Universal Credit Job Search Help and Advice

donnajunkie

MusicGirl97 wrote: »

Donnajunkie basically I just post on my journal everyday. And I think they wouldn’t mind that at all, for example if you did one journal entry that had 2 days worth of work search on it.

And as for breaking the hours down, I started off doing that but then it becomes too annoying. So I tend to just say how many hours I spent searching and applying for jobs and then if I was updating a cover letter or something like that I would say underneath how long I took to do that.

I have another question; obviously I have to do 35 hours a week which is 7 days. Anyways on Thursday which would be the last day of my job search hours for that week. I have an appointment, so would the advisor expect me to have my 35 hours complete by the morning appointment? Or by the end of That day?

I am not on uc but off the top of my head it could be quite easy to fill 5 hours and demonstrate it. For example spent one hour jobseeking, spent two hours working on an application then spent another two hours working on another application.
Does it specify the hours must be done across each of the 7 days or could you do the hours monday to friday? Regarding your question with jsa i would show upto the end of the previous day. Signing day activity would be day one of the next period of jobseeking, afterall your appointment could be at 9am so not really possible to get 5 hours in beforehand for that day. However i would check as there maybe criteria that affects that thinking that i am not aware of.

donnajunkie

annandale wrote: »

I have been told I do not have to do this and I have been on UC since last January. I record searches for jobs and jobs applied for. If a work coach wanted me to do it another way, I would do it another way.

My work coach said its fine as long as I show that I am applying for a decent number of jobs and that he does not expect every minute of the 35 hour a week search to be accounted for. That that is unrealistic.
H


My work coach expects 5/7, they would be concerned about a large gap, say 4-5 days or so. They aren't interested if your internet goes down, they would expect you use a friends PC or go to the library or use the job centre computers if you are near enough to use them.

My thinking reagrding showing timings is more to cover yourself. For example if you dedicate 5 hours to applying for 3 jobs and say what time each took you are more covered than just writing down the 3 jobs because a bad advisor might say you could have done them in 2 hours. Of course this could just be overly paranoid and as you say, what you do has been fine for you.
Thanks for the answer to my question. I guess what i wonder is is it defined in the rules how often you must update your journal.

annandale

The thing is. It does not take 3 hours to apply for a job on certain websites. If you have a cv on indeed it takes less than a minute if your cv is tailored to the job. My experience is is that as long as I have been applying for a decent number of jobs every week or fortnight and logging into my account regularly they are fine with that. It takes longer to fill in some applications yes. But that tends to be with external applications. For example if I apply for 30 jobs in a week my work coach isn’t going to split hairs as to how long that took me. If I applied for ten they might. And also. There are often very slow times. Where very little new is posted. So you will be recording more searches than applications

annandale

No. It’s not defined in the rules. It very much depends on your work coach.

donnajunkie

annandale wrote: »

The thing is. It does not take 3 hours to apply for a job on certain websites. If you have a cv on indeed it takes less than a minute if your cv is tailored to the job. My experience is is that as long as I have been applying for a decent number of jobs every week or fortnight and logging into my account regularly they are fine with that. It takes longer to fill in some applications yes. But that tends to be with external applications. For example if I apply for 30 jobs in a week my work coach isn’t going to split hairs as to how long that took me. If I applied for ten they might. And also. There are often very slow times. Where very little new is posted. So you will be recording more searches than applications

I have known people to dedicate a whole day to one application. When i attended an info session about uc it was made clear that they expect people to do more than just click the apply button. Although they were a bit unscrupulous and claimed you must show printouts or emails of every single thing you do. I am not disagreeing here just throwing some thoughts and experiences into the discussion.

annandale

If I applied for as little as 7 jobs in a week because I spent an entire day on one application I would be looking at a potential sanction. That is the reality of it. Most work coaches would expect more than one application to be submitted per day.

MusicGirl97

I have spoken to a friend that is on universal credit and he did say that it depends fully on the workcoach. As in, some work coaches want you To break down the 5 hours and say exactly what you were doing for each hour. However some don’t. He’s had two work coaches and one was very strict and needed a complete break down but the newest one he has, she just basically looks at his job application section and journal section and makes sure he’s spent at least 5 different days applying for a couple of jobs each day and she’s happy!

But he told me not to worry because it’s my first work search appointment tomorrow and she will correct me about the way she expects it to be. And as for applications I haven’t been saying it took an hour to do every application but when I apply on the official company websites it does often take me an hour because I constantly have to amend my CV as I apply and I do cover letters for every application. I applied for Royal Mail the other day and it was such a big application and it took me an hour and a half to complete it. But I will make sure to take note of what she expects to be written in the journal.

I imagine next week I will be making a lot of journal entries saying I spent more time searching than applying. Because I’ve applied for a lot this week and some of the same adverts will be there next week of course.

System

Hi all,

Just wanted to add that filling in a journal daily to show evidence of job search is not a mandatory requirement.Neither is applying for x amount of jobs;that's not stated in any regulation ive come across.

"Where a claimant has done all that could reasonably be expected of them – for example they
have applied for all suitable jobs and undertaken all the activities set out in their Claimant
Commitment - this will be considered sufficient even if the time taken was less than their
expected hours."

There is nothing i am aware of that states anywhere that while on UC you have to message your work coach daily, or post to your journal.Others i know just use notepad type up every day and at the end of 1-2 weeks copy and paste the info all into journal.Also note you do not have to use the journal to show job search activities.Check out freedom of information act requests made to dwp on whatdotheyknow.

3. There is no recorded information on this issue because it is not a legal requirement of
claiming UC that a claimant provides a mobile phone number or an e-mail address. UC
can be paid to a claimant without either of these recorded.

Also bare in mind just because some jobsworth work coach thinks they can just impose what the hell they like on a claimant,they can't.The law is how it is as are the regulations they conveniently like to bypass this if they can.Id advise anyone trapped on this merry go round of UC to get fully acquainted with as many freedom of information requests as possible.They can be very handy pieces of info to have on you when it comes to being bullied by a work roach.


“It is not a mandatory requirement for the claimant to provide the required work search evidence via their journal. The claimant must be able to provide written evidence of their work search.

It is not mandatory for the claimant to upload their CV onto the journal, the claimant must however be able to show a completed and up to date CV. ”

DWP Response

It is not a mandatory requirement for the claimant to provide the required work search
evidence via their journal. The claimant must be able to provide written evidence of their work
search.

It is not mandatory for the claimant to upload their CV onto the journal, the claimant must
however be able to show a completed and up to date CV.




They like to be control freaks.Dont let them.





Hope this helps others.:)

tomtom256

UCvet wrote: »

Hi all,

Just wanted to add that filling in a journal daily to show evidence of job search is not a mandatory requirement.Neither is applying for x amount of jobs;that's not stated in any regulation ive come across.

"Where a claimant has done all that could reasonably be expected of them – for example they
have applied for all suitable jobs and undertaken all the activities set out in their Claimant
Commitment - this will be considered sufficient even if the time taken was less than their
expected hours."

There is nothing i am aware of that states anywhere that while on UC you have to message your work coach daily, or post to your journal.Others i know just use notepad type up every day and at the end of 1-2 weeks copy and paste the info all into journal.Also note you do not have to use the journal to show job search activities.Check out freedom of information act requests made to dwp on whatdotheyknow.

3. There is no recorded information on this issue because it is not a legal requirement of
claiming UC that a claimant provides a mobile phone number or an e-mail address. UC
can be paid to a claimant without either of these recorded.

Also bare in mind just because some jobsworth work coach thinks they can just impose what the hell they like on a claimant,they can't.The law is how it is as are the regulations they conveniently like to bypass this if they can.Id advise anyone trapped on this merry go round of UC to get fully acquainted with as many freedom of information requests as possible.They can be very handy pieces of info to have on you when it comes to being bullied by a work roach.


“It is not a mandatory requirement for the claimant to provide the required work search evidence via their journal. The claimant must be able to provide written evidence of their work search.

It is not mandatory for the claimant to upload their CV onto the journal, the claimant must however be able to show a completed and up to date CV. ”

DWP Response

It is not a mandatory requirement for the claimant to provide the required work search
evidence via their journal. The claimant must be able to provide written evidence of their work
search.

It is not mandatory for the claimant to upload their CV onto the journal, the claimant must
however be able to show a completed and up to date CV.




They like to be control freaks.Dont let them.





Hope this helps others.:)

What a thread resurrection.

No you don't have to provide it via journal, but as you have to provide evidence, why not just use the tool given and make easy for yourself?

Same goes for the CV, why not just upload?

Have you ever thought it was a test to check your IT skills and/or generally just help you to get used to using IT, which in turn would actually help some claimants get better at IT and in turn help with job searches etc.

donnajunkie

UCvet wrote: »

Hi all,

Just wanted to add that filling in a journal daily to show evidence of job search is not a mandatory requirement.Neither is applying for x amount of jobs;that's not stated in any regulation ive come across.

"Where a claimant has done all that could reasonably be expected of them – for example they
have applied for all suitable jobs and undertaken all the activities set out in their Claimant
Commitment - this will be considered sufficient even if the time taken was less than their
expected hours."

There is nothing i am aware of that states anywhere that while on UC you have to message your work coach daily, or post to your journal.Others i know just use notepad type up every day and at the end of 1-2 weeks copy and paste the info all into journal.Also note you do not have to use the journal to show job search activities.Check out freedom of information act requests made to dwp on whatdotheyknow.

3. There is no recorded information on this issue because it is not a legal requirement of
claiming UC that a claimant provides a mobile phone number or an e-mail address. UC
can be paid to a claimant without either of these recorded.

Also bare in mind just because some jobsworth work coach thinks they can just impose what the hell they like on a claimant,they can't.The law is how it is as are the regulations they conveniently like to bypass this if they can.Id advise anyone trapped on this merry go round of UC to get fully acquainted with as many freedom of information requests as possible.They can be very handy pieces of info to have on you when it comes to being bullied by a work roach.


“It is not a mandatory requirement for the claimant to provide the required work search evidence via their journal. The claimant must be able to provide written evidence of their work search.

It is not mandatory for the claimant to upload their CV onto the journal, the claimant must however be able to show a completed and up to date CV. ”

DWP Response

It is not a mandatory requirement for the claimant to provide the required work search
evidence via their journal. The claimant must be able to provide written evidence of their work
search.

It is not mandatory for the claimant to upload their CV onto the journal, the claimant must
however be able to show a completed and up to date CV.




They like to be control freaks.Dont let them.





Hope this helps others.:)

Please define written evidence because mine has actually written into my agreement that i take my log ins for online jobsearch and my email, i arent even on uc either. Therefore they think they can make me log in in front of them so that they can look at my private online accounts. They haven’t actually done it yet though.