Roger is being made redundant from his retail career as a result of his well known retail company going into liquidation. In his 40's he is definitely not ready, nor could he afford to retire. Roger has held a supervisory position within the store, but he is worried that his age and lack of formal qualifications will make him unemployable.

Roger has never been out of work before so has queries about the issue of his redundancy and he also needs information and advice about making job applications. He has never needed a CV (Curriculum Vitae) before nor has he been for an interview in over 20 years.

Roger needs to work to earn money but would also like to study on a part time basis. He has heard about the Foundation degree tailored for the retail sector which has been piloted by Tesco, so knows it is possible to do both. He has been investigating the wide range of Business, Management, Finance, Personnel, Training and Marketing courses at his local Further Education College. These include part time Foundation degrees in Business and Retail Management. They also include a Masters in Business Administration which students can register for based on their work experience as well as a first degree.

Although Roger has no formal business qualifications he wonders if the business knowledge and management skills he has gained through his 20 year career in Retail would help him to get onto a Business or Retail Foundation degree. He has heard the term APEL (Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning) and wants to investigate if this might apply to him. Roger aims to look at all careers related to Business to see what would suit him before making any kind of decision. 

 Before  making any career decisions, Roger wants to look at information on:

1. Redundancy-making the best of it
2. APEL
3. Foundation degrees
4. Careers matters
5. Study Choices-courses and where to study.
6. Your future starts now
7. Developing ICT skills for higher education

He was anxious to get answers to these questions:

• Did it matter that he hadn't studied at college for a long time?
• Are foundation degrees relevant to work?
• What qualifications did he need to do a foundation degree?
• How much would the foundation degree cost in real terms?
• Was he too old to start studying at Foundation Degree level?

Roger was already confident about his maths and literacy skills, but if he’d needed to he could have done an Access course at a nearby college to prepare for higher education.

Alternatively, the Open University has a number of Openingscourses that can be studied at home with one-to-one telephone support from a personal tutor. They take up to 20 weeks and need about 6 to 8 hours a week in study time. These are short courses which prepare students for higher education level study. They're also an ideal starting point for people returning to study after a long break.

What could you do?

If you found this interest, go to career matters and find out what you could do.  If you can't find what you're looking for, email us .