Change of career - how do you decide what to do?

[Doing my best]

What kind of industry uses sap? Is it an industry that doesn't need a lot of specialised training? I do know some companies in the shipping industry that use sap, and if you know the ins and out of the system, then doing the other side isn't that hard..

So maybe you could look at the end users of your IT knowledge.

[wysiwyg]

Doing my best - lots and lots of industries use SAP - mainly big companies - what they use it for varies - everyone uses it for finance which is not my area unfortunately, and then it varies from there - including logistics, shipping, manufacturing, retail, warehousing, purchasing.

I have looked at some end-user type roles - in my area they are mainly in the west of Melbourne (which I am not keen on due to my location) and also require lots of flexibility in hours - but I am targeting the companies directly (Linfox for example).

Is funny that you say if you know the ins and outs of the system that the other side is not hard, as I would say the opposite, the system is easy, it is logical and once you know certain rules can easily be figured out - the business knowledge however mainly needs to be acquired as the way things are done is not always logical. (Normally my role is like the bridge between the two, business users on one hand and technical system on the other, working out how to map the business to the system).

Shells79 - I just found some information from when I had the redundancy careers session and one was called the Birkman profile that is meant to give some ideas about what careers suit you. I had forgotten I had it - is interesting, but am not sure will help me that much.

Fionas - thanks for highlighting the Technical Writer term - it was one I hadn't got in my searches.

SAP Technical Writer - seem to be a few of those positions around but yes, again, I think you might struggle to find part-time. The actual agencies might be different though and I know that people who actually want to write and CAN write are quite hard to come by so they may be negotiable.

I agree entirely about the people who want to write and can write - I know on previous projects we had people in to write documentation and training and alot of it was not great - IMO this is mainly because they recruit the wrong way - the subject knowledge comes second to ability to use the tools and experience at writing. Is a bit like getting someone who has never done any washing to write instructions for a washing machine - they may be able to fiddle around with the buttons and work out what does what - but if you had never done any washing using a machine only doing it in a sink before that instruction manual is not going to be enough to do it successfully/efficiently. It does depend on the type of documentation required, but it often seems they recruit in the same way for SAP documentation that is going to be used by end-users as they would for documentation to be used by a technical systems person - two completely different audiences.


My main bug bear today is the number of adverts that come up as Melbourne but are actually Inter-state or NZ based roles.

[fionas]

wysiwyg - if you're interested in technical writing, there are a few consultancies (not recruitment consultancies, writing consultancies) that specialise. It might be worth chatting to them. They may be flexible on days because they may get a small type project in for which they don't want to get a full-time person. I've done all sorts of writing including technical writing. It's not rocket science but a technical writing course (if they exist) would certainly help.

[wysiwyg]

Fionas - are you able to PM me names so I can look into further.

I thought I had something on the cards, had even agreed to full-time as was only for 3 months and thought could then knock it down perhaps later - was just my sort of job but after being told no travel - seems now is significant travel (a couple of nights away every fortnight) which I just can't do.

Maybe life is telling me, that my path lies elsewhere.

[fionas]

wysiwyg - just google technical writing consultancies and there's a few that will come up. One I saw offers courses.