Firstly, a little bit of background. When you first sign-on, aside from filling out a small forrests’ worth of paperwork, which includes a Jobseeker’s Agreement (Something I hope to address in the near future) you’re also “encouraged” to keep a JobSeekers Diary, or an E4JP. I say “encouraged” because on some peoples Agreement it’s a “suggested” action, where as on other peoples’ it’s actually a requirement.

Either way, when you attend the Jobcentre, to sign-on, you’re supposed to satisfy the person “on the other side of the desk” that you’ve been actively looking for work, and one of the easiest ways todo this, is to complete the JobSeekers Diary.

Now personally, I don’t use the supplied ES4JP, I use a series of notebooks. I’ve had a few negative comments about this, from a certain member of staff, however, at the end of the day, there isn’t really anything he can do about it, as I’m providing them with a written record of my jobsearch activities. (This particular memberof staff just flat out doesn’t like me, however, as my signing-on time has changed recently, I don’t “run the gauntlett” that I might have to deal with him, anymore)

So what exactly are the Jobsearch requirements? Again these will differ from person to person, but from my own personal point of view, these are the requirements that I have to meet:

• Write to at least 2 employers per week.
• Contact Jobseeker Direct at least once per week.
• Ask Family, Friends and People I have worked with before.
• Look in the local newspaper each Thursday (Job Night for that particular paper).

Now “Contact Jobseeker Direct…“, is an interesting point. I’ve never actually agreed to that action, as I don’t see the point of phoning an 0845 number, which costs 4p per minute, with a 7p “setup” cost, just for a callcentre operative to suggest vacancies for me, that are listed on the Jobcentre Plus website. Which I access regularly, from home. The JobCentre staff will happily inform you that you can use the phones within the Jobcentre to contact JobSeekers Direct for free, however, realistically, trying to jobsearch in a busy Jobcentre simply isn’t practical.

As a result, my Jobseeker’s Agreement does contain my signature, however it also contains a note from myself that I won’t access the service, but that instead I’ll satisfy the requirement for weekly “Jobcentre” contact, by utilising their wonderful (sarcasm) website. Said note is also signed by the original member of staff who completed my JobSeekers’ Agreement, so I think I’m covered.

Now of course, that’s all fine and well, but what, exactly, do I do, week after week, as part of my jobsearch? Well rather than post suggestions, I’ll post my actual jobsearch activities, for the last two weeks:

17-09-09: Attended Jobcentre to sign-on
17-09-09: Looked in local newspaper for vacancies. There were two that I will apply for
18-09-09: Applied for Financial Services Administrator vacancy. Send CV+Cover letter, through to company.
18-09-09: Applied for General Warehouse Person vacancy. Send CV+Cover letter, through to company.

21-09-09: Accessed the Jobcentre Plus Website. Found details on three vacancies that I will apply for.
22-09-09: Applied for the Following Vacancies:

• DUA/43406 (Office Administrator. Sent CV+Cover letter, through to company)
• HOW/8681 (Warehouse Operative. Sent CV+over letter, through to company, via e-mail)
• OLD/31041 (Receptionist. Sent CV+Cover letter, through to company, via e-mail)

22-09-09: Looked in local newspaper, for vacancies. All those listed were in areas / fields that, due to legal restrictions, I am unable to persue¹

24-09-09: Looked in local newspaper, for vacancies. There were two vacancies that I will apply for
25-09-09: Applied for Office Administrator vacancy. Sent CV+Cover letter, to company.
25-09-09: Applied for Receptionist vacancy. Sent CV+Cover letter, to company.

28-09-09: Accessed the Jobcentre Plus website. Found details on 4 vacancies that I will apply for.
29-09-09: Applied for the following vacancies:

• STS/46808 (Admin Assistant. Sent CV+Cover letter to company)
• TIP/24633 (Accounts Clerk. Sent CV+Cover letter to company)
• STS/46818 (Membership Officer. Sent CV+Cover letter to company, via e-mail)
• WOL.93983 (Receptionist. Sent CV+Cover letter to company)

29-09-09: Looked in local newspaper, for vacancies. All those listed were in areas / fields that, due to legal restrictions, I am unable to persue¹

¹:The vacancies listed in my local paper, on a Tuesday evening, are always either vacancies that are available through various recruitment agencies, or vacancies at the local Council. Due to the legal restrictions placed on me by the Police & Probation Services, I can’t currently work through an agency, as any potential employer has to be vetted beforehand, so as to ensure that any job there, is appropriate (in other words, that there isn’t the potential to me to start WW3 should I feel like it – that line in and of itself is deserving of an entry ). With regards to the local council, I applied for a vacancy there once, got through to the final selection stage, and was asked if I’d got any criminal convictions. 45 mins later I was asked to leave, and it was “suggested” I not apply for any more vacancies within the local Council.

So that’s an honest indiciation of the steps that I take, to look for work, every two weeks. In total there are 11 “Actionable steps”, as I believe is the terminology.The last two weeks aren’t anything particularly special – I’ve had a look through my notebook, and I tend to average 11 – 14 “steps” per fortnight. Which compared against my “Jobcentre” mantaded actions:

• Write to at least 2 employers per week.
• Contact Jobseeker Direct at least once per week.
• Ask Family, Friends and People I have worked with Before.
• Look in the local newspaper each Thursday (Job Night for that paper).

Comes out favourably, I think. Indeed my argument isn’t that the Jobcentre have every suggested, directly, that I’m not doing enough – Usually the member of staff I’m “Signing-on” with will comment that my jobsearch is either “very good” or “more than good”, it’s the fact that it’s being suggested indirectly, in the form of my referrals either to New Deal (or Flexible New Deal, as may be the case depending on the outcome of my meeting next Monday), or as was recently the case, my referral to the “Programme Centre”.

The previous New Deal scheme contained a “Focused Jobsearch” element, during which I, and I’m pretty sure everyone else who has been through New Deal, was reguired to attend a specific “Jobsearch focused” course. As part of this course, “particpants” are supposed to undertake “intense” jobsearch, and be provided with help, by the external provider running the course.

My latest experience with this kind of “focused jobsearch” came earlier on this year, when I was required to attend “Programme Centre”, a recently developed course, that’s run by PPDG (PerTemp People Development Group).

• Personal Career Coach (Who I’ve been dealing with up until now)
• Trainers (Who provide in-house training – more on this later)
• Employment Coach (From the “Promotional book” – “…Your Employment Coach will help you to obtain both work placements and long-term employment. In short, they’ll create employment opportunities for you…”)
• In-Work Mentor (Offer support while you’re in work).

So how did I get to this stage? I guess I’d better catch up on what’s been happening the last few months while I haven’t been super-active in keeping this blog updated.

My last appointmnet in 2009 took place on December 21st, with my Personal Career Coach. She asked me if I’d completed a second “Getting To Know You” Assessment (A4e like to track you, by making you regularly complete a 100+ question assessment, that they then use either to promote themselves, or to use against you). I hadn’t, because my Personal Career Coach hadn’t actually gone through the process to physically allow me to access the assessment.

Now at this point, the situation becomes even more complex, due to a serious breach of the Data Protection Act, that resulted in me being able to see the details – assessment information, work goals, (and much, much more sensitive information) for another client. I don’t wanna dwell to much on that, because it’s currently being investigated by A4e – although I will say that certain members of staff, including a certain branch manager, could do with improving their customer service skills – when asking a client to help you trace the steps that have resulted in a quite serious breach of client confidentiality, it helps if you don’t talk to the client who discovered it, like something you’ve stepped in. In fact, between 4 different members of staff who’ve contacted me to try to discuss this, only one – from IT support, has spoken to me in what I’d consider an appropriate way.

My next appointment was scheduled for January 5th 2010, however my PCC contaced me prior to my attendance, to cancel, due to the severe local weather conditions, which I appreciated – the last thing I wanna do, not long after a serious ankle injury, is risk breaking my leg to get to an appointment. At this point I was asked why I hadn’t completed the assessment, and I explained that it was due to seeing someone elses information on the screen. I also explained that, as a Linux user, I couldn’t actually access the assessment, as you need to be using Internet Explorer to use it – it won’t work in Firefox. I did eventually manage to get it to work, however the system asked me to login using my National Insurance Number – and given that it hasn’t asked that before, and my concerns re: client confidentiality, that had been raised due to the problem detailed in the previous paragraph. As a result I didn’t try and access the test at that point.

Flashforward to my next scheduled appointment – January 19th. This was also cancelled, and by that point I’d contacted A4e myself, to seek clarification on the issues – my PCC had informed me that a request had been sent to IT, but there hadn’t been any reply. I decided to take the issue into my own hands, and contact A4e directly, explaining the steps I’d taken up, and asking for clarification. That happened on the morning of January 15th,  and I finally got a first reply “We’re looking into it” on January 19th, which just happens to be the same day my appointment was scheduled for, and when I again raised the issue with my PCC.

Soo – moving onto the next stage. My next appointment with my PCC was scheduled for January 25th, so I again contacted A4e asking them what was going on – as people who have delt with A4e in the past will tell you, they have a reputation for kicking people off for failure to complete required tasks, so I wanted to ensure that everything was being documented – Well it just so happened that not long after contacting them, the information was reset, and I could see my information again – and not someone elses. I also received a phonecall from my A4e PCC telling me how to logon – so I contacted them and told ‘em that my issue had been resolved.

I went to my appointment on January 25th, and used the facility at A4e to complete the assessment – my results were higher, which my PCC was happy with – basically if there’s an improvement in the results, they’ll take credit for it – if there’s a drop, then it’s obviously the clients’ fault (I’m looking forward to the results of my next one – suffice to say my confidence in their ability to help me has gone through the floor recently).

On January 29th the Head of Group Marketing for A4e contacted me, with an explanation of most of what had happened, for current / potential A4e clients, the following might be of interest:

Kinda worrying – especially as someone who has experienced a breach of confidential information in the past (to be fair – it wasn’t via A4e, it happened through a different provider, in the New Deal days). However, I thought that was that – my next appointment was scheduled for February 9th, so along I went. At this point, the restrictions imposed on me by the Police and Probation service had been lifted, so I was looking forward to making progress with my attempts to secure employment. My PCC set me a few tasks – bring in a copy of my cv, email a copy in, and think about what kind of work I want todo.  I was also booked onto an “Interview Techniques” programme, at my request. Then it got interesting…

I was contacted again on February 15th, by the Head of Group Marketing, asking me for some more information. Between February 15th, and February 23rd, I was contacted by:

• The Head of Group Marketing at A4e.
• A member of IT, whose name I can’t recall.
• The Branch Manager, of the A4e branch that I “attend”
• Another member of IT.

Who were all trying to figure out what had happened. Now personally I find that quite positive – perhaps not the delay between my notification, and when they acted, but at least when they started to act, they acted comprehensively. However, my argument remains that whilst doing so, they shouldn’t have spoken to me the way they did – with the exception of the last person to contact me, I personally feel I was spoken to in a quite disrespectful manner, and it’s something I’m planning on bringing up soon.

So suffice to say my next appointment – February 23rd, was an interesting one. Although I was there for an Interview techniques programme, I was greeted by my PCC who, shall we say, wasn’t happy at being accused of making an error. Now I’d like to point out I didn’t accuse my PCC of causing the problem – that came via IT, when they traced everything back (for anyone who doesn’t know – A4e track everything you do within their system – even if you login from home, they track your progress on their foum, click by click). I knew this, but I got the impression my PCC didn’t.

I think that’s an ideal point at which to stop – there’s two more posts to come:

• February 23rd – A4e Interview Techniques training.
• March 1st – First Meeting with my PCC, “The Career You Want”, and the mystery of CVs.

Hopefully the first article should go online tomorrow (March 2nd), with the last one going up on March 3rd.

Until then, however, you’re going to have to put up with more boring updates about what’s happening – or more specifically what’s not happening, whilst I’m on FND

This site is closing on 31 March 2010. All jobs found on this site are available on the DirectGov website. Find a job now using the jobs and skills search

Please save ‘jobs and skills’ as one of your favourite internet pages. The site will also allow you to search for training, careers or voluntary work.

Bydd y safle hwn yn cau ar 31 Mawrth 2010. Mae pob swydd sydd ar y safle hwn ar gael ar wefan DirectGov. Dewch o hyd i swydd nawr drwy ddefnyddio chwiliad swyddi a sgiliau
Arbedwch ‘swyddi a sgiliau’ fel un o’ch hoff dudalennau’r gwefan. Bydd y safle hefyd yn eich caniatáu i chwilio am hyfforddiant, gyrfaoedd a gwaith gwirfoddol.

So it looks like Jobseekers are going to have to either make-do with the inferior option over on Direct.Gov, or failing that, either use the terminals within the Jobcentres, or phone JobSeeker Direct (and incur the related costs).

It happened a few years ago – I phoned the Jobcentre, was told to come down, the buses weren’t running, so I walked the two miles to the jobcentre, only to find that while it was open, they weren’t signing people on – everyone due to sign-on that day, had been automatically processed.

It made me smile, because although the staff are excused from turning up, us “dole scum” aren’t afforded such luxury.

The other irony, of course is the Government issued Travel Advice – Only travel if it’s absolutely essential. From my pov a trip down to the Jobcentre isn’t all that essential, however, getting my JSA next week most certainly is.

Now, while the “original” system wasn’t perfect, it was at least useable. The new version, located over at DirectGov, is quite honestly, appalling. It’s completely unintuitive, and makes searching for vancancies a lot, lot more difficult, and time consuming, than the old system.

If I were a cynical person, I’d say they’ve removed the “original” jobsearch website, not in order to streamline everything under the DirectGov banner, but to draw more traffic to JobSeekers Direct, in order to generate additional revenue.

Update -> The “original” version is still online, for the moment – though for how long, I’m not sure. It isn’t linked from the JobCentrePlus website, but if you type in the old address, it’ll work.

NO Announcement Re: Changes to the Housing Benefit System, specifically changes to Local Housing Allowance rates.