Anyway Else Finding it Really Hard to Get a Job?

MattMattMattUK

debtslave2024 said:

@discat11 I am hearing from fellow employees much younger than myself, that they are also finding it hard to get decent employment, though I suspect that once you are over 45, it will become harder, and harder with each year that passes.

I think it depends on the profession. For manual labour absolutely, for desk based roles many actually favour older workers, they are generally more experienced, have a more relaxed attitude, trying to prove themselves less and perhaps most importantly tend not to disappear for child/childcare related issues.

debtslave2024 said:

In my city, which I believe is typical of the UK outwith London, a quick daily job search would seem to suggest that much of the employment on offer is minimum wage, bottom of the barrel, “pump and dump” stuff, i.e. short term/dead end jobs, often 3 month/zero hour contracts, burger flipping, pushing things about in warehouses etc. 

It is not particularly regional but those are the jobs that get advertised, I see a lot of recruitment for jobs above minimum wage done either by temp-to-perm type placements, or word of mouth, asking current employees if they know people, having a hunt on LinkedIn etc. because as you mention otherwise they get swamped with hundreds of CVs for every position. I know someone who advertised for a few minimum wage jobs, they got over a thousand applications. There were a bunch of properly genuine ones, but also hundreds were spammed at them by agencies even though they specifically said they would not accept applications via agencies, as well as a bunch who were just going through the motions to get the required number of applications in to continue to claim benefit, one even had hobbies listed as "Drinking alcohol". 

debtslave2024 said:

I never used to understand the amount of people that I saw queuing up at food banks around me, but now I certainly do!

Having helped out in a food bank for just over two years the reasons for food bank usage are complex and rarely relate to the jobs market. In my experience the biggest cause of need for single time users is the initial UC payment delay and the biggest causes of repeat users were disability, addiction, having many children people who were fleeing domestic abuse. 

FlyMeSomewhere79

I'm 44 and generally H&S by trade and recently made redundant from a steel mill that has been sadly shutdown and I'll soon be followed by 2500 steelworkers from our other local steelworks!

I've managed to get a good few applications in and a couple of interviews lined up but one isn't until 16th Oct annoyingly! The ghost jobs are doing my head in! I've example is a job that I applied for back on May 10th when we were told our plant would close in a few months - I heard nothing and that job is still popping up on alerts now almost 5 months later!

I did turn down an interview for a learning & development job at a fish factory 30 miles away which I don't like to knock opportunities but it wasn't a great wage for the commute and the factory has already shut one site this year & laid 258 off, the reviews on Indeed from workers aren't great either. I had a brief experience of a factory once and the expected me to sign off workers with no grasp of English whatsoever as having understood a site safety induction and I don't ever want to risk going back to a situation like that. Some people think you should be willing to take any job but to me it has to be the right one, right location, somewhere I can be relatively contented and settle for the rest of my career. 

EnPointe

lincroft1710 said:

debtslave2024 said:

 I will also have to remove large sections of my employment over the years also. There won’t be much left on my CV!

Leaving employment gaps on your CV will at best lead to questions being asked, at worst automatic placement on the reject pile.

however   changing the presentation your  work history  is not a problem 

some  organisations like to see  detailed  stuff for the past 5 / 10  years ( or last couple of jobs if you've been in one role for  more than the 5 or 10 years )  and the rest of your work history  just one liner   - job title / employer/ dates 

TELLIT01

Pinklepurr said:

It’s tough out there! After a recent redundancy my husband has found that it is the most difficult jobs market he has experienced in decades.  He was made redundant from a management job, but has many years of hands on technical experience, but he has found it impossible so far to secure a new role.  Common themes seem to be applications disappearing into the ether without any response, recruiters failing to return calls, jobs wanting every single skill imaginable for less than half of his previous salary. No feedback following interviews, jobs being withdrawn and then being filled internally. Companies changing their minds as to what they need or putting recruitment on hold.  Age discrimination is rife. Plus of course there is the sheer number of applicants. What we have noticed is that if you are a Project Manager then there are tons of jobs out there, or qualified in “agile methodologies”, that’s another one!  Companies are also now full of “Talent Aquisition” people who are the gatekeepers to the hiring managers.  We’ve just got to hang in there and keep trying but it is soul destroying and erodes your self esteem.

Over the years I think I either had personal experience of most of those, or knew somebody who had.  Most common was advertising jobs, actually interviewing people and then filling internally.  At one time public sector organisations were almost forced to advertise externally even when they knew who they wanted for the job - the internal applicant.  I was sent for one job by an agency and when I was waiting to be taken through for my interview could see the screen showing all the interview times and other information.  Over the 2 days shown on the diary on screen I was the only external applicant.  Guess who didn't get the job.    I also had a situation where a job description required two very different areas of expertise.  I thought all my Christmases had arrived at once as I had been responsible for researching and implementing both the required systems.  I received a letter thanking me for my application but that I didn't meet the required criteria and hadn't been shortlisted.  For the only time in my life, I called their HR department and asked them to simply confirm that the job hadn't been filled internally.  They refused to comment.

Pinklepurr

TELLIT01 said:

Pinklepurr said:

It’s tough out there! After a recent redundancy my husband has found that it is the most difficult jobs market he has experienced in decades.  He was made redundant from a management job, but has many years of hands on technical experience, but he has found it impossible so far to secure a new role.  Common themes seem to be applications disappearing into the ether without any response, recruiters failing to return calls, jobs wanting every single skill imaginable for less than half of his previous salary. No feedback following interviews, jobs being withdrawn and then being filled internally. Companies changing their minds as to what they need or putting recruitment on hold.  Age discrimination is rife. Plus of course there is the sheer number of applicants. What we have noticed is that if you are a Project Manager then there are tons of jobs out there, or qualified in “agile methodologies”, that’s another one!  Companies are also now full of “Talent Aquisition” people who are the gatekeepers to the hiring managers.  We’ve just got to hang in there and keep trying but it is soul destroying and erodes your self esteem.

Over the years I think I either had personal experience of most of those, or knew somebody who had.  Most common was advertising jobs, actually interviewing people and then filling internally.  At one time public sector organisations were almost forced to advertise externally even when they knew who they wanted for the job - the internal applicant.  I was sent for one job by an agency and when I was waiting to be taken through for my interview could see the screen showing all the interview times and other information.  Over the 2 days shown on the diary on screen I was the only external applicant.  Guess who didn't get the job.    I also had a situation where a job description required two very different areas of expertise.  I thought all my Christmases had arrived at once as I had been responsible for researching and implementing both the required systems.  I received a letter thanking me for my application but that I didn't meet the required criteria and hadn't been shortlisted.  For the only time in my life, I called their HR department and asked them to simply confirm that the job hadn't been filled internally.  They refused to comment.

It’s maddening isn’t it?  The most ridiculous one was where my husband applied for a job online. Within the space of the time it took him to walk downstairs and tell me about it (3-4 minutes only) he had been rejected!  He contacted the recruiter and asked if they had actually read his CV and application? They said yes and that all proper processes had been followed, well that must have been a lie as there was barely enough time to skim read it.  I’ve even heard of people getting to a third interview and suddenly being told the job description had been completely changed and they were no longer suitable and one person who has 5 x 1 hour interviews for the same firm and then was completely ghosted!  So much has changed for job seekers and not in a good way.

FlyMeSomewhere79

Things really have changed for job seekers, there's no real appetite out there to help people into alternative work and yes it's disheartening when computerised recruitment system immediately reject you and stop you being able to tell a human being what previous experience you have that is actually very relevant!

Jobs fairs are a disappointment, myself and 126 colleagues were laid off recently when our small steel mill was shut down and 2500 are going to follow on from the large steelworks next door to it so when a jobs fair was held in our town the other I wasn't surprised to see quite a big crowd waiting outside for it to it. It was touted as "want a career change or exciting new opportunity" but it was a bit pathetic!

The 50+ employers turned out to be more nearer 20 if that, minus volunteering and retraining stands which were no good to anyone needing an.imcome, you had all the branches of the armed forces which was no good to the cast majority of job seekers in that room that are not under 30 to enlist!! Other stands were only looking for production line workers and a couple of stands were just telling you to look at what jobs they had available online! It was a disappointingly useless experience! 

Grumpy_chap

FlyMeSomewhere79 said:

Things really have changed for job seekers, there's no real appetite out there to help people into alternative work and yes it's disheartening when computerised recruitment system immediately reject you and stop you being able to tell a human being what previous experience you have that is actually very relevant!

Jobs fairs are a disappointment, myself and 126 colleagues were laid off recently when our small steel mill was shut down and 2500 are going to follow on from the large steelworks next door to it so when a jobs fair was held in our town the other I wasn't surprised to see quite a big crowd waiting outside for it to it. It was touted as "want a career change or exciting new opportunity" but it was a bit pathetic!

The 50+ employers turned out to be more nearer 20 if that, minus volunteering and retraining stands which were no good to anyone needing an.imcome, you had all the branches of the armed forces which was no good to the cast majority of job seekers in that room that are not under 30 to enlist!! Other stands were only looking for production line workers and a couple of stands were just telling you to look at what jobs they had available online! It was a disappointingly useless experience! 

The personnel staffing recruitment fair stands can be very varied - my wife once had a temporary job to just staff the recruitment fair stand for the company at a Graduate Fair.  My wife never worked for the company before or after and cannot have possibly have given any insight as to what the company was all about 

Despite the possible failings, it is always worth approaching all types of recruiter with an open and positive attitude as there are often jobs outside the default expectation for the employer.  The armed forces, for example, don't only enlist young recruits into armed roles but can also be seeking engineers and medics and such like into civilian roles.  I am the wrong side of 50 and have just completed a year of work in the army, having never been even so much as a TA member previously.  Nothing in my role involved any physical fitness or arms training - wholly civilian in nature.  I would say that the experience has been positive thus far and the culture is a very modern and forward looking employer.