Too fussy?
Refusing job offers
There may be people out there who refuse job offers because they regard them as too menial. Let me point out that anybody discovered to have turned down a job offer that the jobcentre regard as reasonable risks losing their benefits. I have never turned down any job offer while claiming benefits. It is very easy to say that people should be flexible and take whatever work is out there, but there is no point in trying to do work that one is completely unsuited to.
Not easy to switch careers
Although I did a temporary bakery job at R and K Wise in Swindon as a teenager, my only real work has been in computer programming, as my CV shows. I don't expect to get a similar type of job despite the IT skills shortage, but trying to find an alternative at my age is much more difficult than you might imagine. If there is a job out there that pays at least the national minimum wage, then I'll do it if I'm given the chance as long as I feel that can do it to a satisfactory standard. However, an employer choosing between somebody experienced in a particular role and an unemployed person looking for a career change will select the person with experience in the role every time. They'd also choose a young person in preference to an older person in the vast majority of cases. The government might help here by providing financial incentives but I'm not sure how much difference it would really make. Insofar as incentives are provided, they aren't enough to tempt employers anyway.
Ignorance is bliss
One problem that affects people like me, which people frequently don't understand, is that most employers refuse to consider people who are over-qualified. In the BBC debate Should benefits be linked to community service?, one person commented
The problem is that people are blinded to the world as it is by the world as they think it should be. OK, perhaps you were a senior manager who was made redundant - now you're unemployed. Get over it, and start washing dishes.
Employers don't want to take on former senior managers to wash dishes. They will immediately think, "What is wrong with this person? Why is he/she here?" and it is clear that they rarely accept unemployment as a valid reason. A lot of people formerly in well-paid jobs, including myself, try applying for menial jobs but aren't considered. We're sometimes told that we're over-qualified. More often, we either get a standard rejection or no response at all. When I've discussed things verbally with recruitment agencies, I've been told in no uncertain terms on more than one occasion that I'm wasting my time applying for certain types of job because of my background as a computer programmer. I wasn't surprised at this, but I was surprised when the NHS (a state industry controlled by the government, remember) said that I couldn't go on one of their training courses despite passing the written tests easily. Apparently, the course was designated Level 1 and they regard me as Level 3 because I have GCE O levels. On that basis, I was not eligible. So much for being willing to take a low-grade course as a way into a low-grade clerical job from which I could aspire to higher things eventually. Here's an exchange, taken from the BBC debate Should benefits be linked to community service?, which sums up the problem.
If you can work you should work, at anything. None of this, "I was trained in IT / marketing / mining, so I have to work in IT / marketing / mining".
Really? So you are happy for a gas fitter to mend your TV, a motor mechanic to fix your plumbing, a carpenter to sort out your washing machine? People are trained to do things so that things can be done properly! Do try to use a little common sense. Electrical wiring installed by a marketing man would probably set your house on fire.
Another good illustration of the ignorance that a lot of people have regarding unemployed people is the person who said, with reference to those jobs listed in jobcentres
If you REALLY wanted to work and get off benefits you would apply for ALL jobs.
If he knew anything about the system, he'd know that nobody would be allowed to do that. Some of the jobs listed provide information that allows you to contact the employer directly but most don't. Why? Because employers don't want people applying for jobs to which they are obviously unsuited. For these jobs, the jobcentre filters applications for suitability before submitting a selection of CV's to the employer. If they don't do this filtering, the employer may decide not to bother supplying jobcentres with further vacancies.
There's also the matter of cost. A lot of jobs require postal applications but even where they don't, some people only apply for jobs that way because they don't understand computers well enough to apply online. Applying for one job by post doesn't cost much, but applying for a lot of jobs by post costs a fortune.
Somebody else said
Get these scroungers off benefits. Offer them three jobs. If they don't take one, then their benefits get cut. Simple.
It is clear that most people don't understand that the vast number of jobs listed in jobcentres are not exclusively for unemployed people, but are open to anybody to apply for. Most if not all of them are advertised elsewhere and, as a consequence, most of them are filled by people who aren't registered as unemployed. It is not within the gift of jobcentres to offer people these jobs. What the jobcentre staff sometimes do is tell people to apply for particular jobs, after which they may check up on progress. If they feel that the unemployed person hasn't tried hard enough to secure the job, they may take action, but they can't force an employer to appoint somebody they don't want to.
Somebody who has clearly faced similar experiences to myself, explained it like this.
It sounds fine, but the trouble is if you have been unemployed for more than a few months you become effectively unemployable. No-one will hire you for a menial job because you are over qualified, and they won't hire you for a job for which you are qualified because your experience is out of date or they think you must have something wrong with you. Some sort of solution that involves employers being required to actually try people, rather than relying on interviews and CV's would be better.
Employers' responses
Still don't believe me? Here's what one supposedly sympathetic employer told me.
Thank you for your application. The job advertised is a very junior position and therefore not suitable for someone with your experience. I notice that you have previous experience in IT so have taken the liberty of passing your CV on to our IT department. I do not believe they have any vacancies at present but I thought it wouldn’t hurt for them to have it on file.
Good luck with your job search.
I considered responding but I decided that it wouldn't do me any good, but I still have the e-mail somewhere and I can find it easily if I need to produce it as evidence. More recently, I received a very different response that might or might not amount to the same thing. I take it to imply a recognition that I could do the job if I were given a chance, but that I'm either over-qualified or too old or both of these things. Make up your own mind.
Thank you for your interest in the vacancy. We received a substantial response to this. Although your CV was of interest, unfortunately on this occasion you were unsuccessful,
We wish you the very best in your career.
Some people can't adjust
I assume that one reason for employers refusing to consider over-qualified people is their fear that such people won't adjust. You may have heard the story about Sol Campbell signing for Notts County then quitting after one game because he couldn't adjust to life in a lower league than that which he'd become accustomed to. This is a perfect illustration of somebody being unable to adjust to life at the bottom, but it is a bad example. Sol Campbell didn't need to go to Notts County as he had plenty of money and he could in any case have secured a job with a team in a higher league. Most unemployed people don't have the luxury of vast riches to draw on. By assuming that unemployed people are fixed in their ways and can't adjust, employers miss out on a lot of potentially good workers.
A better sporting example is Kim Clijsters, who took a couple of years off her tennis career to start a family, before returning to work. Without a ranking because of her career break, she was expected to find the going tough because she would be meeeting the top players in the early rounds instead of being seeded to avoid them. Contrary to those expectations, Kim Clijsters was fresh and enthusiastic about playing again and won the women's US Open tennis in only her third tournament during her comeback. I don't suppose it ever occurs to employers that unemployed people might be more enthusiastic about work than those who have been continuously employed.
More excuses from employers
On a recruitment agency's blog, there was a very revealing article titled "Are graduates stealing your jobs?" (sadly no longer available), but the most interesting piece was the explanation for employers' reluctance to take on over-qualified people. Although the article was specifically about IT professionals, it could apply to many types of job. I quote
There are a few reasons why managers will not hire over-qualified candidates. The first, and essentially most important, being that over-qualified candidates will be bored with the work they are doing and will jump ship to a new and better opportunity as soon as it presents itself. Getting the budget approved for a new position, sorting through CV's, interviewing candidates, extending an offer, and taking an employee on board is very time intensive. The hiring manager only wants to do this once, so all red flags will be addressed to prevent this process from having to be repeated.
Additionally, managers feel they will be pressured to provide that employee opportunity for advancement to meet their skills and abilities. Essentially, they hired you for a specific role and want to fill that role. By promoting you they will once again have to fill that role.
Finally, it is less common but managers feel that a candidate who comes in with an abundance of experience will want to do things their way. Whether this is true or not will be determined later, but as I said, managers want to prevent challenges as much as possible.
So the point I made about fear of being unable to fit in merits only a brief mention here (the last paragraph), but don't kid yourself because it is still a major barrier to overcome. As for the stuff about being bored, do they think that unemployment is exciting? Also, anybody who has been unemployed for any length of time and is willing to accept menial work accepts that they have to prove their worth before gaining promotion to something that might be more suitable, Sorry, but the whole quote shows that employers just don't want to consider unemployed people.
Yes, there are some unemployed people who don't want to work, but plenty do and find that employer's attitudes are a major obstacle.
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