Sunday 2 September 2012

Feckless Is As Feckless Does

I've now been unemployed for 7 weeks and in that time have been turned down for an interview for a position that I spent 18 months doing by the company I used to work for (but in a different location) because I 'wasn't experienced enough'; been to an "assessment" for a job described to me as "helping people out with their mortgages" which, when I turned up to it, was actually debt collection; and yesterday I was turned down for a 3 month temporary Admin job by a company who carries the Investors In People, Navajo, and Investors In Diversity watermarks - which I spent 5 hours filling in their application form detailing how I met each of their 9 criteria, point by point - because I lack the 'skills and experience', despite the fact it sounded 99% the same as the last two Admin jobs I had.
So when the right wing press describes the unemployed as "feckless" it sticks in the throat somewhat.
The only people who seem to be "feckless" are the people who I must rely on to get me back into work.
Besides what I describe above, I have found The Job Centre to be a total waste of space (practically everything they've told me has been wrong - to the extent I'm now thinking whatever they say, the reverse must be true!), the government seem to be doing anything they can to make the situation worse rather than better, and the prescribed solution to this problem has been to carry on doing what clearly hasn't been working since I was made redundant last October!
However, I'm not one to keep banging my head against a wall and hope for a different result each time.
Despite The Job Centre telling me not to bother, I went to Penwortham Work Club and in my two visits there they've made me feel a whole lot more positive about my situation.
Unlike The Job Centre, they appear to care about me and understand how bleak it is in the job market. They're also staffed by 4 experienced Careers Advisers/HR Managers and thus the advice they've given has yielded proper, noticeable, results.
They're the ones who got me to chase up Preston College to find out what was going on with my application for the PTLLS course. If I hadn't I probably would never have found out until it was too late that the college had somehow lost it and I thus needed to go and enrole last Thursday.
It is also PWC who helped me improve my covering letter which, in the two days I've been using it, seems to be provoking a lot more interest from employers.
Maybe the next thing I'll get them to do is show me how to fill in application forms so I'm not wasting 5 hours not to even get a sodding interview from people who claim to be taking positive action towards recruiting me!