A general question I suppose; how do you advance your career from say Adviser through to potential HSE Director?

Is this based on experience and a certain skill set or purely being in the right place at the right time or perhaps knowing people/having friends in high places?

My experience is at the age of around 27/28 (a few years ago), I advanced quickly up the career ladder in the company I worked into a senior position. At the same time colleagues has been there 15 - 20yrs with what I thought was a fantastic skill set and where not considered (albeit a rival company had made me an offer and this was a sort of counter offer).

Now a few years on, I have more experience and certainly more qualified but that path seems harder to reach into a more senior position. This got me thinking to pose the question to others in what qualities do you need to gain that senior position; job adverts claim certain basics that no doubt a large population meet.

So is it down to hard work, experience, skill sets, who you know, being lucky or something else?

Thanks for the response I know the feeling of being sold something which is not true. I also agree it has to be the right role at the right level as well.

My question though was trying to establish how people jump up the ladder, I have seen good and bad in higher roles and I try to work out how they got there, without much joy.

As per your original post and also the points that SNS makes.

I found, with hindsight, moving jobs quite a bit when younger has been helpful - it gives lots of wide ranging experience.

As for being a H&S Director, I would say these positions are limited, hence why not many people get to that level, is that most H&S jobs really only need decent 'middle manager' ability.

Few H&S roles require brilliant strategic over sight or great commercial reasoning - another reason why H&S is middle managment at best.

TSC

My experience was one of redundancy and then luck, but I believe that luck came with hard work and dedication

Having been made redundant the very day before an advert was placed in the local paper which I did not buy and someone brought the paper in and showed me the advert for the vacancy

I got the job as a H&S Manager and I had my NEBOSH general.
I decided I must excel in one subject not try and be master of a number of subjects so I set about getting to Chartered status and was focused on this for 2.5 years when I achieved it.
Once I got to Grad status there where more opportunities but I never bothered as my main focus was chartered.
I have now got there and was offered a good job put my notice in and was then offer a directorship one which I never thought would be offered
It is a case of hard work and good luck, but I believe you also need to make yourself valuable to the company you work for and your rewards will come

Thats how I got there

Alan

I made the jump into a senior position back in 2007 when H&S jobs were pretty plentiful, and i had the choice of 2 senior roles that were offered to me (unfortunatley i chose the wrong one!).
However, that said i came into contact with some very good people whom had all worked for various UKCG companies so it was a worth while experience even though there was some down sides to the move.
I still keep in touch with these people today so it wasnt all bad.

With job opportunities being somewhat limited at the moment a move "up the ladder" would be even harder to achieve in todays job market due to over saturation of candidates and limited opportunities but there are still some opportunities out there.

All you can do is keep looking and applying for the right roles and hopefully you can sell yourself at the inerview.

I took a role as a H&S Inspector for a construction company, left after 12 months for advisor role along with what I though were better opportunity to further my professional development/education, was asked back 6 months later to take the role of H&S Manager with an agreed training programme, achieved CMIOSH and now head a team of 6, so for me it was a bit of luck and hard work, but now also have the bonus of having a fantastic group of people to work with and excellent support from all levels of management.

Regards

PaulR

You haven't said what you want out of life and so I think your priorities may be a little 'back to front'. Plan your life first and then build work around that. And don't get too hung up about job titles, they're rarely that important and change routinely. If by senior, you mean better earning potential, it' very limited -100k jobs are few and far between.

Nee' onions

What do I want out of life? A good healthy life for my kids, my last position was tax free and abroad but away from my kids so I took that step down to be with my family, a good decision in my book. I am lucky to have got a contract that pays well in aless senior role.

Ray

I agree skill sets are different but more personality characteristics, but me out in a wet and muddy site any day compared to a desk and I think perhaps I suit the more operational roles.