Job seekers being ignored

Amalegra

The state of our employment services, which should actually help young people, is truly shocking and has been for some years. I am old enough to remember the Manpower Services Commission which was set up to assist those seeking employment. I used to work for them; the Jobcentres came under their auspices. We were trained extensively to help jobseekers by understanding their needs, their knowledge and their skills. There were government run Skillcentres to train for manual trades such as plumbing, carpentry etc. There were Youth Training Schemes for young people, specialist help for veterans of our Armed Forces, graduates and the disabled. These initiatives frequently led to employment as we kept track of the requirements of local employers and had good relationships with them. WHAT HAPPENED?! Now we don’t even have proper Careers Services or Job Clubs etc anymore, let alone training.. All governments have been perfectly aware of skill shortages but they have made no decent attempt to upskill the population, preferring to bring in cheap labour from overseas to fill the gaps and business has colluded in this. And look at how that’s turned out! We need properly trained advisors in Jobcentres who have links to and knowledge of the local labour market, rather than ‘Work Coaches’ who offer no real ‘coaching’ and whose primary function appears to be the enforcement of benefit regulations. I worked in this area for most of my working life and am sorry to see its founding principles so degraded. I truly sympathise with all those looking for work and in particular for our young people, like your son, who are willing and able but have been so badly served by successive short sighted governments. I only hope that the rhetoric that this new Labour government is expounding lives up to its fine promises!

Same here, Amalegra. I was one of those trained Employment Advisers. The private sector lobbied the then Government that they could offer the same service, enabling HMG to dispense with proper Jobcentres and save money. Hence where we are now. The current organsiations calling themselves Jobcentres are no such thing, imo.

I should add that we told him that the government provided computer training courses and he told us that he had never been offered a place on one.

OP - he could register with an agency (Reed etc).
What I loved about this when I moved to a new area was that they put me on temporary assignments in maybe 10 or more companies, some of the companies offered me permanent places, some of the companies, having seen the workings - I would decline (and was pleased not to have formally interviewed for a position), it gives you confidence and you get to experience a lot of different situations. You can see which companies you would like to work for - and those which you wouldn't. I also looks good on a CV - temporary assignments with x, y, and z companies.

My daughter chose not to go to university but has always been willing to take any work that was on offer. Although she's been made redundant a couple of times she was never without work for long, even if it was bar or shop work.
Today she has a job as an EA that she enjoys and that pays very well - more than my husband or I were earning when we retired 15 years ago, though we both had degrees and years of experience.
I'm not convinced that it is impossible to get work now. My daughter has foster children who always seem to manage to pick up work when they want it and who obviously find it easy to move on to a new job when they have work experience that shows they are reliable.

It’s not just young people. I’m a carer for my ASD son and every few years we have the circus of Capita and PIP during which time I am forced to look for a job until the appeal process reverses the decision. I have applied for thousands of jobs over the years and barely got a response, from being 48 to being 59. All the emphasis being put on ‘helping people into work’ under the Tories was a purely punitive approach when the issue is that employers don’t employ unless you have experience in the role, and even when I did, nothing happened which I put down to my age. I have always worked in some small way, I ran an ironing service until I developed sacroiliac syndrome and following that I started a small craft business and do YouTube tutorials. But I am only allowed to earn a small amount on Carers Allowance so when it gets stopped I don’t earn enough so have to look for a job! And nobody wants to employ me. So if I made more from my business (£250 a week is required by the Jobcentre - even though they only pay you £70ish in JS allowance 🤷🏼‍♀️) then when my sons PIP gets reinstated which it always does, I would be earning too much to claim CA. I hope the Labour government really will actually help people into work as they claim they will. The system as it is needs a complete overhaul. Liz Kendall says she will emphasise the help and reduce the punitive in the system. I hope she keeps her word.

When she was 18, my daughter applied for several jobs, eventually getting one which she loved in the few weeks she worked there. One day the boss came in and said he was going on holiday for a week and as there was nothing she could do whilst he was away, she could have the week off. She never heard of him again. To make things worse, he was an old school friend of my husband and wouldn't respond to my husband's messages either. We bumped into him a few years later where there was no apology, no recognition of his responsibility and he seemed to be lacking of any contrition whatsoever. He shrugged his shoulders and just said he'd been going through a bad time. Honestly, I wanted to give him a really bad time but my husband said it wasn't worth it. If he hadn't realised just how devastated my daughter was and how much it knocked her already fragile confidence, I thought it needed knocking into him! Fortunately I am not a violent person.

Has your grandson tried signing up with agencies for temporary jobs in areas of employment he is interested in? This can often lead to a permanent job.

Calendargirl

Sounds like my GS.

He left grammar school last year after doing his A levels. He didn’t want to go to university, which the school wants everyone to do. He didn’t have any clear idea what he wanted to do though.

He applied for over 40 apprenticeships or jobs, and heard nothing. They were for various roles, nothing specific.

Some of the office type ones, (not wanting to sound like a doting granny) he could have done standing on his head, just filing, answering the phone, general dogsbody. Zilch.

He is bright, presentable, used to communicating with others, polite, no trouble.

About 4 months after leaving, through a family connection, he did a trial at an electrical firm and is now an apprentice electrician with them.

He seems very settled there, enjoys the camaraderie with the other chaps and has earned enough to buy himself a little car.

Uni isn’t for everyone, but future employers need to look at their recruiting process.

Great training to have.. he'll always be in demand but it doesn't surprise me it was through family connections..

There are so many small start up companies Nanasam I wonder if he would be better approaching some directly.. with a CV.. especially if he has a particular interest...

All done by AI ticking their boxes

I remember being in a similar situation in the 80s! Just tell him to apply for everything - something will happen. He's wasting his time applying for very low level stuff, because if he comes across as able to do it 'standing on his head', they won't take him as they're sure he'll leave as soon as something better comes up.

Encourage him to go on to further study. It can be easier for Uni students to secure part time menial work than for unemployed teens to secure full time jobs.

Look into plumbing and gas fitting apprenticeships: there's a shortage of these trained tradesmen.

My granddaughter is experiencing the same however she has been invited to a couple of interviews. The morning of the first interview she received an email saying unfortunately due to sickness the interview would be rescheduled - a new date would be sent, two weeks later, she had received nothing so she contacted them, but received no reply. The second interview was on a Sunday morning and asked if I could take her as public transport didn't start early enough. She went in and I waited in the car, she eventually came out and told me the interviewer wasn't there and the young man who was said he wasn't due for another 2 hours. She showed him the invitation to interview, he took her phone number and said he would ask him to ring her when he arrived - no phone call!! I can see her getting more despondent - she knows what she wants to do but needs a driving licence, before she can apply and obviously needs money to be able to do this. She's been volunteering at an animal charity, has done her Bronze DofE, has recently completed her Young Leader Qualification with Rainbows and has been a member of a local Op and Dram Society since she was 6 years old.

what`s with this,!" a letter" I thought we were in the age of technology, what does it take, cost wise or energy wise to send a simple text???? no excuse!

I agree absolutely with your comment Amalega. When I left school not knowing what to do next I saw a Youth Employment Officer at a proper Careers Centre. After listening to me, he proposed two alternative options - he knew all the local employers and a lot about college courses. We really need to reestablish these Centres again.. I don't know how anyone navigates the online careers service now, it's far too generalised and not local enough.

Boz

Sometimes it is just a case of who you know. Many jobs are filled by personal recommendation. A big local Company was well-known for never having to advertise as so-and-so's son/daughter/niece/ nephew/friend was given preference.
Also, I believe hands-on jobs are not so popular. Hairdressing/Waitressing.
There also seems to be a dearth of summer jobs for students.

Hairdressing/Waitressing

There's a bit of difference between those two jobs!

I hope you don't let an untrained person cut/style/colour your hair!

Of course, some waiting-on staff are silver service trained but rarely these days.

Amalegra and Blinko, I agree with every word you say.Cassar, too.In a previous existence, I was one of those careers advisers who replaced the former youth employment officers - much the same sort of animal! However, the job in the late 60's/ early 70's became graduate entry, and funding was at that time made available - either to do a year's full time postgraduate training, or two years working for a local authority while attending block release courses on education, employment, and psychology before qualifying.

25% of our time as advisers had to be spent in a wide range of workplaces, training centres and places of higher and further education. We met and talked to people (employed at all levels) about their work; and undertook detailed job studies in as many areas as possible e.g. hospitals,restaurants, newspapers and television; engineering companies; museums, laboratories, musical instrument makers, fashion and the then new computer aided design opportunities. We were then better placed to support the careers teachers in the five or six schools assigned to each of us.These last arranged for us to have regular contact with groups and individual children, all between the ages of 13 and 18, helping them to understand their academic strengths and weaknesses, and how these could be linked to their interests and local and national opportunities. It was especially satisfying when you had time to get to know the young people concerned, if only superficially, and it proved possible to help a young person into his or her field of choice, at whatever level.

The only disappointing thing for me was that my own local authority did not allow the transfer of recorded information relating to careers interviews with young people to employment advisers at the local job centre. This might have been helpful, especially to 16 year old school leavers seeking work, or those 18 year olds who did not wish to enter higher education . I always felt that if the person him/ herself was happy for this to happen, it might have saved the EAs a lot of time....

Getting started can be extraordinarily difficult if the young person doesn't have family/ friends to make an introduction and smooth the way - this certainly does happen for a few. But most aren't going to be so lucky. I agree with Amalegra that the employment services used to offer much better designed support. I particularly remember good support for young people with disabilities - the advisor who knew them well and helped them get the job, used to remain involved for at least a year to help and mediate in the case of any difficulties or misunderstandings. This made a huge difference to the chances of these young people actually suceeding in the job, remaining employed and contributing.

Unfortunately some employers receive so many applications that it would be too time consuming to reply to them. As for not getting help to get into work the focus is now on the unemployed person to work at getting themselves into employment. There are training courses out there but not lots of funding for them. All they can do is keep applying and not lose hope as there are lots of people chasing these jobs.

When I was at school in the late 1950s there were carers officers who came into the schools and did exactly as the job title suggests. That was how I initially came to apply for the civil service. As now, the process of waiting for an appointment took months and my parents were whinging about my getting a job. Any job!

I had a part time job in the local chip shop and simply stepped up my hours until my appointment came through.

I didnt last long in the civil service but the next job I took - which eventually became my first career - I got by chatting to the librarian in my local branch. She told me all about the work and even got me the application form,.

Job applicants now are pretty much left to their own devices when it comes to the application process and developing interview skills.

Back in those days the careers officers who came into our school seemed quite unimaginative and useless, biglouis

Teaching, Civil Service and Local Government jobs seemed to be the limit of their advice.
I remember one girl saying she wanted to become a surgeon and they told her not to be ridiculous, women didn't become surgeons.

My grandson got an apprenticeship and 6 months before it ended they made him redundant. Luckily he found another job that agreed he could finish his apprenticeship and they kept him on afterwards

Is he applying for anything or is his CV ^targeted?

Is he rewriting it for every job?