Jobs

[Shaunmg]

Both my wife I are lucky to have jobs. But I get sick of hearing Politians saying we have to get people off benefits and into work. If I had to find a full time job now, my chances would be next to nil, living in the North West

My wife’s office have just advertised for and admin assistant, to assist her and another member of staff. It is a very junior position. She is doing the short listing and interviewing. The job appeared for one day only in the local press. She has 307 applications to sort through. She tells me it is soul destroying and has been in tears reading some of the desperate pleas from applicants.

People are in living cloud cuckoo land if they believe there are full time jobs out there just waiting for those on benefits, or redundant public sector employees. There may be a few part time Tesco or McDonald’s jobs for 15 hours minimum wage, but next to no real jobs. That’s the situation in the North anyway.

We need growth not austerity

 

[MKDave]

Yeah I have to agree it is a sad state of affairs in some areas of the country.

I was job hunting for 3 months before I decided to go down the temping route. I had 4 interviews for one company for a full time position and really felt I should have got the job, however the lady who would have been my line manager had reservations about me wanting to, and previously having, progress within a company.

I'm been working full time for 8 years and worked with two employers so I presume she was more concerned about me taking her job than leaving the company for a better position The Head of HR who interviewed me first time really wanted me to be part of the company and lined me up for a position which had only just become available on a slightly different area. I was told just do what you've done in the previous 3 interviews and the jobs as good as yours to which I then crumbled in the interview and just wanted to run out crying!

Then had an interview at Mercedes which I absolutely nailed, my recruitment consultant said he thought I stood a great chance as I was the only candidate left after the 3 days interviewing to then find out they had given the job internally as they needed to reduce headcount in another area.#

Then went to an assesment day at santander as just wanted to get a job. I nailed the interview, and having interviewed in my last company on competancy based questions I know I smashed every question. When I got the phone call Monday I was told I failed the assesment day, got full marks in language task (he said the first person to do it) missed the last page of the maths test because they finished the 3rd page two thirds down and like a clown I didn't check the back (also scored 100% on the questions I'd asked and they took the paper from me early) but I was also told I scored 11 out of 25 in the actual interview!! You get 2 points for each of the 5 questions just for answering and need 15 to pass!! When I asked for feedback because I said there was no way they said they would call me back, and I've still heard nothing. This was about 4 months ago now.

Then switched to temping and I'm enjoying my job now, and think I'm doing a pretty good job. Getting a perminant contract here though is like the golden ticket but alot of the 'temps' here have actually been with the company for at least a year and a few for 3+ years. I'm doing what I enjoy by messing around in Excel all day so fingers crossed I'm a keeper

 

[bladeplayer]

Shaunmg , I agree totaly with what you say but do you know what i do have problems with , those classed as long term unemployed , there are lazy you know whats in the town where i work & all through the CELTIC TIGER (i musta missed most of it) when we could employ half of europe in this small country these no goods still drew benifit ..
What we all need is our countries run like businesses , no free money , put these people on schemes like tidy towns , cleaning up play areas , graveyards , parks etc .. Nobody should get handed money for sitting at home ,
I am in no way knocking the genuine people who are trying , but there is a generation here where i live , have never worked , will never work & expect the state that they have never contributed squat to , to provisde for them & their families .. I work 2 jobs , HID works , we have 2 cars which we need for work , one is 01 the other is 04 , we work hard ..
Wouldnt the people on benifits be better off working part time for Tesco or McDonalds & the state topping up their money than sitting at home drawing the full ammount ..

What we need to do in this country is sort out the over valued mortgages , young couples in debt because of over inflated house prices due to reckless lending , instead of writing off toxic banks debt , value these peoples houses now & write off the negative equity , they will have dosh in their pockets to spend & growth might be possible ,,

Sorry rant over :rant:

 

[Aztecs27]

What we need to do in this country is sort out the over valued mortgages , young couples in debt because of over inflated house prices due to reckless lending , instead of writing off toxic banks debt , value these peoples houses now & write off the negative equity , they will have dosh in their pockets to spend & growth might be possible ,,

I would definitely be on board with this! Being one of those people. Ok, so I'm not in masses of debt, other than my mortgage and a bit of credit card debt (which is managable), so I think myself lucky, but our house (flat) isn't worth anywhere near what it was worth when we bought it. We were given a 95% mortgage which, we probably shouldn't have been given, but who were we to argue at the time. We've worked very hard over the last couple of years overpaying our mortgage to get this down to 90% or less, which we nearly have, but not everyone is fortunate enough to have a stable income which isn't badly paid as myself and HID.

Even so, if we ever want to move, we have no choice but to rent it out (which we would do anyway, probably), because selling would be a complete waste of time and money.

There are jobs (we've just taken on a new employee full time), but not as many as the government is alluding to.

 

[theWOAT]

I'm somewhere in the middle really, I have friends(and FAMILY!) who go on facebook saying they are looking for jobs and asking anyone to help them out......they mostly get that a supermarket/hotel is hiring reply, and they don't apply, because they want to cherry pick a job and not something they clearly see as "below them" for some odd reason, and those jobs you cherry pick are the ones 100's are applying for. No chance of getting it really, why is any company going to employ someone with a huge gap which could of quite easily been filled with a stop gap job at Supermarket/Hotel somewhere.

Quite easily might be a bit harsh, but when I decided to go back to part time so I could finish off my degree part time too, I got plenty of call backs and even had an array of offers on the table in the end. People don't show up to group assessments, which is why I think companies do them now, if people aren't willing to show up for that....they aren't hard to pass, they are simply testing you for reliability and attendance straight off the bat. And with like 4-5 offers, I managed to get a perfect night shift job tailored around my school, hobbies and family...with plenty of overtime when i'm available.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Get a similar thing when the hospital advertises for porters, housekeepers and health care assistants. Viewed by many as just a lowly paid job but essesntial in keeping the hospital functioning properly. We get all sorts applying and again some of the stuff they put with their applications are quite hard to read

 

[DappaDonDave]

I work for a local council and we have had 30 jobs cleared to advertise this week. This is slightly more than usual but it is often around 10 per week.

Recession?...please tell my employers

 

[JustOne]

Interesting story MKDave.....

I'm doing what I enjoy by messing around in Excel all day so fingers crossed I'm a keeper

.....and posting on a golf forum at 11am?

Day off was it?

 

[JustOne]

What we all need is our countries run like businesses , no free money , put these people on schemes like tidy towns , cleaning up play areas , graveyards , parks etc .. Nobody should get handed money for sitting at home

Agree... they should all work for their local council getting paid to do the jobs we pay the council to do that don't get done!

 

[Doon frae Troon]

Shaun
I remember the 1990's recession when I wanted a golf course mechanic. The local railworks had just closed and I had over 200 applicants. Many applications were beautifully hand written three page letters with hope and anxiety dripping off them. Quite a few had just bought houses on the back of a housing boom and were in fear of losing everything they had.

I shortlisted 5 who were all massively overqualified. The first guy turned it down but the second guy turned out to be a real gem who enjoyed 20 years of less well paid but very enjoyable unsupervised work.

Where I live, south of Ayr, there seems to be jobs about. Most are part time or seasonal on the basic wage. Proper jobs are scarce, out local paper covers a 600,000 population area and the jobs page is generally that ,one page.
Can't see it getting better anytime soon.

 

[Doon frae Troon]

Just one.
It is very easy to have a go at council workers.
I know quite a few guys who have made a fortune of the authorities they worked for. During this time they would have been payed much less than they would have got in the private sector.

I managed golf courses and other leisure activities.
At one of my Authorities I took a £150k a year loss and turned it into profit within two years. For the 15 years I managed the facilities they made a total profit of over £2 million pounds for that authority.

 

[JustOne]

Just one.
It is very easy to have a go at council workers.
I know quite a few guys who have made a fortune of the authorities they worked for. During this time they would have been payed much less than they would have got in the private sector.

I managed golf courses and other leisure activities.
At one of my Authorities I took a £150k a year loss and turned it into profit within two years. For the 15 years I managed the facilities they made a total profit of over £2 million pounds for that authority.

DFT, it wasn't a direct pop at council authorities, although I'm sure some could however be run a bit better. The point was just how scruffy/crappy this Country appears to be... rubbish everywhere, dated facilities, just a general lack of purpose. I'm sure it would be better to employ some useful labour instead of the companies who generally make a living by FLEECING the Councils. People might have a bit more pride in their surroundings if they are involved in it's upkeep. Never understood why the government pays people to sit on their backsides. EVERYONE could find a few hours per week... even those WITH jobs!

 

[Doon frae Troon]

Just one
You don't seem to understand that it is the council's residents who make the litter not the staff.

 

[DappaDonDave]

Just one
You don't seem to understand that it is the council's residents who make the litter not the staff.

The more litter, the more staff, the more cost, the increase in required income, the higher council tax, the more whining.

I don't disagree that there are plenty of things that can be streamlined in Councils. But. Blaming council staff for litter is not the right attitude. I'm sure justone is part of the "I could do it better" brigade found loitering on our local newspaper website posting numerous comments on things they can do better

 

[JustOne]

Just one
You don't seem to understand that it is the council's residents who make the litter not the staff.

Which part of the English language don't you understand?

Here's a paragraph, point out the difficult words and I'll try and rewrite them.....

The point was just how scruffy/crappy this Country appears to be... rubbish everywhere, dated facilities, just a general lack of purpose. I'm sure it would be better to employ some useful labour instead of the companies who generally make a living by FLEECING the Councils. People might have a bit more pride in their surroundings if they are involved in it's upkeep. Never understood why the government pays people to sit on their backsides.

 

[bladeplayer]

James we are agreeing on stuff today .. scary ha ha

 

[Shaunmg]

Shaun
I remember the 1990's recession when I wanted a golf course mechanic. The local railworks had just closed and I had over 200 applicants. Many applications were beautifully hand written three page letters with hope and anxiety dripping off them. Quite a few had just bought houses on the back of a housing boom and were in fear of losing everything they had.

I also remember the early 90s recession, it was the only period in my life when I was briefly unemployed.

I hear politicians and bankers speculating on when the recession will end. They never end for most people affected by them. My home town never recovered from the 90s recession. They didn’t re-open the pits and factories they shut down or give people the jobs and houses they lost when the recession was over. Recession for many is for life and not just a short blip.

I disagree entirely with some the opinions expressed that the country should be run as a business. That’s exactly what got us into this mess. Unfettered capitalism should have no place in modern society. The measure of efficiency should be the service provided and not the profit for shareholders

Services vital to the country as a whole, should belong to the country and not in the hands of greedy profiteers. Now they even want to put the NHS into the hands of private business, god forbid. What next, the Army? The only reason they don’t charge us for the air we breathe is because they can’t store and pipe it to us.

 

[Doon frae Troon]

Sorry justone
I was reading between the lines.

It is the poor quality of the contract writers and the squirmyness of the contractors that causes most problems.
I found a huge difference between working for an English council and a West of Scotland council.
In England my job had two people between me and the chief exec. In Scotland with a slightly less important job [on a better salary] there was four.
One of whom seemed to spend most of the day reading The Herald and talking about football.

 

[CMAC]

In England my job had two people between me and the chief exec. In Scotland with a slightly less important job [on a better salary] there was four.
One of whom seemed to spend most of the day reading The Herald and talking about football.

Thats the unfortunate image many council workers have, too many layers and too many that see it as a job for life!
There are stars of course but wasnt there some scandalous thing in the paper recently about the head of scot ent being paid nearly a quarter of a million salary for not doing too much?

They could save a small fortune if they stopped compulsory quarter page colour advertising of posts that have already been earmarked- the private advertising agencies made a bomb on the back of councils doing that over the last 20 years!

 

[Liverbirdie]

I also remember the early 90s recession, it was the only period in my life when I was briefly unemployed.

I hear politicians and bankers speculating on when the recession will end. They never end for most people affected by them. My home town never recovered from the 90s recession. They didn’t re-open the pits and factories they shut down or give people the jobs and houses they lost when the recession was over. Recession for many is for life and not just a short blip.

I disagree entirely with some the opinions expressed that the country should be run as a business. That’s exactly what got us into this mess. Unfettered capitalism should have no place in modern society. The measure of efficiency should be the service provided and not the profit for shareholders

Services vital to the country as a whole, should belong to the country and not in the hands of greedy profiteers. Now they even want to put the NHS into the hands of private business, god forbid. What next, the Army? The only reason they don’t charge us for the air we breathe is because they can’t store and pipe it to us.

Agreed, re-nationalise the gas, eleccy, rail etc, by compulsory purchase.

We were told by the tories - you'll have more choice. Yes more choice on who rips you off for £ 1,000's which everyone now pays on gas and eleccy.