Job Hunt: This is the room where we come to cry

[Grumpy Alien]

1 minute ago, Serran said:

Have you contacted any job agencies nearby yet ?

I can’t find any in my area that work with non-benefit seekers. I spoke to some local general advisors but they basically said “I have no idea what any of your CV means” and could only help me come up with wording it so employers might understand the closest British equivalent better.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Kimchi Peanut said:

I can’t find any in my area that work with non-benefit seekers. I spoke to some local general advisors but they basically said “I have no idea what any of your CV means” and could only help me come up with wording it so employers might understand the closest British equivalent better.

Mmm. There are some all over UK for non-benefit seekers. Ric almost exclusively uses them. So I bet there are some in Oxford if you knew where to look. 

 

Is Josh not helping you make your CV sound right for UK ? Or translate the terminology for what jobs you can apply for ? Want me to ask Ric about how to find agencies?

[Grumpy Alien]

2 minutes ago, Serran said:

Mmm. There are some all over UK for non-benefit seekers. Ric almost exclusively uses them. So I bet there are some in Oxford if you knew where to look. 

 

Is Josh not helping you make your CV sound right for UK ? Or translate the terminology for what jobs you can apply for ? Want me to ask Ric about how to find agencies?

Josh has helped, but doesn’t know the translations. I think it’s looking pretty good now. I keep re-working it when I see something. If you could ask Ric what key terms to Google, that’d be great. Thanks  

[nutterwithasolderingiron]

in the uk, avoid applying for any jobs advertised by agencies

[Grumpy Alien]

2 hours ago, nutterwithasolderingiron said:

in the uk, avoid applying for any jobs advertised by agencies

Why?

[nutterwithasolderingiron]

13 minutes ago, Kimchi Peanut said:

Why?

ok. so how most agency jobs actually work is they get rebates from the DWP for every person they get to sign up for them. after they sign you up and help you apply for the job you actually wanted, they dont need to do anything else yet they'll still get money if you're on their list. plus quite often they lie about the jobs they advertise. for example. 

 

i applied for a job. the advert said it was in glasgow, had a wage of 18k per year and was full time. nope. when i went to the interview, it actually turned out the job was in bellshill (a good 20 miles away from glasgow) the starting wage was actually 8k per year but had the ability to go up to 18k per year and wasn't actually full time but had the ability to go up to full time. because of the way the job center works. you cant turn down a job if they offer it to you, even if it was not the job that was advertised. 

 

or another time i've been screwed by agencies is when i worked for a certain force that delivers parcels..... i dont want to say the companies name. basically it was another case of applying for a job that turned out not to be the job advertised. told it was full time, it was a zero hour contract that could go up to full time. i also had to be in reserve 24/7. aka if they told me "you have to do a shift in 1 hour" no matter what i was doing, i was told i had to drop what i was doing and go into work. when i complained to the agency about the false advertising, i was just told to suck it up. so the entire time i worked there, there was this one guy who was really nasty towards me. at one point, he found out i was bi. so every time i was loading the packages, he would call me a fag or even say "i hope you get aids" i told the foreman about this and they said "well because you're agency, we cant do much, you'll have to bring it up with them" i told the agency and their reply was "then quit"

[Janus the Fox]

It’s true with general job agencies, though specialist job agencies may only be the one way into particular career pathways.  I’ve got in touch with ICT specialist job agencies with more results in terms of more potential jobs that do not advertise via Job Centre Plus or Job Search Engines.  This and Post Grad ICT job listings at the university I graduated from only for a limited time.  It’s the same situation as my sister had a Fine Arts degree, a post grad trained teacher and the vast majority of jobs use specialist job agencies.  Some are free or there’s a small fee to access these job listings.  It’s variable across the UK and more likely find such an agency in prospective cities rather than rural poorer urban towns.

 

Being on/off the job centre listings, agency listing, specialist listings and uni post grad listings for a number of years, 5 years seems to be the limit and some services are limited to the 16-18, 19-21 or the under 25’s, past that point... with no realistic prospects or no luck with jobs, these services dry up very quickly or continue paying a fee to access the specialist job listings.  Even more so with circumstances that become direct obstacles or already are, such as support for autistic adults with no job history past the 25 years old .  The older I get, so do parents with disability require more care than I do.  I have to be grateful that I still continue to maintain full state disability benefit.