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The job hunting support thread

well, phone call was a job offer. he was upfront about saying i was second choice and first choice had turned it down (i'm pretty sure i've been in that position before, but they usually just flannel and say the decision was delayed)

i've been given until wednesday morning to make a decision.

fairly high meh factor at the moment.

ETA - going to say no thanks.

meh

they have re-advertised, so either they didn't have a third / subsequent choice, or the third / subsequent choices have also said no thanks...
 
Feels like a blunt instrument.

Reminds me of the apocryphal story about someone who had 100 applications back when they were all on paper and chucked 80 of them in a bin, leaving 20 of them to review.

“I want the person I hire to be lucky” was the punchline
It is a blunt instrument, problem is when you have 300 applications they have to reduce it somehow and no one is going through all of that. Chatgpt may be useful for crafting some additional filter friendly bullshit, I know I will be using it this time to add bits.
 
Good luck with your search. It's just never easy, even in a good economy.

A year ago, I filed an application for a library job. I received a rejection email 10 minutes later. Since this was about 11:00 pm on a Sunday, I'm pretty sure no human even looked at my application.
I had one of those early on in my job search. I did send an email back to them saying, surely no-one has actually looked at my application given the time that had elapsed between submission and rejection, and to be fair they did apologise and say that it had been rejected in error.

They then sat on it for a few weeks and then rejected it...
 
Difficult to know what to do.

I'm straddling two jobs at the moment. A nice cutesy part time job I'm loving with great work conditions that's (relatively) low paid, and the other one is essentially now consulting/freelancing at my old job (high paid, fairytale job title, absolute made in hell shitshow).

A couple jobs I'm interested in have come up.

The first one would be full time, so I'd have to drop both my current jobs. Income would be the same as what I'm making now (the salary is the average of my current two jobs). Potentially very very good for career development. But I feel a bit meh about it.

The second one is another part time one. I could keep one of my jobs, realistically the nice part time one. Could be good crack. Again, low paid, but would be more secure and less lonely than what I'm doing at the moment. Potential for a change of career that I'd already been eyeing up anyway but also in that context the job feels a bit of a slow path or dead end.

They're both at the same org and the job portal is a nightmare so I think I have to only apply for one!!! And they use the same application for the second one. They're two very different jobs.
 
Hard to understand the reason for these auto-rejects, have they already hired but not closed the job advert off, have they reached a predetermined limit of applications?

Would be interesting to find out if it was actually possible to speak to a human being

That's the annoying thing about auto-rejects. You don't know what you need to change in your application to better target their needs.
 
Had an almost-confirmed job offer for over a week and yesterday morning they told me they'd definitely confirm by the end of today. They haven't told me anything. And my current workplace is wanting to know if I'm sticking around there, and I've had to fob them off because I've been waiting for this other offer. Which doesn't sit well with me at all. Now it's Friday night and it's half term next week so little prospect of sorting any of this out. As it stands I have one more week of confirmed employment and that's it. My current school could have found a replacement for me and would have been within their rights to do so.

Shit show, basically. I'm trying to work out how to tell my possible new employer in respectful but unambiguous terms that the way they've treated me has been unprofessional and shit. If you tell someone you'll do something, you should fucking well do it.
 
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Been to the Job Centre as a punter today for the first time in 53 years.
Ended up going to two different Centres after they phoned me up whilst driving home after leaving my details at the first one.
All very strange for someone who has never used this kind of service or claimed anything other than child benefit.
Expected it to be a much more stressful and/or demoralising experience than it ultimately turned out to be.
Which was nice.
 
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Need to register with job centre and all the other crap, tax credits, PPC cert etc, is there any website for oh shit I am unemployed and need to tell people thing with a list?
I'd be interested in the same if there is a one stop shop for all things I need to know.

I'm using a combination of :
www.gov.uk
and my local Council's Benefits pages
 
Need to register with job centre and all the other crap, tax credits, PPC cert etc, is there any website for oh shit I am unemployed and need to tell people thing with a list?

I'd be interested in the same if there is a one stop shop for all things I need to know.

citizens advice have this


a couple of other random thoughts -

a change in employment status might be something you need to notify home / car insurers about

not sure whether a claim for JSA will also be passed on to local council as a claim for council tax benefit / reduction, so may be worth checking with local council - any council tax reduction on grounds of low income will be 'means tested' so partner's income (where relevant) and savings (ditto) will be taken in to account, even if they are not relevant to contributions based JSA.

also, be aware that not all 'benefits' trigger free prescriptions and the like - i'm out of touch with it all, but have seen a few things about some people who have ticked the box to say they are on benefits and got free prescriptions, then got in to trouble for not being on the right sort of benefits. It may only be the means tested ones that count.
 
citizens advice have this


a couple of other random thoughts -

a change in employment status might be something you need to notify home / car insurers about

not sure whether a claim for JSA will also be passed on to local council as a claim for council tax benefit / reduction, so may be worth checking with local council - any council tax reduction on grounds of low income will be 'means tested' so partner's income (where relevant) and savings (ditto) will be taken in to account, even if they are not relevant to contributions based JSA.

also, be aware that not all 'benefits' trigger free prescriptions and the like - i'm out of touch with it all, but have seen a few things about some people who have ticked the box to say they are on benefits and got free prescriptions, then got in to trouble for not being on the right sort of benefits. It may only be the means tested ones that count.
Yeh not my first rodeo unfortunately, something that was actually linked would be very useful, I find I have to do job centre, tax lot, tax credits lot, NHS now they stung me with fines after I damn well paid for PPC regardless.

Will be contributions based as we have a LISA to save towards a house so over limit and SO does not work as she cannot but the nonsensical boundaries make it impossible to claim. When it is MH and intermittent hows that even work? I won't put her through that. We looked at it together a few times and just looked like a fail, general and social anxiety mixed with sleep disorders the doctors refuse to medicate as much as they come up. However she is very intelligent and can perform the basic tasks they require on 1 hours sleep and uses coping mechanisms to get around the rest. I dont care if I am the sole earner if she does not have to run the gauntlet of making things worse for her.

I never wanted free prescriptions, I paid for the year PPC and it was then paid monthly but oddly over 10 months, then they cancelled it cos I started work? Not when I claimed jsa contib for 6 months. Then said that was for my benefit, but did not tell me, then fined us 3x the entire annual fee for falsely claiming when we thought we were paid up. I now have a huge bill and an MP to bother, again, about the same issue. They did the same thing before when they fucked up the paperwork about me living here (had been for the previous house and it all transferred but idk?) then claimed back 2k while we were on benefits, when we were entitled to it anyway on the basis the amounts would have been the same regardless of me being here or not. They then, after I talked to 25 people to find one who knew the rule, claimed it had been done without her knowledge within the last 2 years (how?) and so would not apply. Tbh I think they owe us 2k and we will get this back once MP is involved but fucking hell if we did not have a cushion caused basically by my gran dying then we would have been screwed.

On Insurance, we don't have home and drivers is in the non employed persons name for the car.
 
I am stalling on doing my CV for some reason even tho its mainly done and obviously there's the general shitness of not being employed when you need to be and I am paying off fines for nothing while also having to press against that with the MP again, which is annoyingly a Tory. Is actually loads of jobs coming up I am really suited for and some on even more than I was on the last time with less responsibilities and more leave. Up til today tho I have kind of enjoyed not having to work 5 days a week. Seeing the credit card paid off and other costs disappear from my last pay is depressing tho as its like theres the countdown to you being worse off than before you started on better pay and responsibilities. We are making positive steps to reduce some expenses but others grew where they should not have this week, can't be doing loads of whatever and be also someone capable of doing the jobs. Week off after stressy stuff is one thing but continuing is another.

I have a lot of calls and admin crap to do tomorrow and I fucking hate it, the people I did this stuff with at work were competent and well paid for the job required. Those I now have to deal with are not and frankly I agree with their lack of enthusiasm.
Always reminds me of the David Mitchell quote about poor customer service, I worked loads of those jobs, at no point did I give a shit either way. It was just a means to a paycheque and frankly, that attitude has never changed. I don't care if x company is doing great unless I have shares in them. Which for every single job so far, I have not, despite more shares than the modal average, which I would guess is 0 outside of pensions.
 
Got an interview next week for a teaching job. Just sent off an automated social media check thing, turns out it not only digs up private facebook posts but it sends a report directly to my prospective employer. One (friends-only) flagged post was a six-paragraph rant from last year where I swore to never work in mainstream schools again because they're irredeemably corrupt etc etc insert standard spookyfrank education diatribe here. It was all derived from a day where I'd been particularly annoyed by my then employer's uniform policy, but the whole thing does not look good

So the people who might offer me a job, and who were up until yesterday so keen that they offered to bring my interview forward if I had any others lined up, now get to read about how much I fucking hate schools. Not sure how I can spin that, or if I'll even get the chance.

The moral of the story is, read the form before you press the 'consent' button and don't try and do important shit on your phone while on the train home from work on a Friday afternoon.

Update: they gave me the job anyway!

Not without a very long conversation about code of conduct which left me in little doubt that any further facebook rants would be dealt with harshly. I did manage to spin it as me caring too much about my students' wellbeing though.
 
Fun thing is I already work there one day a week as agency staff so if my interview gets cancelled or it still happens and I crash and burn, I have to be back in two days later.

And yeah, 24 hours ago I was thinking I've got this in the bag, I'd have to do something really special to fuck it up. And as always, the universe says 'hold my beer'.

Might turn out to be for the best. For all the time I've been teaching I've wondered to myself how long I can cling on for. It's a ridiculous and impossible job and it's putting years on me. The offending facebook post was explicitly written as a reminder to myself not to do it any more. Most likely, frank from last year had a point. Litmus test will be how this school responds. If they write me off because I had a bad day and went off on one for an audience of 150 randoms, that'd kind of prove my original point about the whole thing being a crock of shit.

That being said I feel pretty angry and stupid right now and could do with some supportive platitudes or something :(
They will probably have been in the same position at some point, working somewhere that had that effect on them. Or had an off day somewhere they previously and subsequently liked working.

The fact that you're already working there as a supply teacher and yet you've applied for a job there says something good about them.

'Well, of course, I was having an off day, who hasn't had one at some point? And while I wouldn't want to return there, once I'd had time to reflect, I decided I didn't want to let one bad experience put me off teaching as a whole, I decided to give it another go somewhere else, to persevere. And that's how I ended up here, luckily. As a result of that experience, I think I've developed resilience and better coping strategies, and I know more about myself and my working style and the kind of environment where I'm not dreading going into work, but one where I can thrive and enjoy my job. And I've worked here long enough to gain enough of that kind of insight to know that I would like to join the team here on a permanent basis. I guess I've sort of had a test drive, and now I'm in a position to buy, and I'd quite like to, thank you.'

Or something like that, put a positive spin on it.
 
Been to the Job Centre as a punter today for the first time in 53 years.
Ended up going to two different Centres after they phoned me up whilst driving home after leaving my details at the first one.
All very strange for someone who has never used this kind of service or claimed anything other than child benefit.
Expected it to be a much more stressful and/or demoralising experience than it ultimately turned out to be.
Which was nice.
Yeah, the job centre have been great tbf.
 
They will probably have been in the same position at some point, working somewhere that had that effect on them. Or had an off day somewhere they previously and subsequently liked working.

The fact that you're already working there as a supply teacher and yet you've applied for a job there says something good about them.

'Well, of course, I was having an off day, who hasn't had one at some point? And while I wouldn't want to return there, once I'd had time to reflect, I decided I didn't want to let one bad experience put me off teaching as a whole, I decided to give it another go somewhere else, to persevere. And that's how I ended up here, luckily. As a result of that experience, I think I've developed resilience and better coping strategies, and I know more about myself and my working style and the kind of environment where I'm not dreading going into work, but one where I can thrive and enjoy my job. And I've worked here long enough to gain enough of that kind of insight to know that I would like to join the team here on a permanent basis. I guess I've sort of had a test drive, and now I'm in a position to buy, and I'd quite like to, thank you.'

Or something like that, put a positive spin on it.

That's pretty much beat for beat the line I sold them, with an extra bit about how I didn't ever expect to agree with every management decision or policy in a school or any other workplace but I did need to be somewhere where the basic priorities were aligned with mine on an ethical level.
 
Update: they gave me the job anyway!

Not without a very long conversation about code of conduct which left me in little doubt that any further facebook rants would be dealt with harshly. I did manage to spin it as me caring too much about my students' wellbeing though.
Congratulations! You were probably typing that up while I was typing up my wordy response.

Well done. 🙂
 
Just sent off an automated social media check thing, turns out it not only digs up private facebook posts but it sends a report directly to my prospective employer. One (friends-only) flagged post was a six-paragraph rant from last year where I swore to never work in mainstream schools again because they're irredeemably corrupt etc etc insert standard spookyfrank education diatribe here.
I don't understand how it can dig up friends-only FB posts, and a bit of googling doesn't seem to confirm that this is possible. Did you have to make the automated social media check thing a friend for the purpose?

Congrats for being able to spin it, though.
 
Son has weirdly gone back to somewhere that basically dumped him before and the lied about moving a warehouse lol. Yay he is working again, well hopefully, there was some nonsense about someone being on an unpaid trial before. Which I am now very wary about since well thats a load of shite for a warehouse gig but then the people he liked there are still there and the ones he didn't have fucked off, so at least it should be good so long as they are not trying to play silly buggers with employment law. Will have to find this out this evening, bad timing since his room it a shithole we need to redo the carpet in but can't despite having the carpet tiles as its a mess and he is basically organising things for a living yet living in a dump lol.

I seem to be stupidly stalling on my CV, its almost done and then I can send it here there and everywhere and I even had two recruiters reach out, who I haven't replied to yet. It's basically stupid but I am getting nowhere, major procrastination but the garden is looking a lot better, apart from the giant stinky penis mushroom thing I found.
 
An opportunity has arisen but the interview is via Zoom, even though it’s in the same city I live in. :mad:
(Is it cheeky to ask for f2f should I get invited for interview?)
 
I don’t know if it is or not, but I can’t handle phone calls.

Maybe think about what's hard about it and then you could ask for an adjustment if its clear its disability related.

I had my last interview on zoom and would actually request it again, I find a panel of 3 ftf all looking at me really challenging.
 
An opportunity has arisen but the interview is via Zoom, even though it’s in the same city I live in. :mad:
(Is it cheeky to ask for f2f should I get invited for interview?)
"I'm available for an interview in person and that's what I'd prefer, if that's all right?"

Although it could be that there are two or three people interviewing and they are based in different buildings or that one or more of the interviewers are working from home and so it's logistics.

If you get invited to interview, could you practise with friends?
 
Personally I much prefer Zoom interviews as it cuts out 90% of the worry for me which is about physically getting there (also disability related).

It also makes it easier to have notes and refer to them.
 
Personally I much prefer Zoom interviews as it cuts out 90% of the worry for me which is about physically getting there (also disability related).

It also makes it easier to have notes and refer to them.
Same tho its also distance based, most roles I go for are full remote, just getting out of Cornwall takes over an hour. No Bristol or London are not useful unless its once a month and then I probably have to fly for financial reasons, which seems wrong but trains are well trains.
 
I applied for the biggest job I've ever gone for today. I have the minimum qualification, but think I'm woefully under qualified according to the criteria. It's also in the city 4 hours away. I have no idea why I did that, just having a moment because of the ridiculousness of my current 9 to 5 ( which Im consistently moonlighting from anyway, to do way more interesting work ) Plus the wage is double what I'm on now for a 38 hour week.
It was due in by cob today, and I sent it at 4.55pm
 
Fecking job centre have just sent me an appt for tomorrow at basically school pickup time, its contribution based so entirely irrelevant anyway. What a bunch of useless procedure. I need to get my new CV out there.

Well paid red cross job just came up which suits fine and actually isn't backed by some bloody venture capitalists. That may make me move faster.
 
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