Made redundant recently. What the heck just happened at the Job Centre?

asim18

asim18

asim18

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So anyway company I worked for lost two clients this year, and they just couldn't afford to keep me. The office was getting too quiet and it was inevitable as I was the last one in. Cant blame em really so moving on...

So anyway, at the job centre. The woman asks to see my CV. On it I have the following section:

Professional Qualifications: Currently studying for Microsoft Certified Professional qualifications.


Now she sees this and tells me I need to give her the name of the college and enrolment details etc. I politely explain to her I'm not an enrolled student, and that I'm just preparing myself for an exam which I may decide to take in the future.

Then she bursts into a fit of rage, and says "Don't pretend I'm stupid! It's written here that you're "currently studying for..." I want all your course details".

At this point I understood that she was in actuality, stupid, and that she knew full well that she was stupid and had underlying stress issues relating to this awareness.

So trying my utmost to not make her feel stupid at all, I explain that there is no course of study, and that I'm merely studying from books and the internet and then practice on servers.

She asks, "Who's servers?"

Kicking myself for mentioning jargon, I reply slowly, "My servers", wondering why she wants to know whose server it is.

Her head still tilted down towards the CV on her desk, she makes eye contact through the top of her reading glasses, then grabs a blank appointment card. "You have untill the 25th to provide me with your course details and the names of your servers." then hands me the appointment card.

I leave absolutely bamboozled at what just transpired.

So people of OcUK, what the hell should I do on the 25th? The woman is clearly not fit enough to be alone in public let alone be dealing with members of the public.

The entire office is full of barely literate Pakistanis and Indians and they seem to be running the place while sheltering management. I asked at the reception if I could speak to a manager, hoping that the manager would be at least have an English accent and the idiot gets what I believed to be his mother to call me back and tell me I need to bring what the interviewer asked for or go get a job.
 
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If theres more than one job center in your area go to the other one and tell them the other one sent you there saying they don't cover your postcode lol... they get confused usually and end up taking you on anyway. (Or refer you back to hopefully a different person).

(This might not actually be good advice - just know someone who did that to get away from a useless advisor).
 
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Take it off your CV. Present new CV, say sorry for the mis understanding. Do as they say, make them feel empowering. Got the T's and cross the i's as they say...

Send old CV with it on to job adverts, show that youve applied to x amount of jobs per week, get job on your own without any help becuase they are incompetent retards who don't understand or know jack about actually helping you.

Thats what I did.
 
I'd go back on the 25th with the details of the accreditation you are working towards with the fact that you are teaching yourself using available resources written in big bold letters. I'd then name your servers; Bob, Harry, Susan etc. :p

EDIT - the above is better advice. Just remember that for every person genuinely looking for a job they deal with three who are living it up in benefit Britain and have no intention of ever working. I was lucky when I had to sign on after leaving uni. They could see I was trying to get a job and were open about the fact that they probably wouldn't be able to offer much help to a graduate looking for an electronics position.
 
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Doesn't surprise me at all! this pretty much sums up my limited experience of the job center (short period between uni and first 'real job')

EDIT:
lordrobs said:
I was lucky when I had to sign on after leaving uni. They could see I was trying to get a job and were open about the fact that they probably wouldn't be able to offer much help to a graduate looking for an electronics position.
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Same for me only in the IT industry, still felt like I was being spoken down to excessively at times though.
 
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She sounds a bit mental....just full in the form stating that you are self studying for the MCP and using your own server. I don't see that its really any of there business other than that.

Do you even need the job centre to find a job?
 
lordrobs said:
EDIT - the above is better advice. Just remember that for every person genuinely looking for a job they deal with three who are living it up in benefit Britain and have no intention of ever working. I was lucky when I had to sign on after leaving uni. They could see I was trying to get a job and were open about the fact that they probably wouldn't be able to offer much help to a graduate looking for an electronics position.
Click to expand...

More to the point the job center exists to manage unemployment not to actually get people back into work :S
 
Presumably because its not 'official' they see it as of limited benefit, otherwise I guess you could put that you are studying to be a nuclear scientist or pretty much whatever. Probably best for their purposes to just stick to official stuff.
 
I was literally confused and wondered if i was actually in motors, It appears I am. Did you actually expect any better than this? I've not had any dealings with them myself but if you judge it with the same yard stick as hmrc and the dvla you know it's going to be a mission.
 
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They are asking for the details because the government does not make jobseekers allowance available to those in full time education (there are some exceptions to this but I won't bore you with the restrictions). The jobcentre does get a lot of applicants for benefit who are full time students seeking to abuse the benefit system and simply use it as a way to pay their way through education rather than using the student loan system - a lot of these people are neither available for work or genuinely looking for a job, thus are deemed ineligible. Anyone engaged in a course of study can be required to produce details of the course and their hours of study in order to establish whether they have a genuine entitlement to benefit. Some advisors will get a bit grouchy about this as they see so many people taking the mick...thats why you got a bit of a grilling I expect.

If you explain that it is a self study, distance or e-learning programme and provide a learning agreement and details of the course content and educational establishment (if there is one) then this may be treated as straightforward by your advisor (if clearly part time and not impacting upon your ability to take up or look for a job), and will have no effect on your claim. It may be sent to a decision maker to make this judgement if there any ambiguities, this can again either be straightforward in which case your claim will proceed as normal, or they can decide you are not entitled to JSA as they consider you a full time student or otherwise unavailable for work. Take some proof or documentation with you on the 25th....its quite routine although it seems like it was not explained properly.
 
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I'd imagine the problem is that with the Tory encouraged culture of victimising and sanctioning anyone daring to claim benefits the only people left at the Job Centre are either too stupid to realise what damage their actions cause (and hence stupid in general) or completely devoid of any conscience and sadistic in nature (and hence extremely rude).
 
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Why would you even put that on your CV? You are not currently studying for a formal qualification if you are not enrolled somewhere so it is irrelevant...

Essentially you are tinkering with your own server which is not the same as studying for a formal qualification.

/Salsa
 
Will said:
They are asking for the details because the government does not make jobseekers allowance available to those in full time education (there are some exceptions to this but I won't bore you with this). The jobcentre does get a lot of applicants for benefit who are full time students seeking to abuse the benefit systemand simply use it as a way to pay their way through education rather than using the student loan system - a lot of these people are neither available for work or actively looking for one, thus are ineligible. Anyone engaged in a course of study can be required to produce details of the course and their hours of study in order to establish whether they have a genuine entitlement to benefit.

If you explain that it is a distance or e-learning programme and provide a learning agreement and details of the course content and educational establish then this may be treated as straightforward by your advisor (if clearly part time and not impacting upon your ability to take up a job), and will have no effect on your claim. It may be sent to a decision maker to make this decision if there any ambiguities. Take this with you on the 25th....its quite routine although it seems like it was not explained properly.
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Yep what you're saying is completely right. The thing is I put that line "currently studying for MCP" just to show employers I'd actively like to remain in IT and I'm not just sitting on my arse between jobs. In no way does it interfere with my eligibility for JSA.

It's literally like saying "I am currently studying Harry Potter books" or "I enjoy studying encyclopaedic articles".

The advisor is simply seeing the word "studying" and isn't comprehending the whole sentence properly. It isn't even in the education section of my CV.

Its just utter lunacy. I'm not going to cater my CV for a bunch of illiterate immigrants working at a dodgy Job Centre just so I can get my entitlement, I'm going to cater it for potential employers.
 
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Salsa said:
Why would you even put that on your CV? You are not currently studying for a formal qualification if you are not enrolled somewhere so it is irrelevant...

Essentially you are tinkering with your own server which is not the same as studying for a formal qualification.

/Salsa
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I disagree.

I'm currently studying for something similar and I'm completely entitled to mention that on my CV as many people do. Employers understand the difference between attained and working towards.

The JC obviously just want proof as they get played too often. I'd stick with the advice Psypher5 gave. Failing that, take your books in and dump them on her desk, explain you're booking the exam as an independent student when you're done.
 
Yeah it seems your CV is in actual fact retarded not job centre, why would you put that ? Just put it on when you actually have the qualification as before that it's meaningless to all employers

The only time I have put a pending qualification is that time you are waiting your degree
 
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