Looking for work
No euros to save me
In my current period of unemployment, I continued to look mainly for computer programming jobs at first, just as I had during The nineties job quest. Nevertheless, I knew that I had to make greater efforts to look for alternative careers, especially as there wasn't going to be another Y2K-type event to cause a surge in demand for COBOL programmers unless Tony Blair and Gordon Brown decided to replace the pound with the euro. I'm against the idea of Britain joining the single European currency unless it is in Britain's interest as a whole, but I can't deny that I'd have had a better chance of returning to work had we adopted the euro currency during the Tony Blair years. I expect we'll join eventually but by then it'll be too late for another COBOL revival of any significance because most of the computer systems that still used COBOL then will surely have been replaced by newer systems. Even if they haven't, I'll either be dead or claiming my pension credits by then. I'd consider coming out of retirement if I'm still healthy enough to do the work and employers are interested in me, but I regard it as an unlikely scenario. In any case, it doesn't help me just now.
Left to myself
Following my redundancy in 2002, I was at first left more or less to myself by the government agencies although I was called in to periodic meetings to discuss progress. When I went on New Deal (a scheme devised and introduced while I was employed in Narborough) the first time, the placement agency expected me, like all such people, to apply for at least five jobs per week. Like all the others, I duly filled in a log with the relevant details, but few of us took it seriously. Maybe some people applied for all the jobs they logged but I suspect that most didn't. I applied for some but not many. The idea of applying for a vast number of jobs just for the sake of it seemed ludicrous then and seems even more so now.
Job logs
After that first period of New Deal ended, I was again left more or less to myself for a while, but eventually the government introduced its own job log policy. They only required four jobs per two weeks, but it was still a stupid policy as I suspect that some people log jobs that they don't apply for and, because employers often reject applications without retaining evidence, there is no way that anybody in authority can prove that the unemployed people haven't applied for them.
Applying for jobs
Nevertheless, I sensed the direction in which things were going so from then on, I adopted a policy of applying for everything that I log. To this end, I decided to focus almost exclusively on e-mail rather than postal applications or online forms.
Postal applications
Postal applications cost money and if they involve filling in an application form, they are also time-consuming. And there's no evidence to show suspicious officials that the application has been made unless the employer responds, which is not guaranteed.
You might say that posting a letter is cheap, but posting a lot of them is very expensive. If I did all my job applications by post, it could cost five pounds or more a week by the time you include stationery and stamps. The minimum of two jobs per week is higher now, and it's a bad idea to stick consistently to the minimum as that itself arouses suspicions, I wouldn't begrudge the cost for jobs that I genuinely feel good about, as I explained above, but otherwise there are far better ways of spending the money.
I'll make an exception if I come across a vacancy requiring a postal application that is so interesting that I want to give it the attention it deserves, but in that event, I wouldn't include it on the job log because I wouldn't have any evidence of applying for it, so it would be an "extra". Occasionally, I am ordered to apply for jobs by post, in which case I do so and log them.
On top of all that, I sometimes have to worry about whether the Royal Mail will actually deliver letters. The 2007 postal dispute didn't cause any severe delays for me, but another dispute might do.
Living in a bygone age
Some employers refuse to accept e-mail applications. My theory is that such employers feel that senders of e-mail applications are less committed, and in some cases they would be right, but the other way of looking at it is that such employers don't move with the times. E-mail is still a relatively new technology and there are syill plenty of people who would rather do things in the traditional way.
If I see a vacancy listed without an e-mail address, I look for one and use that. If I can't find one, I normally look for other vacancies. On one occasion, a vacancy was listed with a postal address, together with an e-mail address for enquiries. I sent my CV to the e-mail address anyway and received a reply saying that e-mail applications were not accepted and that I should apply by post if I wanted the job. I didn't. I toyed with the idea of responding to the e-mail, but didn't do that either. There were plenty of other jobs to apply for. That episode reinforced my theory is that such employers feel that senders of e-mail applications are less committed.
Online forms
Online forms can also be time-consuming and while they don't cost money, they don't aleays either offer the chance to save a copy of the form as evidence or acknowledge the application. Again, I prefer not to apply through those forms though I do sometimes. They are preferable to postal applications because they cost no money. Again, I'll make an exception if I come across a particularly interesting vacancy or if I am ordered to apply for one.
Online forms can in any case sometimes be too clever for their own good. I once tried to apply for a job with Travis Perkins via an online form but gave up. The form allowed me to upload my CV, but then tried to interpret the information. In trying to correct the misinterpretation, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to present the information I wanted. The signs were ominous when I saw how it messed up my address, which includes a flat number, but I was able to correct that. However, I really confused the software by grouping several short-term contracts together. I'd always been advised that having too many short-term contracts on my CV was a bad idea and that's why I had grouped them together. The software, noticing that there was nothing in the location column for this entry, had simply ignored it, leaving a gap in my career history. Having already got long gaps representing my current period of unemployment as well as the period covered by The nineties job quest, I didn't want another four-year gap inserted. Realising that I wasn't likely to get that job anyway, I simply gave up, but I considered setting up a version of my CV specially for loading into online forms next time, in which case I'll see if I can do anything about the address. I never did that, because my CV becomes ever more problematic.
In 2011, I was advised to remove employment dates from my CV, because employers look at them and reject the application when they see the gaps. Not everybody agrees with the removal of dates, but a CV can only earn an interview, and such an interviews offers the chance to explain things. While I prefer the total honesty of providing dates, I am not lying by omitting them. I do specify the duration of the jobs mentioned, which is a nice compromise.
Thus, there is another problem with most online forms and paper application forms, as both of these demand information that I prefer not to supply prior to an interview.
Public sector jobs
As all public sector vacancies require application forms to be filled out, I don't generally apply for such jobs unless they fall into the exceptional category, or unless I'm told to. The NHS has become an exception to this principle.
Having once been compelled to apply for a job in the NHS, I found that their online application system retains all the CV information already set up and also generates auto-responses for job applications. I can therefore apply for further NHS jobs without much more effort than is required to apply for other jobs by e-mail. In these recessionary times, it is useful to have this extra avenue to explore, These applications have yielded nothing so far, but they have sometimes been crucial to boosting the number of jobs applied for.
While the NHS is by no means unique in having such a system, some employers make it more difficult to apply for subsequent jobs by insisting on tailoring job applications for each individual vacancy. Of course, I sometimes tailor applications anyway by varying the contents of the covering e-mail when I feel the need, but not always.
Special e-mail account
In June 2007, before my return to New Deal, I set up a special e-mail account on Google dedicated to job applications. This keeps it all separate from my personal stuff on Yahoo and Hotmail, although my master CV is stored in Hotmail. So if I open up my Google account to show anybody all my job applications since June 2007, they won't see all my personal e-mails; very few of those arrive via that account and if I need to keep them, I copy them elsewhere before deleting them from Google. I kept my old job applications in Yahoo for a long time but I've now deleted these.
Since setting up my Google e-mail account, I have applied for hundreds of vacancies using it. Imagine applying for all of those by post. Of course, I wouldn't have done so, though I would have applied for a significant number. One of the consequences of having a dedicated e-mail account is that I can see an approximate total of jobs applied for since June 2007. I say approximate because it doesn't include online or postal applications. One other advantage is that I can easily tell if I try to apply to the same e-mail address that I've applied before. In these cases, I look up my previous job applications to that e-mail address and sometimes decide not to bother, but to look for another vacancy, though at other times I proceed anyway. Hopefully, this reduces employer frustrations to a minimum, though I still don't like applying for jobs just to make up the numbers and I'm sure that employers don't like it either.
I keep the evidence
I apply for all the jobs that I log (and some that I don't log). In the vast majority of cases since I set up my special e-mail account in June 2007, I have the e-mail evidence to back it up if the government gets really nasty. But how will they deal with the postal applications? No trace of them will be available. Of course, there are any number of ways in which the government can get nasty. In Am I a benefit scrounger?, I discussed a police visit. I can't use e-,ail evidence to prove that I live alone, but at least I can use it to prove that I have applied for hundreds of jobs.
When I was forced back on to New Deal, I again applied for five jobs per week. Eventually somebody told me that this policy had been abolished and that it was no longer necessary to apply for five jobs per week as long as I could satisfy them about certain things, but I realised that it's easier to stick to the five-per-week policy than to do that. I applied for all the jobs I logged on New Deal that time, although the policy didn't yield any interviews.
Handwriting
Some employers request handwritten applications, or at least a handwritten covering letter. Since these involve postal applications, I don't bother with these unless I'm told to. But even in the old days when I had a successful career, I never bothered with such vacancies because I regard those employers as old-fashioned. If they really want to subject candidates to a handwriting test, I'd prefer them to conduct it as part of the interview process. Handwriting requests are rare these days, as Psychometric tests have proliferated, but I don't like those either as I explain on that page.
I prefer quality over quantity
There are many different approaches to looking for jobs, an activity that is obviously important to all unemployed people. Unfortunately, the government and placement agency have decided on one policy that they expect all unemployed people to follow. That policy, based on the erroneous but superficially attractive theory that the more jobs you apply for, the more likely you are to get a job, doesn't suit me and won't help me to find a job. I know that if I don't apply for a particular job then I won't get it, but if I'm not a suitable candidate, I won't get it anyway. I'd rather focus on applying for whatever jobs I feel good about, in which case I'd take a lot more time and care over those job applications and thereby stand a much better chance of securing a job. Meanwhile, what I really need is re-training so that there are a greater number of jobs that I am qualified for.
I have occasionally seen vacancies that I would have liked to apply for, but didn't because I would have needed to put a lot of effort into them. Even then, it is unlikely that I would gave secured those jobs, and that thought, combined with all the pressure of dealing with all the tings I have to deal with anyway, caused me not to apply. I therefore applied for more jobs at the expense of jobs that I would have had a better, albeit still remote, chance of securing.
Belief in quantity popular
This comment that I found on Indymedia UK illustrates the delusion about quantity perfectly - and rembember that this comment was posted in October 2009, when unenemplyment was high and rising rapidly, albeit less rapidly than it had been earlier in the year.
Someone looking for work should be applying to 30 jobs a day at a minimum. 9 to 6 with 1 hour lunch. And get on the phone - you should be making at least 50 calls a day. Failing that, you should be out on your feet pounding the pavement. Anything else is just being lazy.
On unemployment benefits, how is anybody supposed to afford the cost of 50 calls a day? Who are they going to call, especially as recruitment agencies aren't interested? As for applying for 30 jobs a day, employers are inundated as it is with applicaions from people who are obviously unsuitable for the job. Clearly the comment was posted by somebody who has no experience of unemployment and takes for granted that he never will.
Interviews
During The nineties job quest, I had complete control over which jobs I applied for. I attended 21 formal interviews in that period, the last one being successful. I feel that I came close on several other occasions. I have applied for a substantially larger number of jobs since 2002, but I have only attended two formal interviews. plus a group interview. The first formal interview, for Agathos Systems in Nottingham, took place in August 2007 and resulted from an application that I would have made anyway. It remains the only full-time job for which I've been formally interviewed since 2002. Another such application got as far as a 20-minute telephone call.
The second formal interview, which I discuss in my page titled EXCEL spreadsheets, was for a part-time job that involved working only on Tuesdays. I'll admit that I wouldn't have applied for that job if I hadn't been fulfilling quotas of job applications, but I would have remained on state benefits (albeit at a reduced rate) even if I'd secured the job. None of the other applications that I've made purely to fulfill my quota have yielded anything more than an invitation by an agency to sit a typing test, plus a few Tricky questions asked by one employer. This suggests that if I'd spent less time applying for a quantity of jobs, I could have focused on doing things that might have made the difference, as I did during The nineties job quest.
The group interview
This was completely unexpected, and some may argue that it proves the case for applying for vast numbers of jobs. I found it to be an interesting experience, but I was never likely to secure the job, which was for a waiter at a bistro.
We were expressly told not to bring anything. Tables had been arranged in a giant square around which chairs were placed. We sat down and filled in their application forms, then the group session began. We were paired with people we had never previously met, had a brief discussion with them and we then each took turns to tell the group - and the staff members present - what we thought of that person. We then did a group exercise with the letters of the word bistro in which we called out words beginning with one of those letters that describe aspects of personality.
Next, we were shown to another set of tables on which there were large stacks of empty dinner plates. We were shown how to carry four plates at a time (pretending that they were piled with food on them) and asked to do so, and to then walk around with them. Although I struggled at first, I managed it eventually and was able to walk around with one plate in each hand and two on my left arm. I have serious doubts as to how I would cope in a commercial situation with food on the plates and everything else going on, but it was fun to do the exercise.
For the final test, we returned to our chairs. We were each given a random topic to discuss in 30 seconds. The first person to do this was a woman, and was asked to discuss rugby. She knew next to nothing about rugby, despite one of the biggest rugby teams in the country being located in Leicester, but she somehow got through it. This set a pattern and it was clear that most people ended up discussing topics that they either didn't know anything about or didn't really know what to say, as in the case of another woman who was told to discuss shoelaces. I would have preferred either rugby (which isn't my favorite sport, but I am happy to discuss it) or shoelaces (in which case I would discuss the re-lacing of new shoes) to the topic I was given, which was lips, although I stumbled through it in much the same way as most people did. A few lucky people got topics that they knew how to discuss.
Previous applicants need not apply
It is bad enough to be rejected for a job after doing what one thinks is a good interview, but one doesn't normally know how good the other candidates are. Perhaps one of them was perceived as better So it is a real let-down to see such a job re-advertised with the words "Previous applicants need not apply". This happened to me during The nineties job quest, but I haven't noticed it this time round. Then again, I've only attended two interviews since 2002 so there hasn't been a lot of opportunity.
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