Hi, I have the nebosh general certificate with credit, the level 6 certificate in Applied Health & Safety with distinction, currently studying level 6 Personal injury and absence reduction aiming for the full level 6 diploma. I have signed up for the IOSH managing safely course. However my background is as a Practice Safety Officer alongside my current role as a Veterinary Nurse. There is not really a market currently in the Veterinary world for H&S in house in a management role, they tend to use external companies. How can I get my foot in the door of a new industry or an industry that I can transfer some of my skills to when everyone already wants experience in that field. How do you get the experience in the first place if no-one will open that door due to lack of experience. Very frustrating. I keep applying for entry level vacancies, assistant, officer, co ordinator. Some people say I am not getting the interview because I am underselling myself by going for the entry level jobs yet having a level 6 certificate they will see me as over qualified. ??? others say its because they cannot see my nursing qualification as a transferable skill. HELP!!

Yes I would tend to agree with Clarke34486, Don't waste your time or money doing the Managing Safely course as your NCRQ certifications are worth much more than that so no need to go backwards. Explain to your employer how you would be able to save them money by taking on the role of company safety officer? That way you will get your experience and hopefully save your employer money. This seems to be the issue lately with people wanting to do exams and get the qualifications but with no or little experience. Employers tend to side on people with More Experience than Qualifications I started off by doing health and safety for a few companies that I was working with as a Welder Fabricator, Ended up with almost 7 years experience before I even took any exams, its only been this year that I've been taking quite a few courses and like you working towards my Diploma, but for me I find the courses fairly easy because I've had the experience. I started doing Health and safety as part of my regular job on a part time basis and did everything from Policy writing to RA's and Site Audits Have you spoken to your employer about this?? Do you think you would be capable to write a Health & Safety Policy for the company, carry out Risk Assessments and Reviews, Safety Audits and workplace inspections? Are you looking at Doing H&S full time or side by side with your existing job? Perhaps it might be easier to do one or the other but not looking for a job which involves both.

Sarah, With your current employer, just be careful to not go OTT on all the areas of non compliance, what'll happen in that case is that the blockers will go up. you'll need to take a risk based approach, especially in places where there maybe isn't a deeply embedded H&S culture, and start with the basics, chipping away over many years until things come up to a decent standard. Sometimes you may feel like you are fighting a losing battle, but patience is the key, just keep chipping away.