What am I doing wrong?

Arcana

I'm writing this on behalf on my wife who is not really big on forums and such.

Within the last 3 or 4 months she haven't managed to get even a single interview. I mean, is the credit crunch really hitting that bad? This is quite depressing and I think that she's is less eager to even apply for jobs now, as she seems to get nowhere.

She had to drop her university degree as she missed one exam and failed another two. Will probably go back next year but study something slightly different.
So, basically she can't really use that to get a job, so in terms of education she's stuck with A-levels and are therefore applying for fairly basic jobs such as carer, cleaner etc.
She is now about 8 weeks pregnant and I imagine if she can't get a job within 1 or 2 months she won't get one at all. She's really only looking for a temp job as after the baby is born she'll soon be going back to uni.
But, no interviews in 3-4 months? What should she do? She has signed up with agencies, goes to the job centre every now and then, looks on Gumtree etc.

Is there places/websites where jobs are "easy" to get, considering you'd do pretty much anything - and by anything I obviously don't mean jobs which are unsafe when you are pregnant, like working in construction etc. I mean, honestly, I can't believe it's that hard to just get an interview?
For example, what are some of the best websites for non-skilled jobs?

We live in the outskirts of London, so there should be plenty of jobs in the area.

Timalay

Is your wife claiming any benfites? Could your wife do a favours for friends, say like baby sitting, ironing, cleaning?

Arcana

She gets child tax credits for our son, but honestly, we pretty much don't have any friends (but that's another discussion I suppose), and certainly can't think of any who need those things or could afford to pay her for it, but thanks for the suggestion anyway.

Vader123

I think its sometimes its easier to look at "everything else" rather than look at the choices we make as ourselves. Ok so there is fewer jobs around these days and lots of people trying to get them, but before we blame this exclusively, has your wife looked at her own situation.

She did a uni course, missed an exam and failed the others. Are you mentioning this on the CV/application forms? Whilst degrees dont mean what they used to, at least it shows commitment, something important to employers. Your wife can't demonstrate this.

Then he is pregnant, another choice. Can I be blunt and say bad timing? I don't know your circs but I would say that you could not have picked a wirst time? She will get no employer maternity entitlments, and being pregnant actually restricts her job seeking opportunities.

I don't mean to be blunt or rude, but have you sat down and gone through your choices and evaluated them or at least talked about lessons learned? How wise is to go back to uni again? She missed exams and failed the ones she did turn up for? Can you look at other options? What makes you think that with a young child the uni thing would be better/easier?

I would say that she needs to carry on job hunting and don't do restrictions. The building trade has people who don't climb scaffolding, they have admin people, billing people etc. I don't think she can rule them out as a whole at this point.

Not meaning to be blunt, but perhaps this coming from someone who is not her husband might help you.

Vader

AimeesMum_2

Perhaps you need to look at how variant your wifes CV is. If she is applying for all kinds of jobs it makes it look to a perspective employer that she is a bit of a jack of all trades. She needs to focus on her skills. Is she good at using computers? Working with people? Polite and friendly?

A cleaner and an administrator need different skills and she should have a CV which closely attributes to the job that she is going for. I must admit when I look at potential applicants for jobs that if they have had a lot of jobs and they all differ by nature then it looks like that person gets bored easily and moves on, and doesn't set themselves targets or goals. I am not saying this is the case for your wife, but think you need to look at her CV again to make sure that she has the right information depending on the job and not just sending out a generic one that suits any type of vacancy.

Emmzi

it sounds like she has no work experience at all. If that is the case she needs to get volunteering to prove a) "stickability" and b) she can get on with people.

Be warned volunteer roles are also in high demand.

Arcana

Vader: Well, you can't really blame her for failing the exams - it's not exactly a choice. Missing one, yeah that was a choice, but at the time she was so overwhelmed with everything else in life that she thought it would have been possible to re-do it over the following months, that she chose to skip it.

She's 34, not 21, so pregnancy while certainly being a choice, is not exactly something you can keep delaying. If you start much later than 34 it can become rather difficult to conceive + the child are more likely to have down syndrome etc.
I think with uni she (unwisely in hindsight) decided to study something quite difficult where what she have in mind now is not as complicated and involved.

The building trade was just a random example of what would be unwise and I did specifically say "construction" as in "construction worker". Obviously, having an admin office job while working for a contruction company is not really what I meant.

Arcana

AimeesMum: I did her CV. As all her jobs are either carer, cleaner og caterer I don't think there's much to change on the CV to make it different for each job which is applied for. The reason for going to uni was to get out of these "non-skilled jobs circle".

AimeesMum_2

Arcana wrote: »

AimeesMum: I did her CV. As all her jobs are either carer, cleaner og caterer I don't think there's much to change on the CV to make it different for each job which is applied for. The reason for going to uni was to get out of these "non-skilled jobs circle".

This was kind of my point though. If she is going for say a cleaner job - because of the number of applicants that go for jobs nowadays, there are some very experience cleaners that have only done that type of work. So if your wife has been a cleaner once or twice before there will be applicants who have only done cleaning jobs and therefore will be picked first for interview.

Oldernotwiser

Arcana wrote: »

AimeesMum: I did her CV. As all her jobs are either carer, cleaner og caterer I don't think there's much to change on the CV to make it different for each job which is applied for. The reason for going to uni was to get out of these "non-skilled jobs circle".

I think that everyone has assumed that your wife is 19/20. As she's in her thirties, what sort of work experience does she have?

(Why are you writing her CV for her?)

pimento

What work did your wife do between leaving university at 21 and now. I make that 13 years.