Is manager progession realistic enough?

I've been wondering this for a fair while (a few editions of FM) but never got round to asking, but it cropped up again this time so thought I'd ask.

Not wanting to accuse the game of being unrealistic (since I might be wrong), but does anyone else find that it is too hard to build up a manager's reputation? I'm not talking about expecting to jump from a decent BSP team to a championship side or anything, but I always manage in the lower leagues and find it very difficult to get a new job

As an example, I set my experience as "automatic", so fair enough, I come into the game with no experience etc and clubs would be wary but I had a game where I started in the BSP, with the north and south leagues running underneath it. I was controlling a side who were expected to finish 5th. In my first season, I came second (and won promotion). Not a massive overachievement but certainly impressive enough. The next season I was asked to battle bravely against the drop and ended up with very little of the season left sat in 14th place- no chance of playoffs, no chance of relegation.

Now, at this point I wondered what would happen if I (having saved the game) started declaring interest in jobs. I wasn't interested in going for league 1 or 2 jobs as I knew I would have no chance, but instead i announced my interest in a job (i forget which club) with a side who were 16th in the BSP and one who were near the bottom of Blue Square North. I was told I had absolutely no chance of the BSP job and only an outside chance of the other one

Going for the lowest reputation is supposed to make it harder to get better jobs etc, but if a man with literally no experience in football was given a job in the BSP, overachieved to go straight up and then in the second season comfortably steered them to league 2 survival, i dare say that people would notice- another year or 2 like that and average league 1 sides would probably take a punt but I think that, having pretty much assured survival in a higher league and won promotion from the BSP, pretty much any BSP club would be interested in you if their managers job was under consideration. Who are they going to get who is better than that? They might get someone more experienced, but you would be a young manager who has been successful straight away, and i think they would jump at the chance to appoint you, especially if they were down in 16th place. And the Blue Square North side would be absolutely begging you to join them

Does anyone else agree that this is ridiculous, or do people think that after 2 successful years clubs even a league beneath where you are would opt not to appoint you? I reckon i'd be getting praise all over the shop tbh, but seemingly not

I always begin game at lower team and after two good seasons, some upper club think about me to become their manager....When I create a game, I always put experience at semi-pro cause it's the minimum experience a club will ask to manage...It's not realistic to me to find a club manager with no experience in football.

Not too sure I agree with this.

On FM10, I managed to get Havant & Waterlooville promoted to L2 and then got offered the job at Barnsley who had just been relegated to L1. This was with automatic reputation too. This seemed pretty realistic to me.

I've yet to play FM11 enough to be able to comment but I'm sure it will work on the same principal that winning competitions (of whatever level) will boost your reputation.

I think the problem may be promtions are not being recognised as high an achievement as they could be. It is certianly still possible to move up divisions though.

I always begin game at lower team and after two good seasons, some upper club think about me to become their manager....When I create a game, I always put experience at semi-pro cause it's the minimum experience a club will ask to manage...It's not realistic to me to find a club manager with no experience in football.

Is that really the case? I mean I could see how teams want a manager with playing experience, but I put mine at Sunday league player and I would hate to think 5 years down the road teams would ignore me because of that.

I think the problem may be promtions are not being recognised as high an achievement as they could be. It is certianly still possible to move up divisions though.

This season on your manager record it finally notes all promotions rather than league wins

In my first FM11 file I started with semi pro rep and took over Hereford in the first week after being unemployed and offered the job. In my season I got them to third in league 1 (Predicted 18th) and thus automatic promotion. After 12 games I applied for both the Scunthorpe and Sheff Wed jobs, and while Scunthorpe I was the favourite Sheff Wed offered me the job too, so that's where I ended up.

I'm on semi pro though, I think Sunday league does feel a bit more like it's impossible to land a decent job. I had two seperate files in FM10 where I took Gateshead and Kidderminster to the Championship as a Sunday league experience, and even then I could only seem to land a league 1 job :/.

the game certainly seems to favour managers who were internationals. so far seen alan shearer, michael owen and paul merson amongst others get jobs even tho im only in 2013

I started my Fm10 save as sunday league. I took the reins at Rochdale and it took 5 seasons and promotions to the championship with two johnstones cup wins before i was offered another job. It was a good job too, Birmingham, just relegated from the premier...but then FM11 came out and my save stopped.

Have to agree with OP. I've started a game in slovakia, with sunday league rep. Won the league in the 1st season. In the second season I managed to get the team into the CL, which is already a pretty big feat. But then I managed to sneak into the play-offs (while beating Bayern 2:0 and drawing twice with Ajax).... which would be considered as a HUUUUGE achievment in RL. I was clearly on a higher level than my current league. But yet, i was unable to find a team in a better league. I've tried mid-table clubs in Portugal, Holland, Belgium....I've tried relegation candidates from Germany, France, Italy....Hell, I even tried 2nd division teams (not promotion favourites!) from Spain and England...and not 1 frickin' team would give me a job. I also saved the game and tried my luck...I resigned and went on holidays indefinitely - after over 3 months and like 50 rejected applications, I've got a job offer from a hungarian club. Which, if you dont know, is the exact same level as I was already on. So I rather went back to my save game for now, but I'm starting to get really annoyed by this.

Edit: Oh, I forgot...After some time, It really started to bug me, so I started using mini FMRTE to check the reputation of those managers that won the jobs, where I was rejected. Most of them had waaaaaay smaller reputation than me. There was a guy, that had been offered a job with ~1500 world rep. (5000home and current rep.) when I had ~4700 world rep. (6900 home and current rep.)...???

I always found that its much harder to get jobs outside of your country until you rep is at the 'continental' level at least.

I had a game in FM 2010 or 2009 where I stated in Wales, did very well, but couldn't get a job at anything but the BSN/BSS in England.

In FM 2010 my main save I started at BSS, got my team promoted to BSP, got hired away by a bigger BSP team, got them promoted, then got hired away again to League One. It took a few seasons but I didn't feel like I was being 'discriminated' against despite starting as Sunday league.

No matter how well you do if you start at a low rep I think it will take a few seasons to build up enough of a track record to get bigger offers.

Last year i got middlesbrough promoted in first season then survived in prem in second finishing 14th and made FA cup final year after then porto offered me the job quite bigish jump

During my calcio journeyman save, I've found it quite realistic. I've generally progressed in a realistic fashion.

Looking at the OP, it's only two successful seasons and he hasn't actually won anything. Try coming back after a few more seasons of overachieving and I bet you're getting sides interested in appointing you.

Ultimately, you can't expect to start the game with zero reputation, get a quick promotion and then a 14th place finish, and then get clubs desperate to take you on. It isn't really anything to write home about. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty good going, but you have only two years of experience. How do we know your one promotion wasn't just a fluke? You've never won a title, never won a cup, and you only have two years in the game. If I'm the chairman of a football club, I'm probably going to be looking for someone who has more experience and a proven track record in football management over a number of years, not some newcomer who has fluked a promotion.

In that respect, I think it's perfectly realistic. Trust me, if you put in a few more years and build your reputation up, there will be moves open to you. Ultimately, you need to win something though and you need to spend some time at your first club building up your reputation in the game. After all, you wouldn't get a new manager in real life winning a promotion at his first club and then immediately jumping ship. That's not how it works.

No matter how well you do if you start at a low rep I think it will take a few seasons to build up enough of a track record to get bigger offers.

Exactly right.

It certainly got better from FM09 to FM10. In 09 I took Stevenage to the Championship and didn't get a single job offer for a higher division (or even a higher-placed team in the same division) until the end of my League 1 season when I got an offer to ditch my already-in-the-playoffs team for the team that had just had its relegation from the Championship confirmed. In 10 I took Gloucester to League 2 and midway through that season was offered the Palace job (with them in the now-traditional Championship relegation zone...)