Please help husband unemployed getting desperate

dan_essex

you're right about one thing, job centres are useless! I was unemployed 3 years ago for 8 weeks and they treated me like a child and when i got an interview (for my job i have now) they didn't believe me! They refused to give me any money for travel because they claimed it was an agency interview, when in fact it was in London for a position as a journalist at a national publication! They then wanted me to sign on...on the SAME DAY AS MY INTERVIEW.

I got my job, but with no help from them.

lili2008

better2009 wrote: »

Hi, my husband has been out of work since January and we are getting really desperate now.
He was a treasury manager so had a really good job in the financial industry but was made redundant.
Since January he has been applying for treasury jobs, banking jobs ( which of course is not going well ) but he has also been applying for shop jobs, bar jobs, warehouse jobs, takeaway drivers. He is applying for every single job that he can do. He is on JBA and he is now getting so depressed. He is applying all over the uk for jobs he is qualified to do but locally for the lesser paid jobs. He has a good CV, one for what he is qualified to do and one amended one that doesn’t have management all over it for the lesser paid jobs. The job centre have been no help whatsoever. He is getting so depressed and I don’t know what advice to offer him or what else he can do. It is affecting our relationship also. If by next month he has no job we have no choice but to rent out our house and move in with parents, which is fine by me but not with him.
Has anyone please got any advice at all? He has had a few interviews with good feedback but they have given the job to someone that has more qualifications, he has had hundreds of rejection letters/emails for all types of jobs, he has had emails back saying the position is filled after it has only been posted on the net that morning! And the rest he just doesn’t hear anything back. He chases them continually but nothing. He has applied for literally hundreds of jobs and he is the most flexible he could be with distance, hours, type of work, everything.
Please send you advice – any is appreciated either on what else he can do, or what I can do to be of more support?
Thanks in advance
A desperate wife
x

I so hate what this Govt has done to good people like your husband:mad:.

If this is any help, the DWP is (unsurprisingly) taking on lots of staff at the moment, all over the country. Have a look at the DWP website under 'careers'.

puddy

not sure i have any proper advice that he hasnt already done except to say that he needs to look every week at the local government website for the borough or county you live in to see if anything pops up there, jobsgopublic is a good site too

has he thought of retraining in jobs where you really have loads of vacancies, such as social work, teaching etc

would he be good in the caring professions?

i reiterate what others have said here that agencies usually are pretty good at short term stuff, although it wont be the levels that he's used to in terms of management and stuff, but will be some money coming in and someting to do.

does he have any qualifications from his job/career that he could put to use teaching adults, training adults etc etc

epsilondraconis

Make sure he uploads a slightly amended CV at least once a week to each of the job sites. Prospective employers don't always look at 'old' CVs because there is a risk that the person has already found work.

Ensure the two of you have time together - even if its only going out for a walk. Make sure you don't both stay cooped up in the house all of the time.

Good luck.

welshmoneylover

Job centre staff are useless, they just ttake any old body on for a position. Bit like the managers in my joint!!!!

Bismarck

This may be completely wrong on my part but sending shedloads of CVs isn't necessarily the best thing to do in this situation....

Sending out a load of stuff is great for feeling like you're doing something but if they're off-the-peg, one-size fits all Cvs then they'll probably end up matching no-one's job spec.

I would suggest applying for 4 to 5 per day at the most BUT really spend a couple of hours over each application as then you can tailor the CV to match what the employer is actually asking for..anything else and it's not giving yourself the best chance of success....

My bet would be that you're better off having a realistic shot with a handful of top-notch glowing, spot on applications than a sackful of general applications that show that you just want a job without really addressing the need of the employer.

If you send a handful out then you should get a manageable amount of response and you can move this forward...sending out a sackload that don't really tick the employers boxes is just asking for disappointment when they do the sift and you get a sackload of rejections back which is really depressing.

To sum up, rewrite the CVs for every application if need be and get plenty of fresh air and exercise.....

take care and good luck!

teabelly

Is he on linked-in which is a business network kind of site? Are there any agencies localish to him that specialise in well paid jobs? Run of the mill job centres and agencies aren't really going to be suitable. Looking in the Times/Guardian job pages and seeing which agencies are on there and contacting them about finding a position for him might be another route.

toasterman

I'm unemployed at the moment and if I'm honest, I find Jobcentre Plus extremely frustrating. The left hand NEVER knows what the right hand is doing. I've had people tell me something on the phone that I get told the absolute opposite of, when I go in.

On the subject of careers advice though, when I first registered with them (only been signed on about a month), I was asked what jobs I'd be applying for. I told them I didn't know, and they asked if I'd like to see a careers advisor.
I said yes, but sadly there was a 1 month waiting list.
I accepted it anyway, and by the time the month got here, I was convinced it would be a complete waste of time as they had been no help with anything else.

However, I went, and much to my surprise - it was run by Connexions, NOT Jobcentre Plus.
The girl was a lot closer my own age, a lot more optimistic, and very helpful with all manner of things from CV writing and explaining gaps in employment, to where to get help if I wanted to start my own business.

She travels to the Jobcentre to do it, and ironically, when I got there, Jobcentre Plus' staff had no idea who/what I was talking about, if careers advice was available, or where the advisor was in the building.
Luckily, she found me.

I would definitely ask the Jobcentre about careers advice though. It's the only visit I've had there where I haven't been incredibly miserable the whole time.

Alcmene

jenner wrote: »

has he thought of retraining in jobs where you really have loads of vacancies, such as social work, teaching etc

I don't know why people think this, most probably due to the adverts on TV! At my local primary school a teaching job came up and over 200 people applied for it! I think we are training far too many teachers than there are openings for!

Fire_Fox

better2009 wrote: »

Hi, my husband has been out of work since January and we are getting really desperate now.
He was a treasury manager so had a really good job in the financial industry but was made redundant.
Since January he has been applying for treasury jobs, banking jobs ( which of course is not going well ) but he has also been applying for shop jobs, bar jobs, warehouse jobs, takeaway drivers. He is applying for every single job that he can do. He is on JBA and he is now getting so depressed. He is applying all over the uk for jobs he is qualified to do but locally for the lesser paid jobs. He has a good CV, one for what he is qualified to do and one amended one that doesn’t have management all over it for the lesser paid jobs. The job centre have been no help whatsoever. He is getting so depressed and I don’t know what advice to offer him or what else he can do. It is affecting our relationship also. If by next month he has no job we have no choice but to rent out our house and move in with parents, which is fine by me but not with him.
Has anyone please got any advice at all? He has had a few interviews with good feedback but they have given the job to someone that has more qualifications, he has had hundreds of rejection letters/emails for all types of jobs, he has had emails back saying the position is filled after it has only been posted on the net that morning! And the rest he just doesn’t hear anything back. He chases them continually but nothing. He has applied for literally hundreds of jobs and he is the most flexible he could be with distance, hours, type of work, everything.
Please send you advice – any is appreciated either on what else he can do, or what I can do to be of more support?
Thanks in advance
A desperate wife
x

I wonder if he needs to get some books out of the library/ professional help on making his CV more skills-based and less experience-based. If he has been a treasury manager and is only looking for management jobs in the financial sector he is missing a trick. Unfortunately a lot of the advice on the internet/ in books is aimed at new graduates, but he should research 'key skills', 'transferable skills', 'employability skills' and 'management skills'.

Also is he using a covering letter with his CV? This is your sales pitch more than the CV itself. Is he posting out CVs to companies on spec? Many jobs are never advertised and just go internally. Has he sent a copy of his CV to every business contact? He may find a role by networking.