A Warning: Job Centre goalposts moving.

Nightranger

Hi everyone,

I am currently four weeks into a 'Not Actively Seeking' sanction and this seems to be part of a general initiative sweeping through various Job Centres at the moment. I am on the Work Programme so I attend regular job search activities (12 applications in the last two-week period leading up to the sanction) along with job searches from home. However, Signing Officers have clearly been instructed to look for any irregularities on Universal Jobmatch records. The problem seems to be that no one has issued any proper guidelines and decisions are purely subjective if a SO decides you have not done enough.

I had my JS agreement revised last week and unsurprisingly it is considerably stricter than the one I had in place previously and when I received my sanction. The original agreement was quite a light three activities per week but I have always aimed at job applications rather than activities. Up to last week, no one had explained how Universal Jobmatch actually worked and that certain actions on the site are not recorded. Therefore, it was deemed that applying for 12 jobs on two days was not as much activity as say, one job application for 12 days. I have appealed the decision but the call centre have been less than helpful too by giving false information (a week was wasted when the call centre told me the wrong reason for the sanction being applied/telling me a Hardship Payment had been approved whereas I have yet to receive this).

I suspect this is all down to a government directive but please watch out, if this has not passed through your JC yet, it almost certainly will. If you are under a Work Programme, ask the providers to train you up on Universal Jobmatch (in all honesty it is a good resource but it needs explanation).

AP007

12 applications in two weeks is not enough. On the WP I had a minimum of 10 a week and emailed them never less than 30 a week.

Now back at the JC I am still on a minimum of 10 but told her I do more which I do so it will be no problem at all.

If you apply for 12 in one day do not tell them, tell them it was 12 in the one week!

Train you up on Universal Jobmatch? Train you to do what?

Its not a good anything IMO!!

Flyonthewall

A couple of times over the last few months I've been told things are getting stricter, but as long as I fill in 12 spaces on a sheet they don't say anything. They don't check the dates as far as I can tell.

I've never been told anything about the Universal Jobmatch except a few weeks before it was live when I was told it was going live and I could apply for jobs through it like their existing website at the time.

So it seems things are getting stricter, but it varies between job centres how strict it is and how much they check.

Flyonthewall

AP007 wrote: »

Train you up on Universal Jobmatch? Train you to do what?

Its not a good anything IMO!!

I agree. I've been on there, nothing complicated about it at all. It is useless though - I thought their site was rubbish before, but this new site is worse. I can't remember the last time I found a half decent job on there.

AP007

Flyonthewall wrote: »

I agree. I've been on there, nothing complicated about it at all. It is useless though - I thought their site was rubbish before, but this new site is worse. I can't remember the last time I found a half decent job on there.

they are nearly all advertised by a 3rd party and not even direct adverts on UJM

Flyonthewall

AP007 wrote: »

they are nearly all advertised by a 3rd party and not even direct adverts on UJM

Yeah. They clearly don't check what's on there either or what jobs are coming up in unrelated searches.

The amount of times I've searched for admin and got an unrelated job.

For a while there was a job that came up under everything and they wanted people who could speak all languages so there was at least 3 pages of the same job with a different language listed. That was on the old website where all links were bright orange and I got a headache scrolling through them all

Only good thing I can say is that the links are no longer orange and them jobs seem to have gone, just a shame them links still don't lead to any decent jobs lol.

Nightranger

AP007 wrote: »

12 applications in two weeks is not enough. On the WP I had a minimum of 10 a week and emailed them never less than 30 a week.

Now back at the JC I am still on a minimum of 10 but told her I do more which I do so it will be no problem at all.

If you apply for 12 in one day do not tell them, tell them it was 12 in the one week!

I am not sure you read all of my post, I am expected to be involved in 10 activities since the JS agreement was reset last week but that was after the sanction was raised. If this was an employer, it would be breach of contract but of course, no one can go after the DWP for that kind of thing.

However, what I am warning about is the word activities because JS agreements should NOT stipulate number of job applications, given this is dependent on what is available and where you are in the country. As far as I can tell, activities are not interchangeable with job applications but the SO can subjectively decide that it does particularly if the office has been given a directive to issue sanctions.

AP007 wrote: »

Train you up on Universal Jobmatch? Train you to do what?

Its not a good anything IMO!!

Well, one thing I did not know was that when you click the button to explain that 'you have already applied for the job' because there is not a direct 'Apply' option is that this is not recorded anywhere under your profile. OK, now I know, I can make allowances and manually input the activity but this was never previously explained so an awful lot of activity was inadvertently unrecorded. In addition, your individual logins are not recorded as a permanent record, only your last login so this is another activity that can be lost if you do not know about it. Finally, the skills options should have what you are good at (rather like the hated bit on applications where you have to explain why you would be right for the job) and not all the main job areas where you have gained experience. The bizarre thing was that the explanation given last week also included advice to leave the career experiences in.

I take what the replies have said about the job search element on Directgov and I agree that it is frustrating. One of the worst elements round here is that agencies trawl the vacancies and offer jobs that are not on their books. I spotted one such case around a year ago and when I found (fortunately) the original ad and applied direct, it clearly stated 'No Agencies'. Proof, if it were needed that agencies are often advertising ghost jobs and they apply the same acceptance filters if you want to sign up as a prospective employer would (in my case, a 50+ graduate is not a good thing to be :mad: ).

Nightranger

Flyonthewall wrote: »

I agree. I've been on there, nothing complicated about it at all. It is useless though - I thought their site was rubbish before, but this new site is worse. I can't remember the last time I found a half decent job on there.

In the spirit of why I raised this thread, I agree with your assessment but you also have to be cute about the way you use the search facility. Mostly the returns are crap and very few genuine jobs appear but for anyone long-term unemployed (and sadly, I am definitely that) there is no such thing as a 'half decent job' as stated in your final sentence. There are jobs that don't exist (agencies) and done-deal vacancies (contractual and legal obligations, often school related), which you can only do your best to filter by careful examination but the third (and harder to prove to a pre-judgmental SO) class that you have to watch out for is 'jobs that you cannot do'. I know it has got so ridiculous that even cleaners have to be qualified or experienced these days but that in itself is the filter you can apply...except your friendly SO may not agree and therein lies a big problem if your JC happens to receive one of these directives from above.

Flyonthewall

Nightranger wrote: »

In the spirit of why I raised this thread, I agree with your assessment but you also have to be cute about the way you use the search facility. Mostly the returns are crap and very few genuine jobs appear but for anyone long-term unemployed (and sadly, I am definitely that) there is no such thing as a 'half decent job' as stated in your final sentence. There are jobs that don't exist (agencies) and done-deal vacancies (contractual and legal obligations, often school related), which you can only do your best to filter by careful examination but the third (and harder to prove to a pre-judgmental SO) class that you have to watch out for is 'jobs that you cannot do'. I know it has got so ridiculous that even cleaners have to be qualified or experienced these days but that in itself is the filter you can apply...except your friendly SO may not agree and therein lies a big problem if your JC happens to receive one of these directives from above.

I've been long term unemployed too. By half decent job I meant one that even half applies to my search and isn't a scam.

For example, I'd class the search I just did on there as useless with not even 1 half decent job. That's because I searched admin within 20 miles of where I live and all I got within the area was jobs to be a carer. Not one admin job however rubbish. Any odd admin jobs that were on there were like 50+ miles away.

I'm not convinced it understands where I live...

AP007

Nightranger wrote: »

In the spirit of why I raised this thread, I agree with your assessment but you also have to be cute about the way you use the search facility. Mostly the returns are crap and very few genuine jobs appear but for anyone long-term unemployed (and sadly, I am definitely that) there is no such thing as a 'half decent job' as stated in your final sentence. There are jobs that don't exist (agencies) and done-deal vacancies (contractual and legal obligations, often school related), which you can only do your best to filter by careful examination but the third (and harder to prove to a pre-judgmental SO) class that you have to watch out for is 'jobs that you cannot do'. I know it has got so ridiculous that even cleaners have to be qualified or experienced these days but that in itself is the filter you can apply...except your friendly SO may not agree and therein lies a big problem if your JC happens to receive one of these directives from above.

Not sure I even understand what you have posted here


Be cute how you use it?

So if we are cute we can find jobs advertised by EMPLOYERS on the UJM? I doubt it.

90% of the jobs on there are 3rd party jobs!!!

Not advertised on the UJM by an employer or an agency but by another website where I have probably already applied as these jobs are then with another agent etc

Plus 10 mile radius from my house seems to come up with jobs 100 miles away!

This would be the same if you had been out of work 3 years or 3 weeks!!

AP007

Nightranger wrote: »

Well, one thing I did not know was that when you click the button to explain that 'you have already applied for the job' because there is not a direct 'Apply' option is that this is not recorded anywhere under your profile. OK, now I know, I can make allowances and manually input the activity but this was never previously explained so an awful lot of activity was inadvertently unrecorded. In addition, your individual logins are not recorded as a permanent record, only your last login so this is another activity that can be lost if you do not know about it. Finally, the skills options should have what you are good at (rather like the hated bit on applications where you have to explain why you would be right for the job) and not all the main job areas where you have gained experience. The bizarre thing was that the explanation given last week also included advice to leave the career experiences in.

I take what the replies have said about the job search element on Directgov and I agree that it is frustrating. One of the worst elements round here is that agencies trawl the vacancies and offer jobs that are not on their books. I spotted one such case around a year ago and when I found (fortunately) the original ad and applied direct, it clearly stated 'No Agencies'. Proof, if it were needed that agencies are often advertising ghost jobs and they apply the same acceptance filters if you want to sign up as a prospective employer would (in my case, a 50+ graduate is not a good thing to be :mad: ).

Click the button ALREADY APPLIED?

Why would you do that or even think you have to? You don't?

You DO NOT need a UJM account to apply for jobs on there

You do not need to even have a UJM account

You do not need to give the JC access to your account

You have obviously been brain washed into thinking the UJM is great so please let us all know where you put a tailor made cover letter for all jobs you have applied for on it?

Id love to know

It is the worst site out there for looking for work.