How do you get an office job?
Seek the assistance of a staffing company, temp-services or recruiter. You might want to start with your local State / county jobs ONESTOP (use a search engine and user that term, with your state, city, county to find the locations near you), who can help you with classes, to learn the skills needed for those jobs you are seeking. Some of the responsibilities disappeared in the 1950's-1980's, as technology replaced them. Don't rely on online help wanted solicitations, as hundreds, if not thousands of better qualified applicants will apply. Those online systems are also geared to disqualify the vast majority, and whittle the list of qualified people to less than 10, from as many as 50,000 applicants. You really want to do your homework, learn who may be hiring, and get your resume walked in, by someone in the office, if possible, or through a qualified recruiter. Don't use a recruiter that requires you to pay them for their services, unless you need help building a resume, and cutting through the red tape, after you've landed a few of these types of roles. You'll want to develop a functional resume that highlights your transferable skills, since you are seeking to enter a new career field. You might also consider a long-term volunteer role to learn some of the skills, and build experience before you decide to make the move. Work with your jobs ONESTOP, local college career counselors, for assistance and suggestions. Local community colleges can be good resources, for training, advice and career assistance.
Should I quit my office job and pursue the startup I want?
I started my own company by building a team of complimentary skill sets while starting a funded graduate program.So I took care of day-to-day survival via the small stipend I received from the gruduate program while I devoted all my free time to my startup.Can you do that while you are working for a company? Sure you can.. this way you can bootstrap your idea almost indefinitely.There is the ever present story of leave everything entrepreneurs somehow succeeding… it is entirely fictional, reality is far richer and complicated than that usually. For example Steve Jobs and Dr. Woz built and sold blue boxes to make money.Before They Created Apple, Jobs And Wozniak Hacked The Phone SystemBill Gates spent years coding and failing on start ups:How Bill Gates Started - The Life of Microsoft's FounderLet me quit my job and pursue a start-up idea that I do not even have sounds like a Leeroy Jenkins moment that I sincerely hope you won’t act upon.
Entry level office jobs?
Entry level jobs you're most likely to get with a retail "background" 1) sales assistant 2) administrative assistant 3) filing clerk 4) solicitation salesman (door to door, telemarketing) 5) HR assistant I worked in retail for 3 years and coming off of that it was very hard to get a real career based job. Retail doesn't prepare you for a true-blue business environment, where you have to develop long-term customer relations, deal with office politics, and know how to navigate a database. If you want to get into an office job, the best course of action is to get an internship somewhere or play up your experience in the particular field. In any case, if you're coming straight from a retail background, your pickings are slim, but if you're willing to put up with a crap hours and crappier pay then you might find yourself in an associate position within a year. PS.human resources departments actually pull from retail backgrounds more prevalently, so that might be worth a go too. Goodluck!
How does one start a back office in India?
I feel I can try to answer the question because I'm in this outsourcing field since 2005 and seen quite a lot of small companies in outsourcing. How to start a back office in IndiaIf I would answer your question directly, then the easiest way to start a back office for a small company is to start with a organization with a contract to have back office later. Software Without Borders - book outlines how you can start a back office in India in details, in Chapter 4. (You can download for free and I'm not affiliated with them any way, just have read the book and felt most relevant) Is back office a valid assumptionIf you need 1 to 10 programmers to do your work, then back office is a plain bad idea. You are going to hate it like anything and it's not going to be worth it. If you need more, then the calculation gets complicated. Large companies like British Telecom, despite of having their own back office in India, outsources a large part to TCS, Infosys etc. companies. So, I would seriously question that thought.Is India the best choiceIf you need a smaller team, then I have doubt whether you can get best of programmers there for a smaller team. My calculation is like this-a. There are very large organizations like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, then there are multinational giants like Microsoft, Google, Oracle and whatnot in India. Talented people after graduating, do you think they would have any reason to leave those giants and multinationals, working in small 100 people company?b. TCS/Infosys has more than 100,000 people. They sell their service in 1000s in seats. Their smallest team consist of 300/400. Do you think they would be interested to sell you small team of 5 or 10?c. If you do start a company in India, why would smart programmers be interested to join your company? They have the option to go to such large companies and multinational ones! Even if you offer highest salary - they don't know you.Where to startA good option in my opinion is Bangladesh. The companies here are smaller and give more care to small clients. You can see contact of many Bangladeshi software companies in BASIS website, they are the main association of software companies. You can also contact with Accelerance They are an agency for partnering with right match. I am not affiliated with them but I have been following them with newsletter for 7/8 years now. They must be good, otherwise wouldn't be able to do it continuously for so many years.
What options do I have if I don't want a typical 9 to 5 office job?
There are always options available for almost everything we do in life. Option is not the issue. The question is "what is it you would want to do outside of a 9 to 5 office job? What are interests you the most?These are important questions. You must be able to answer them. Without this answer, you won't be able to find the option that best suits you.Here's what I would suggest:List as many options that you find appealing.Ask yourself this question: "if there was one more option that is not on my list, what else would I add?" If something comes to mind, add it.Go through your list after at least a 24 hour period and begin to eliminate the ones that you know you probably would not be doing or don't see as possible in the near future.Do a second and a third pass through the list. You could do this over a 72 hour period.Narrow down to at least 3 options.Ask someone who knows you if they would agree with the 3 options you have left on your sheet; do they see you as someone doing something like that.Do some research to see which of the 3 you could do and get paid for it. Be creative.Choose the one that you feel strongly about and that you could get paid doing.Look for a way or ways to get started. Be pat in with yourself and the process.These are some of the topics that I discuss on my weekly podcast - www.smoothcareerchange.com. Take a listen to see if you find more helpful ideas there.I hope this helps.Here to help,~Kingsley...Aka: CoachK
What types of office jobs are there?
Administrative Assistant, Customer Service Representative (non-commission), Office Assistant, HR Assistant, Receptionist. These are the type of jobs that will get you in the door. The BEST way to grow your resume and get a better feel for the type of job you want and company you fit best with I would suggest registering as a temp. Not with one agency, but with at least 8. Staffing companies will keep you busy, pay fairly and give you tons of exposure. They also usually pay weekly! Some national ones are appleone and spherion....don't overlook the local ones too as they usually have the best client relationships.
Is it normal for office jobs to have long hours?
I just got my first office job after college last year and it's really shocking that I work consistently from 9am to 7pm Mon - Fri. When I complain to my parents, they tell me that my long hours are normal and that's the way office jobs are. They said only low paying jobs like McDonald's are 9-5. Is that true?