What shall I train as? Quantity Surveyor or Health & Safety Officer.

[PorshainthePorsche]

Hi, I thought I’d come & ask you successful ladies for some career advice, hoping some of you would be kind enough to share your 2 cents.

I’m turning 23 soon & need to really fix up. I left school at 16 had a few low skilled jobs, went to college for 3 days & dropped out lol, 18 I found the world of self employment & fell in love with my chosen job thinking I’d want to do it till I was old HA! Yeah right.

For the past few years I’ve been saying I want a career, I’m thinking Quantity surveyor or Health & Safety officer or project management or HGV driving.
The world is my oyster I have no responsibilities other than my car & a few meagre bills at home.
I like being around people & socialising for a few hours, I’m VERY detail oriented & I excel in consulting & helping people get stuff done. If I do something I’m gonna be the best but I’m at a cross roads & a bit confused which road to take.

I guess I’m looking for first hand accounts & experiences really, salary, work life balance, path into it, did you regret or love your decision.

Thanks ladies.

Girl this is EXACTLY what I was looking for. Fckn legend. I’m screenshotting this & adding it to my goals board lol. Thankyou.

I have no problem working my way there, I’ll be 33 anyway, I might as well have a good job under my belt that I can fall back on. I’ve got the business to support me but I just want something like this you know, a respected career just to say yeah I’ve got that. Quite a few people think H&S really suits me & I agree personally, I’ve just got to actually make a move now. Thankyou so much, really appreciate this reply, given me a clue now.

I’m a Project Manager in the construction industry and as such have exposure and experience to all the roles you’ve mentioned. As such a PM role might be a good place to start to get exposure to the whole industry and better understand where you might want to be long term. You won’t be able to just walk into a PM role without relevant experience, qualifications and yes maturity. If you are prepared to start at the bottom you can potentially start as an apprentice then work your way up to assistant PM and then full PM and beyond and/or including branching off into one of the other disciplines. But you need some degree of humility and understanding of your limitations and weaknesses and most importantly you need to be able to communicate well and work together with others as a team. In that regard your last comment about snipping at and putting people in their place is worrying. Equally going out on your own self employed
in this industry isn’t a way to avoid the issue - all the above applies and you will quickly find you will lose work if you can’t learn to work with Clients and Suppliers as a team. If you want to pursue the PM side of things I suggest you look at rail/road industry and large utility companies as well as the large construction companies and see if they are recruiting. Good luck.

Quantity surveyor

Good luck to you, I've had an amazing time, wouldn't change working on site for anything. The qualifications are expensive so try and get into a junior role where there are experienced people around to guide and mentor you. It's a role where you will struggle by yourself.

Thanks yeah I’ve taken PM out of the equation anyway, I don’t really understand it from what I’ve read & I can’t see myself enjoying it.

If you genuinely approach interactions by giving people back the same energy they give you, and Thats your natural style, then H&S officer type roles are unlikely to work for you.

It would require you to make a big shift away from your natural communication style and Thats geberally a really draining way to work.

Successful H&S officers can read the mood of the room, and then adjust it to where it needs to be. It’s a real art, and suits some people’s communication style and is a long way from others. If your style is to meet the level you’re given, you’re unlikely to be able to make much difference. At which point it becomes a box ticking type job, where you’re always slightly removed from both management and work force. That ends of H&S is soul sucking, unless that ‘checking up on people’ is what makes you tick. But that’s not the impression you’re giving here.

Ugh so much to consider, damn. I already come home absolutely DRAINED from trying to hold my tongue from replying to cheeky people & I still fail 8 times outta 10 🤣 & I’d love to not have to do that anymore.

Yea immediately twigged that as well. What 22 year old signs off like that?

QS is a great job if you are mathematical and they can earn a good salary, you will have good career prospects too.

Are you really getting your knickers in a twist over “ladies”? Would you prefer Guys, Girls, females, female dogs or Hoes? You tell me. Fckn hell some of you’s are just miserable 🤣 Thought I’d come to a women’s site for some women’s support & a lot of you are acting like FBI & are real mean spirited. Us women really need to work on our code. Not everybody is a threat.

I’m not miserable at all, I just found it really odd. It did not have any effect on my knickers at all but thank you for asking.

What exactly is odd about the word “ladies”. 🤣

It’s a very strange sign off from a 22 year old. More like something a man in his 60s would say

Well pick from the list of more modern alternatives & I’ll fix it just for your judgemental self. I’m thinking maybe female dog would satisfy you.

Good luck with your career search 🔍

😘😘

In that case I’d suggest crossing H&S off your list for now.

It’ll be a lot of that.

Your actual phrase was "mature, code for devoid of joke and spirit".

That's not just using the word "mature" as the opposite of immature. You went out of your way to tell posters that they were devoid of joke and spirit.

You have since gone on to reference female dogs.

Do you actually work with people currently? And have repeat customers or clients?

Don’t start nothing won’t be nothing.

You have a commendable amount of self confidence but you will also need to learn a bit of diplomacy to have a successful career - the ‘read the room’ intuition which often comes with maturity.

For quantity surveying you’ll need a degree to be competitive (or an apprenticeship- also competitive). Look up the qualifications you need to meet the requirements. You may need to update your maths skills.

Yeah I’ll admit I have no read the room skills if I’m not interested. I’ll be the first to say something that other people don’t want to & I don’t care if people don’t like it but I know from doing that, it’s not always the best for business.
I’ve gotten a bit better since I rely on repeat business but I’m still growing. I’m deffo gonna have to update my maths which I don’t mind. Thankyou.

I think from the info you've given - having to bite your tongue with people etc that you should seriously consider HGV driving. There seems to be a dearth of them, it's well paid and possibly will take the shortest time to qualify. Not sure if they still exist but the Govt was funding boot camps for people to training in this area.

Right, thanks everyone, really appreciate your help, legends. I’m gone ✌️