# Jobsearch UK



## In a Lonely Place (Mar 26, 2012)

Who else is hunting for a job right now? Anyone going down the casual Christmas staff route?

I'm ****ing panicking and struggling. :|

Maybe people could use this thread to keep a diary of their progress?
Ask for and share advice on CV's and Cover letters?

I'm on jobseekers and now have to use the Universal Jobmatch website at Gov.UK.

I don't like it at all, I don't have a job in mind and find it a bloody nightmare, of course they can track your jobsearching activity by your logging in. :no


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## Alone75 (Jul 29, 2013)

I have been looking and applied for the few things available but got ignored. I used to get rejection letters at least, but not anymore. There were temporary Christmas staff wanted at CityLink here, but 100s applied so no chance.
They used to have Christmas temps for royal mail here, but they've shut down the sorting office and transferred the work to Chester. So lots missing out this time.

Also on the job activity section, when I used to be stuck for things to put down I'd just write something like "Looked in the local papers, checked direct.gov for any new vacancies". No one said anything, as long as you say you have applied for a few things a week they shouldn't be too hard on you. 

I'm on ESA for now anyway, I'll be back on the merry go 'round of JSA though soon enough though if I don't get work somehow. Sat for hours doing a pointless job search on dirty PCs with ex-prisoners, druggies, blokes and women who choose not to work that have kids and loads of benefits plus the lazy chavs. Not given any help, just told "to try harder" pft. How I miss that! :roll


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## Cool Ice Dude55 (Jan 7, 2014)

i just signed up to 3 job agencies this week... i kinda want a job so bad right now...but not at the same time. But i havent worked in 2 months now and i cant handle the gap in my CV getting longer


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## Tabris (Jul 14, 2013)

If you're desperate for a job then agencies like Blue Arrow could be an option. In 2012 I managed to get a warehouse job through them in only a couple of weeks.


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## Icantbethatbad (Mar 2, 2012)

I have been messing around with agency's for the last couple of years , and next year will be no different. The same old vicious circle. 

Warehouse and some other low end job is all they offer. It cracks me up how they get paid, basically pimping you out to **** jobs


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## anomnomnom (May 28, 2013)

Is it still as hopeless as it was when I was signing on last year?

With them stalking your activity on your online account?

They always advised me to apply for RM when I was signing on around xmas like that was somehow the holy grail of temp xmas jobs, the alternative being retail ..

Anything warehousey? back of an Argos or something? I've spotted a few people I Thought I recognised from school working in the back of argos (Only clocked them when they would bring the item out to the front then run off behind the scenes again) 

Personally I never had luck with agencies..but then I never really had any luck with anything I just somehow got my foot in this one small company that I applied for (that I suspect didnt advertise very well) 

Can they legally stop your JSA if you physically cant afford to live without it? That seems a bit..harsh, I had it threatened a few times but nothing actually came of it (I wasn't purposely sponging/being lazy there was just sod all to apply for!)


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## moloko (May 1, 2013)

Job searching must be one of the most depressing activities I can do... :\ I can feel the despair slowly crawling in with realization that I may have wasted years and money studying something completely worthless. It's scary.


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## twitchy666 (Apr 21, 2013)

*on ESA*

since emerging from hospital end of 2013

ESA cancelled cos it expires for 365 days. Then it restarts. PiP benefit

contribution vs income-based. Nobody told me the difference. I think I get it. Tax paid. I used to think of taxpayers paying for my food. But pleased it's about the tax I paid in.

A4e are better than JobCentre for one reason only because they are a private company and can communicate by email. I walk for monthly review.

ESA is no signing on for JSA, but I liked some fortnightly structure to do the form and hand it in. Doesn't matter

I feel sick for being forced into retirement. I need to be kept busy

Want to drive the bin lorry

Today's fresh thought is my ideal job'd be a building site crane driver! No chance if you haven't done exactly the same thing for 50 years. I've done all the best things for 15 years but chucked out


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## thisguy1 (Dec 11, 2014)

I'm at university right now but I was on JSA / ESA in the past. My advice - if you want a Christmas job go to the stores (all of them) and hand your CV in. If a store needs you to do it online then you have no choice, but imo from experience of the UK job market you're unlikely to get a job that way - too much competition.


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## Batcat (Nov 19, 2014)

Universal jobmatch is such s**** most of the jobs there aren't even real, I hated sending my CV everywhere because I was anxious that my details could get into the wrong hands. I'm gonna search for jobs again after Christmas, I might have to force myself into catering or retail but I want an admin job.


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## Cool Ice Dude55 (Jan 7, 2014)

urgh urgh i need a job.... i need a job real bad bruv. ive been spending too much time in my own head. just want a job so i can get out of the house really! i'm on 3 agencies and nothing yet....i just want a job bro...


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## moloko (May 1, 2013)

In a Lonely Place said:


> It really is a head****, I can only handle searching for a limited amount of time each day because it all feels so futile. *You're supposed to overplay all your qualities and sell yourself but I don't feel I have any to begin with*.
> 
> Do you have a particular job in mind?


That is true. There's so little asking for people with my degree and the little that there is I hate doing it. :\ Which in turn doesn't have much to do with I studied, so it's kind of ****ed up. Can't help but feel cheated for all those years and dedication, in a sense. I'd like anything in my area, to be honest. Something I'd like to do, it's all I ask. I'm not picky. I don't want too much money, just happiness.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. Others have it a lot worse. Hope you find something.


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## anomnomnom (May 28, 2013)

In a Lonely Place said:


> Yes that account that keeps watch on your total ineptness in the job hunting scene. :no
> I think Royal Mail really is the holy grail of xmas work, the amount of people that say to me 'Have you tried the RM? they always need people at xmas'
> 
> I believe they can stop your benefits as you sign your jobseekers contract/agreement that you will do all you can to find work.
> ...


I remember that one, they had me looking at jobs in Leeds (about 1hr10 on a train) and then 15-20min to get the bus to train station, I realise half of them are just doing what they are told to say..once I explained how my "minimum wage" would end up being about £40-50 a week after my travelling costs were covered let alone bloody lunch they changed their mind on that one, the whole things a farce.

It's also very true on half the jobs being made up, quite often I'd find the so called "new jobs" expired on agency websites from about 3 years before. Yet again when you explain it to them they dont really know how to respond, my last advisor used to spend the whole meeting ranting with me that she had a degree and she was stuck working at "that ****hole" for peanuts, it was fairly amusing and at least took the pressure off me!


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## Cool Ice Dude55 (Jan 7, 2014)

i have the feeling i am going to be unemployed for a long time. i am looking for a temorary office assistant job.


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## cupoftealee (Nov 27, 2014)

I work part time on weekends and I've just got a job in Care work which will take me to full time but haven't started yet. The daft thing is, I still need to look for work even though there's no point so I go and do this Directgov, Indeed crap, filling in my activity log and whatnot.

If anyone does use Directgov, I would suggest not signing in until you're doing your applications. I browse jobs and put ones I'm going to apply to at one side in new tabs. This way, they can't see what you've been browsing and not applied for if that makes any sense.


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## Cool Ice Dude55 (Jan 7, 2014)

In a Lonely Place said:


> I hope not, why do you want temporary?


becauuuuse i dont like commitment when it comes to jobs. i get bored so easily. also my life is so up in the air right now and i feel like i need to move out of my home town very soon.

theres alot of temp reception jobs but i dont have experience with reception also being face to face with people gets me flustered


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## Man01 (Nov 18, 2014)

Guys, I can completely sympathise with you all. I left education in 2012 and my first part time job was working for Royal Mail at Christmas. We got told that if we did night shifts we'd get at least £9 an hour. We didn't get a penny more than the day shifts in the end. 

That ended and I went into a part time position in the marketing department of a local building contractor from Feb - Jul 2013, until I was abruptly made redundant. Cue 12 months of searching, frustration and humiliation. 500+ job applications (I genuinely lost count) for 0 hour contracts, minimum wage etc...10 replies and 3 interviews. I applied for about 25-30 jobs in food canning companies and picking veg and fruit in fields and got rejected for all of them - don't let anyone tell you there aren't enough English people applying for those kind of jobs because that's bo**ocks.

Anyway, I found a part time position that's giving me a regular if minimal wage, and I've started my own fledgling copywriting business. It doesn't even cover my living costs, but hey can we expect anything more in this day and age? 

Upshot of it all is universal jobmatch and the job centre were 100% useless and no help whatsoever. Half the jobs were non-existent or fake, and you might as well forget getting a full-time job, they don't exist seemingly.


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## blue2 (May 20, 2013)

Honestly I've never really knew what I wanted to do either, the job I've been doing the last 5 years I didn't really like but it kept me in work, I quit that 6 weeks ago after a falling out with managers about working conditions and contract problems, but they don't care cause theres so many people unemployed atm they hire people temporarily from employment agencies for minimum wage and treat them like dirt, that's the route they are going down now, luckily I'm not stuck for money cause I saved and invested some money while working, I'm in the same boat as you wondering about what I would want to do next year


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## quantum dot (Dec 18, 2014)

In a Lonely Place said:


> Thanks for sharing your experiences, it's a little less painful with the knowledge that it's not just me.
> 
> Signed on this Monday just gone and she said 'Oh well there doesn't seem to be any warehouse jobs just now, have a think about what else you wanna do for work, over the Christmas break'
> 
> I'm thinking :um


Rule #1 of job centre, 1. never expect job centre to find you a job 

You're probably more experienced than me but I chuckled when I read that post because you will get the same line every time you go there. If you're looking for something like warehouse work or retail then it is best to cold call with CVs. If you can handle it that is.


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## anomnomnom (May 28, 2013)

In a Lonely Place said:


> Oh great, they promote that website like it's the be-all and end-all for jobseekers. More than half of the warehouse/cleaning type jobs are like temporary/No fixed hours/Part time.
> 
> Is it ok to apply for jobs you aren't qualified for and have zero chance of getting, just to show you are applying for jobs? :blank


A lot of them when you click apply just redirect you to the companies website or an agency/another job site. They have no way to know if you actually did anything with it aside from contacting them (but I've never known them to do that)

So you could tell them you applied for x job via email/called just to get them off your back.

I don't really know what to suggest, like I say me gaining full time employment was quite a stroke of luck (I'm not sure I'd call it luck but..) as I honestly think I'd still be hunting for work now a year on, its not easy having no self esteem and instantly talking yourself out of even applying for jobs when you're convinced you can't do it (or are actually lacking experience/skills for it)

I guess not really knowing anything you "want" to do means you need to find something you can find half tolerable/least stressful, if that even exists! part time would at least pay more than jobseekers? I mean I still don't know what I "want" to do if that exists but with working full time I don't seem to have the spare time to actually properly think about it!


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## minizz (Dec 23, 2014)

The first time I went in a job centre a guy pushed over a computer monitor out of anger. I also remember a guy in a wheelchair threatening me because I didn't have any cigarettes. If you have a nice job centre then you're really lucky.


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## twitchy666 (Apr 21, 2013)

*UJ*

is controlled by private recruiter MONSTER. Strange to see the govt buy / sponsor / feed them. They must have a special relationship.

I've been in this recruiter torturing world too long. More than enough database experience to have 1st-hand understanding to stick the right search parameters and read the results that come out. It helped me research the market for decades. Best way to refine the search string by seeing rows offered you don't want. Most engines pluck the characters out and spit them back at you. The term NOT works best using jobserve.com

I cut out swathes of .net which has nothing to do my type of pretty, delightful colourful window buttoned OK/cancel form design. I put not .net, not python, not ruby, not C#, not java, not nurse, not doctor, not ASP

Mysterious world of your own sincere CV will not go anywhere near the desperate manager who needs you, until some **** on the phone shouts at you with school playground 'how are you?' 'Why did your last job end?' What do they need to hear? I can sing along

APPLY for-the-job. Do you always get it?

We're in a sea of human meat. Telly fone required. Must speak to someone you don't know, to get a job. CV has no value.

The agents can't read betwixt any lines. They like to close their eyes and hear what comes of your mouth when they say 'Hello! is that Mr You?' you must keep giggling. You must be a recruiter to get a jobbie

Decades show me I've missed the boat / flight

I applaud the 'pimp' description. Bean counters getting applications will judge by how many we try. I judge the pimps on how they duplicate same job descriptions across different agencies.

Royal Mail
My lovely pizza delivery for Dominos while I was a student. Fun & tips from customers. In 2001 I chose to buy the apartment I live in because so many residents were really happy. Just learning all the roads of the area was pulling A-Z map from pocket before there was GPS TOMTOM. I need that when I go interviewing in London. Being on-time, formal, pleasant, confident is easy. No reason why not to be accepted for what we can do. The employer expect you to be the other sex, older, younger, like their siblings? Your face? One hair out-of-place? Ha ha. Not smile enough or too much? I think I speak too much when I meet a stranger.

The roughest areas I delivered-pizzas-to had scummy kiddies on plastic toys scattered all over the tarmac. They kept trying to steal my moped so I learnt to guard the keys.


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## ilsr (Aug 29, 2010)

So you're more of a MFC, or windows API harkening back to Windows NT or Win9x winform programming? I agree, they(MS) pushed their .NET for their ulterior motive to compete with java ; one size framework fits all for ms powered offices etc. so a traditional CS grad is forced to brainwash the MS way or go open. then they pull then rug under and outdate all their older certifications and previous ASP versions now pushing their next "sharepoint" or whatever fad.


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## twitchy666 (Apr 21, 2013)

*equivalent medical examination place (not JobCentre)*



minizz said:


> The first time I went in a job centre a guy pushed over a computer monitor out of anger. I also remember a guy in a wheelchair threatening me because I didn't have any cigarettes. If you have a nice job centre then you're really lucky.


the exam is surprisingly not about a body disablement check. You get questions all about what you can or can't do

The foyer preaches on poster: no abuse, lack of respect to our staff

I understand the fury. People's job is to prevent you getting what you want

Same CV and following psychologist inquisition

shown the multi-paged A4 I sent by post - no idea I'd see it right in front of me.

Declared, signed and dated. The doctor's function is to poke you and gauge your reaction. Feels just like in court. All the form questions asked again verbally. I see why they do that. But I feel abused by forcing me to repeat my statement answers over & over. The subtle nagging is clearly 'I think you have been lying' He didn't say that. He said I have to bring someone else who knows me well next time because I couldn't talk for myself. Outside in the foyer, I said: you think I've been lying? He said 'no - I didn't mean that at all' in a light-hearted, fairy way, like Kenneth Williams.

Got new appt now

What's the grilling about? Criticism. I want to scrutinise the person. I went in thinking "what is your profession?'' I expect a negative response


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## Hayman (Dec 27, 2014)

I was made redundant in July/August 2010. It was a horrible, frightening experience and I do sympathise with those who are genuinely trying to find work without getting much luck. I was fortunate enough to find work after two months - which meant my redundancy just about paid for this gap in work. If I was still out of work, it would have been a case of chipping into seriously hard earned (and taxed) savings - which no one should ever have to do.

I had to report once a fortnight to the job centre to prove I was looking for work, whilst some people simply walked in, got their form signed without even being checked and walked straight back out again. With me it was a full-on interrogation with someone behind a desk - each time, every time.

I eventually found my current job via an agency which were more specific in their searches. The job centre basically had me applying for things I wasn't even remotely qualified to do. For someone who suffers from stress and anxiety, this really doesn't help matters.



In a Lonely Place said:


> I believe they can stop your benefits as you sign your jobseekers contract/agreement that you will do all you can to find work.
> She told me that an hour and a half travelling is fine so you can't limit yourself to local jobs only. 3 hours commuting a day for minimum wage :yay


That's Scandalous. How do they honestly expect you to pay (ever rising) domestic bills and feed yourself when two thirds of your salary will immediately be gone on fuel simply getting back and forth to the place that pays you a pittance? That's really disgusting if they told you that&#8230; I can only presume the rules must have changed. When my father found himself out of work for the first time (aged 59) three years ago, he was told that they wouldn't expect him to start travelling across counties for poorly paid jobs as it would obviously cost more in fuel than it was worth.

During that time though, he was treated like a naughty little schoolboy as if he was avoiding work. He couldn't claim for any help when it come to bills either as I still live at home - so therefore I was expected to forfeit about three quarters of my entire salary to help keep the house ticking over. Stuff any of my own direct debits&#8230; My father also had to sell his car and buy a banger. Yet those openly avoiding work (serial form-fillers) and have hardly ever paid anything at all into the system have everything paid for them. The whole system works completely back to front.


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## twitchy666 (Apr 21, 2013)

*There are no jobs. Drying up*

http://www.peopleperhour.com

I registered with this website a couple of years ago and did get a remote job which didn't last long

Plenty of helpful reminders to me that it's not my fault for not being occupied.

My regular searches with jobserve.com

The job front is really thinning out. I get a lot of positions associated with what I am good at but they all require so much more than my core skillset. Not a lawyer, not a nurse, not a doctor, not a builder, not a retail salesperson.

All trades need a database administrator for their business to function financially. I can do the washing up in an office


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## chaosherz (May 15, 2011)

Sounds like the whole govt-job agency BS industry is just as bad in the UK as here in Oz. I signed up for unemployment benefits last August or something, thinking going to a job agency would actually help me find a job, but as someone above said, rule no. 1 is don't expect a job agency to find you a job!

I must have applied for over 100 jobs in the past year and gotten nowhere. I am kind of glad on the one hand though because I have been unemployed for so long (over 3 years), I have gotten used to it and I don't want to face working again. Last time I worked I was suicidal every day and just wanted to jump in front of the train to work, rather than get in it so it could take me to the hellhole I worked at. I just need a job where I can either a) work alone or b) work with people who are nice and understanding. But you can't choose the dickheads you work with so I am doomed to being either unemployed for the rest of my life, or being suicidal working with people to the point when I can't take it anymore. SA is just wonderful.


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## thunderface (Nov 25, 2014)

minizz said:


> The first time I went in a job centre a guy pushed over a computer monitor out of anger. I also remember a guy in a wheelchair threatening me because I didn't have any cigarettes. If you have a nice job centre then you're really lucky.


:clap:clap THIS made my day!

The job centre helped me get a job, but only in the sense that I found a job with very very few hours just so that I wouldn't have to sign on any more. Sad as it sounds, I'd rather work for £50 a week than claim benefits and face that trauma.


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