote location that offered accommodation. It was intending to stay until the end of the year but I ended up there for 14 months (September of 2016 I left.)

I knew I really wanted to travel for a year or more at some point before settling down into a career. I planned on doing this from around the end of 2016. However various things kept me at home- mainly family issues- that meant I really had to postpone. Again not wanting to commit to a career per se as I really wasn't sure how long I'd be around for, I ended up working in a family friend's cafe for a few months and then went onto nannying. A friend of my mum's was looking for a full time nanny. I had a fair bit of childcare experience so thought why not. I did that until January of this year.

Now finally I am off to do the travelling I always talked about. In March I am heading to NZ and will make my way around NZ, Aus, and SE Asia from there. I'll be working a little in Aus to keep the funds up.

It'll be around March 2019 that I get back, which will make me 2 months short of being 27.

I understand plenty of people have a career change at any age, but I really fear that employees will look at me and essentially wonder wtf I have been doing with myself since graduating in 2015. Hotel work, nannying, bits of retail/cafe work with no direction. I should stress that my work ethic isn't at question- I've worked consistently since age 15 and all through university. I definitely feel like my mental health was a big reason why I didn't go straight into the workforce. Then desperately wanting to travel meant I faffed around for far too long.

I'm also worried as I know I definitely don't want to work in London but am not sure where to head to! I've visited Manchester a lot and love it so am thinking perhaps there.

I know comparing oneself to others is a huge mistake but I can't help but see my peers on facebook going up in the world and I feel really lost and annoyed at myself for falling behind. I have a vague idea of what I'd like to do after my travels, but as I say I'm worried employees will think I'm a bit of a f*ck up. I also worry about getting on the property ladder. After my travels I should have around £20k left of savings, which obviously won't get me far!

Honest opinions would be amazing. Sorry for rambling!

I stopped working eight years ago as two of my children have autism and needed me at home. I’ve just been offered a stay at home marketing role by a really good company. Live while you are young. Travel, get new experiences. It’ll be harder to do when you’re older.

Chill out, you’re absolutely fine.

I work in Manchester, once you’ve buggered off around the world for a bit (this is vital) get your bum up here ASAP and never look back to London, you’ll never regret it.

Im your age and I do a lot of hiring in my current role and looking at your CV, I’d be much more interested to interview you with some world travel under your belt, because that brings together all the rest of it and tells the story that you were making yourself financially secure before you went and experienced the world. Don’t piss about doing a few months travel, with £20k in savings you can travel for a year and still return with £5kish to start you off for a deposit on a house. Where I live, you can buy a nice single persons flat for £80k, my 2 bed end terraced house only cost me £93k , I’m an hour from Manchester on the train.

You never know, you might love a certain place and decide to settle. Or, Nannying is a great job for someone travelling, you could earn enough to stay on the road indefinitely if you liked it.

Anyway, don’t panic. Plenty of time for a career and employers these days are much more interested in who you are, not what you’ve done since uni

I don't think what Pancake describes is the norm, tbh. She is presumably referring to people in a narrow group of very highly paid careers.

If I were an employer (which I'm not, so may not have the typical mindset) I wouldn't think negatively of you. In fact, I would see someone with a strong work ethic (hotel work is generally a slog) and well-practised people and customer service skills (from the hotel work, the cafe and and the nannying) who isn't averse to a bit of flexibility and adventure and who has no problem with doing work that other millennialgraduates might consider beneath them.

I know how you feel OP- I’m 28 on Tuesday, with a degree and a masters, and still don’t have a career. I’ve worked as an HCA and a home carer on zero hours contracts, and mark exams and do a bit of tutoring, but the idea of proper permanent work that you can’t just drop when you want to terrifies me. I’ve managed to stretch out a postgraduate medical degree over six years rather than four by having two lots of maternity leave, but as of next summer I’m actually going to have to start work properly. Like you it’s not that I don’t like working - I’ve always had jobs and some of them are hard work. I’ve just been commitmentphobic about starting a career and now I feel I’m miles behind everyone else. And I’m still a bit worried that after l this work I’ll qualify as a doctor and then leave after a few years becaus I have this idea in my head that I’m ‘flaky’. Though I don’t know why. Anyway I think your plan to go travelling is great. I wish I’d traveled more before having kids - it’s my only regret about having them fairly young.

What if, what if? Life is FULL of them. This, my lovely, is your life and no-one else's. Thus far, the decisions you've made have been right for you at the time. And this one will be too.

You're in a position to have an adventure and should grasp it with two healthy hands. Life can turn on a nine pence, just do it. Just because you haven't found your "path" yet doesn't mean you'll miss some boats.

You're an attractive proposition. Educated, with work history and soon to be travel under your belt. Don't sweat the small stuff. Leave with a clear head knowing you're doing what is right, achievable and good for you. Stop comparing yourself to other people, stop worrying about how your post travel future will pan out. And enjoy!

Don't forget that as a well-educated native English speaker, you have all sorts of opportunities for working abroad (not just TEFL) that can lead on to other things. With your degree, museums in European cities (many of which are a lot cheaper to live in than London) may well be interested in you, for example. Also, in other European countries 27 is not particularly old for a graduate.

But is a career what you actually want? I was very academic but I've never really known what I wanted to do as a career. I focused on travel, working an office job that paid enough for lots of trips. Who knows what will happen while you're away, maybe you'll meet someone or discover a new skill. Throw yourself into it and maybe your life will take an unexpected turn.

No you haven’t ‘fucked up’. A ‘tiny’ bit doing the wrong degree, but you were young & did what your parents expected of you, you’re hardly alone in that! & you ‘have a degree’ which is often all employers give a crap about. It doesn’t seem to matter how relevant that degree is for a large percentage of employers.

Travel, live your life. Your parents have had their lives, this one is yours.

In your situation I’d put the £20k (minimum) that you say you’ll ‘still’ have in a savings account & be determined not to touch it. Travelling can be cheap or expensive, if you have the money it ends up being expensive ‘because you can’, if you don’t have the money you’ll find a way and doing that is what makes travelling fun and an experience. The jobs you do, the places you stay, the people you meet.

NZers are really friendly, welcoming, open & fun. It’s a shame you are heading there in March though, you’re going into Autumn. You’ve missed the fab summer. Maybe head to Asia sooner & go back to NZ later?! It’s not a bad place to get into film either, talk to people, make some calls, you’ll be surprised at how helpful people are.

Don’t plan a return, just go, live your life, see where it takes you. ENJOY IT 🏂✈️🚁🚂🚤🏕

Seriously don’t worry about it! Grad schemes aren’t the only way into good careers.

I left uni at 21 so a bit younger than you but was also so stressed from uni and had loads of family issues that put the career on the back burner. I did waitressing, admin work/hotel management and then decided on a whim I wanted to do banking.

It took me a year to get into it (my chosen bank basically said to go and work for another one for a year to get experience) but at 25 I have just had my first annual review, got a bonus/payrise and told I have loads of potential to climb the ladder.

My advice would be get out of the hot house that is London. I work in banking on the South Coast and it’s just about cheap enough for me to buy a house. There is also a huge and growing media industry here and I think some of the more northern cities (Birmingham, Manchester) offer the same kind of industry you want but with a slightly different mindset and also so much cheaper to live making it easier. Congrats on the £20k savings, I think that’s really impressive by the way!

You will be absolutely fine. You are going to be gaining some great experiences and skills as you travel. Just think of your great communication and interpersonal ability. You remind me of me at your age. I have the same degree but always wanted to travel and have different experiences. I travelled around the world, working on cruise ships and hotels. I was 28 when I come back to the UK. Spent a few years in admin/travel agent roles, then started working with young people. I took a post graduate diploma in careers guidance and now work in a secondary school. I absolutely love my job. I still travel but within holiday time. I say you should go travel, enjoy and be happy. “Life is a journey, not a destination”.

I spent 5 years travelling in my 20s. Met dh and then ping ponged from southern to northern hemisphere. We are currently in London but will move back to Aus soon.

Yes it has slowed my career. My manager is only a few years older than me but I wouldn't change it at all.

I'm 40 and have a lot of time left working to build up if I want to.

Pancake sounds like someone who wanted to go for a gap year and never did and thinks doing it later is the same. It's not.

You have at least another 30 year in the workplace when you return from travels, id rather spend that 30 years doing something I loved than making a corporate career because someone told me I had to. At 31 I'm just starting again, and it's absoloutly fine! I'm not expected to work over, stay later but am on the track to being a payroll manager within the next 12 months because I'm in a family friendly company who work with you not against you.
Find something you love, and do that - it doenst matter what's on paper. (My degree is in hospitality management)

It all depends on what you think life is for. Is it to have a career, make lots of money, be married a couple of times, make children and have all the associated problems that go with that and then die? Or is it to have an amazing life, stay single and be no trouble to anyone? So far you are on track for the latter and doing very well. If you can stay clear of being influenced by other people, your parents, your peers and others there is no earthly reason why you should not have a happy and fulfilled life.

I think in your parents era, OP, fewer people went to university, so it was regarded as more of an elitist hing to do and most went to study a subject that would take them into a career. There were, of course, alternatives in terms of apprenticeships, secretarial work etc.

These days, many expect to go to university, but don’t necessarily know what they want to do afterwards, which is where you find yourself. Exceptions are careers like medicine, architecture and so on, where the training is longer and the training is focused on the subsequent career.

The film and TV industry is difficult to get into, but no reason why you shouldn’t try. I think you need to think about what you really enjoy doing and research careers around your interests. Travelling is fantastic and so is the fact that you have savings, but you maybe need to plan for the longer term, even if tentatively at present.

I didn't do the gap year in my twenties as I was looking after my terminally I'll mum with my dad. Then I got sucked into the whole relationships/jobs thing for the next twenty years. At 45 I still have itchy feet, still want my gap year, and plan to do it in a couple of years time. Do it now while you have no responsibilities.

I didn't have a "proper job" until I was about 25 - did catering jobs etc that fitted round my mum's chemo etc. Then I learned to touch type and temped, which got me in the job market and got me experience and skills. I'm now an exec PA with a mid £30k salary. I've worked for the Beeb in the past. It's not graduate level, but if you can get in there, as a broadcast assistant, or production assistant, or runner, or PA, it's competitive but pretty easy to move around and up, and you gain experience in lots of different things. Would suggest Manchester - the Beeb and ITV are both at MediaCity, and living costs will be lower. Lots of people flat sharing too.

To be not done it the wring way, sounds like you're carving out your path your way. Nothing wrong with that.
What you need to do though is stop comparing yourself to your peers. Stop doing that. You've gone off in a different path and so will never compare.
Will you be successful? Who knows! But success seems to follow those who do what's right for them, not what they think they should do.
Maybe a corporate employer may look at your CV and think but it dosnt sound like this is your kind of bag anyhow, so who cares eh?
You've no idea where the travelling may take you in terms of opportunities etc. Go for it!
I may have got the wrong end of the stick but it sounds like you feel pressurised by your academic family to succeed in a traditional sense. Success comes in many formats but cannot come at the cost of your emotional and personal happiness.

It's your life OP so stop comparing yourself to others. You've demonstrated you can get and keep jobs. Travelling at this point fulfils an ambition and you have the funds to do it. If you don't do it now, when will you?

Not everyone has to follow a specific professional career path - it just isn't possible for starters. I say this as someone who has a law degree from a good university, but has never pursued a career in law. I have only been out of work for two days - and I have done a number of different jobs. In my forties I am close to completing a professional qualification. Yes, that has been tough (to the point I nearly gave up on it) but I have a good job and earn a good salary.

As long as you have been true to yourself and can demonstrate your choices have been thought through I really wouldn't worry.

I didn't start my career until I was 28, before that I basically fucked around in bar work and a bit of travel, lived in shared housing like a student, did a lot of partying, and scraped by until I realised that it was becoming more sad than fun.

I blagged my way into a job as an office manager by talking up my bar work skills (ordering and managing bar stock and maintaining facilities is quite similar to ordering and managing office equipment and maintaining office facilities), then paid attention, learned a lot, ambitiously applied for jobs that were out of my reach on paper that I knew I could do anyway time and time again, networked, spoke at conferences, and 12 years later I'm a consultant project manager on government digital contracts on enough money that I can work half the year and the rest of the time I can travel in decent style or just take time to do my hobbies. If I wanted to I could work all the time and have a much bigger house, fancy handbags, new luxury car, big savings and investments, etc. instead of more time to myself.

I did this without a university degree and with no qualifications to speak of, so with a bit of confidence (fake it if necessary) you'll be fine.

Two gap years and a degree in anthropology with work experience in cafes and hotels.

Yeah, you’ve fucked it.

It sounds like you’re under loads of pressure from your family to do things in a certain way? I suspect you’ll feel more relaxed after you’ve travelled a bit.

I had a tough time academically. I didn’t get the A-levels I needed so I had to resist. Then I did a 4 year degree (I got a 2:2 which I am bloody proud of!). Then I had a ‘gap year’ working in a non-graduate job for experience. Then I went back to uni and got a post-grad vocational qualification. So I didn’t start my career until I was 26. Nowadays if I have a job interview all they want to know about is my relevant job experience and transferable skills. I think if you do a post-grad qualification you’ll be okay.

There is WAY more to life than work - it sounds like you've got the right idea. When you find something you really want to do, you obviously have the independence of thought, sensible budgeting skills and ability to commit to some sort of paid employment.

It annoys me beyond belief that so many people feel defined by their 'career' and that they use it as some sort of yardstick on what 'success' is. Are you happy and enjoying life? Are you exploring possibilities? Can you afford your basic necessities? As far as I'm concerned, that makes you pretty successful.

The skills you've developed through your anthropology studies sound like they are well suited to someone who is keen to explore the world - getting out and meeting people and seeing how life is in other places might inspire you with your next line of work or project.

Sounds to me like you've got it 'right'! Employers want competent people who have passion for their work - it's pretty clear when someone is only interested in taking home a salary. Taking time to discover (or create) yours is wise.

Yikes thanks for that flouncy. should just point out that my gap year I took before uni was spent working 6 days weeks for the first half, sometimes 12 hours a day to save enough to work travel around Africa for the second half of the year volunteering at various wildlife sanctuaries. It's not like I was lying in bed all day watching tv :). As I say I've worked consistently since I was in year 10.

Also can you expand on how I've fucked it because of an anthropology degree? Yes it's not exactly what I wanted to do but it's a well respected degree and a freakin tough one at that.

Being able to travel in your 40/50/60s is in no way comparable to travelling in your 20s and its ridiculous to assert that it is. I've been lucky enough to backpack on a round the world ticket for 18 months in my 20s and have some amazing trips in my 30s and 40s. They just don't compare. OP I think you have totally done the right thing. You're not stuck in a job you hate and you are in a great financial position to go travelling. Who knows what opportunities will come your way during this time! I was offered jobs in Hong Kong and KL while travelling. Go, and have an amazing time

FlouncyDoves I would also be curious as to how a degree in anthropology could in any way be seen as "fucked it"?? I attended a highly academic school and I remember our headmaster saying how if a degree course was offered at Oxford/Cambridge, then it was a legitimate and respectable degree, of not, don't bother (I'm not at all trying to put others or their DCs down for their degree courses but am trying to point out that anthropology is a very creditable course). I know a few people who studied it, including my sister in law at Cambridge and it's certainly a degree that looks impressive to an employer. What a ridiculous comment to make.

OP I think you're stressing yourself out too much and in all honesty it sounds like your family are partially to blame. 27 is not too late to start a career. My brother did the typical leave uni get a city job thing. He ended up miserable, borderline depressed, quit age 24, spent two years absolutely lost doing odd jobs here and there then at almost 28 retrained as a teacher. Now at 36 he's loving his life and doing really really well in his job ! As others have said the big thing is that you haven't had big gaps in employment and it sounds like you haven't. Truthfully yes some of your peers will be on higher salaries than you, but who cares. This imo is the problem with the social media generation. It's so easy to compare yourself to what everyone else is doing.

The main thing is not to panic! And don't self doubt too much as that'll show when you do start interviewing. Also yes get out of London! I moved to Belfast after I graduated. I had visited a few times previous and fell in love with the city so packed up my things at 22 and hve never looked back. People tend to think London is the place for graduate/entry level jobs when there's so many other places to explore.

I took anthropology for a term at uni (had to take a variety of courses in the first two years), and it was widely regarded as a doss subject.

I’m not saying you haven’t worked hard in general, but working consistently won’t stand you in particularly good stead when it comes to forging a career.

As an employer I’d be concerned that you took time to travel and didn’t use your degree immediately post graduation (not necessarily in anthropology, but you don’t need a degree to work in a hotel).

You have to remember that when you get back from your long holiday you’ll be competing with graduates who are younger and have more recently completed their degree (and therefore probably have more relevant knowledge). Your work history lacks direction, and taking this holiday now smacks of a lack of ambition.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but you asked if you’d ‘fucked up’ and if what you want is a long career in a graduate industry, then yes, I think you have.

If you’d rather live a life of odd jobs and travelling then you’ve got it sorted. It depends what you want.