Something we love to do as part of our blog is promote the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) as a top resource. To a degree, the HSE can affect everyone. Schools, businesses, leisure facilities – they all have to comply with HSE regulations and guidelines. The HSE plays a pivotal role in the infrastructure of health & safety jobs and therefore how vacancies are filled.
Occupational health and safety jobs are about skill, exceptional training and a real understanding of the balance between “nannying” and making an environment sensibly safe. The way we help our clients maximise the effectiveness of their health & safety jobs hunt is through CV management focussing on skills, aptitude, experience and the deep common sense approach that best befits occupational health and safety jobs.
Take the example of H&S in the agricultural sector. Farmers and agricultural workers are tough, sensible folks, and often the heavy feet of health & safety can be met with a grim persona. So the HSE has responded by making its agricultural health & safety (especially in terms of sole trade farmers working long periods alone) as flexible and approachable as possible. Farmers are offered free optional courses and training to help them implement health & safety protocols on their farmland without feeling mollycoddled.
Occupational health and safety jobs can be excessively varied from day to day, particularly for freelance or contracted workers. In such cases the resources of the HSE – particularly online – are invaluable.
A highly criticised move by the Labour government was abolishing the lion’s share of financial aid and student loans for those wishing to study for another degree. For many mature students – perhaps thinking of a career change – this has remained a point of contention.
As a hub of global health and safety vacancies, we spend a great deal of time helping our clients to streamline their CV, develop their skill set and maximise their job hunt potential. Occupational health and safety jobs are within a diverse sector of the employment market that can cover everything from fire safety to offshore living. It’s this diversity of health and safety vacancies’ roles and the abundance of H&S work around the world that’s enticing many mature people to retrain.
Occupational health and safety jobs are still relatively new in terms of established trades. For example, a factory floor foreman will likely be well-versed in H&S due to experience, but what about qualifications? We’re seeing a great new trend for mature students crafting new careers for themselves in the field of H&S.
In the U.K, mature students returning to study for a second degree can get financial assistance for a small number of degrees. These are mostly in the medical arena – dental, nursing etc – but some occupational health areas are covered. However, something like a Professional Development Loan tends to be the most straightforward way to access funding.
A career in occupational health can be incredibly varied, particularly in terms of things like skill development and career paths. The diversity of health & safety jobs is perhaps the most significant factor attracting candidates to health and safety vacancies.
One of the central features of any truly satisfying career is typically skill development. Adding to your skill set in a continuously evolving sector like health & safety jobs can open doors, broaden horizons and simply add to the effectiveness of your job performance.
Specialising
Working towards health and safety vacancies in a specialised area can be a fantastic tool for career progression. For example, child safety, offshore industrial work, marine safety, working with hazardous chemicals etc, are all areas within which specialist H&S training is essential.
Enhancing Your CV
For those starting out in the H&S arena, CV development and skill development go hand in hand. We advise novice clients to take every opportunity to develop their skill set. This can also be a brilliant avenue into identifying a proposed area of special study, e.g. taking a short course in agricultural health & safety could pique the interest of an OH student studying a broad H&S programme.
A career in OH can be as broad or as specialised as you make it. We can help boost your CV and maximise the effectiveness of your current skill set whilst offering great advice on new career paths and development opportunities.
