Temping

[Edith Bacon]

E starts secondary school in September and I’m thinking about going out to work, given that I won’t be tied by having to do school drop offs and pick ups. I would like a really basic admin type job where I can be off during school holidays (and whenever I feel like it), although I don’t especially want to work in a school.

Temping seems to be the way forward, given the flexibility I’m after but it’s almost 30 years since I last applied for a job with people who didn’t already know me in some capacity, so I’m very out of touch with selling myself. It’s also almost thirteen years since I worked in an office so I’m assuming it would be a good idea to do some sort of admin refresher qualification but I don’t know what I’m looking for.

Are agencies all awful or are some OK? Is there a knack to dealing with them? What sort of retraining would be useful?

If you have any advice at all I would be very grateful to hear it.

[Shoe]

I'm not much help, but i did briefly look into it when i was job hunting and i was surprised at how little temp jobs pay nowadays. When I last temped the money was pretty good but when l looked this time around they all seemed to be close to minimum wage.

Qualification wise I have no idea, I basically have none and just wing it.

[Edith Bacon]

Yeah, I’m expecting fairly crappy pay but am (sort of) OK with that if I have the flexibility I want.

I thought the qualification might take the edge off me having been out of the workplace for so long and also being over 50. It might be that no such qualification even exists

[Kenickie]

I would do a voluntary admin role rather than a qualification.

Mostly agencies are awful. I always signed up with loads to allow some choice or flexibility.

[Edith Bacon]

I hadn’t thought of that, Ken! Good shout.