The Job Centre Quandary

A day late, as yesterday proved to be quite busy. More on that tomorrow as I try to catch up.

On Monday I had to attend the job centre for what will become a fixture in the in between weeks which I sign on. I was not entirely sure of the point of it when I went so was not exactly sure what to expect. If you are on JSA for more than 13 weeks I am afraid it is now compulsory, a new iniative from the government.

I arrived on time and unlike when signing on was immediately ushered to a desk to talk with an advisor. He preceeded to look at jobs for me using the job centre database, incidentally something I can do myself from home. Flagging up several admin jobs we got to discussing what I was really after. This resulted in the quandry.

I am after a marketing job. I have a marketing masters which I paid a lot to get. I am currently volunteering in marketing. Its fairly clear the average admin job isnt for me. Clear to myself, clear to him and clear to the employer.

Let us say I go to an interview for an admin position. A common first question is why do you want the job. Experience, I will answer. When pressed it will soon become clear I view the job as a good way of gaining short term experience and that I have no intention of sticking around for any length of time. I could lie but its not in my nature to do so and so when I put this to the advisor he saw the problem.

This then allowed me to follow up with an honest question. What was the point of me being there. I could search jobs at home in exactly the same way, by travelling to the job centre I paid an unecessary bus fare and took a huge chunk out of my day.
The advisor was quick to admit that in my case there probably wasn't much point, but that others struggled to find jobs and they had make great breakthroughs. This led to the obvious and instrinsic flaw of the program being exposed.

The job centre has to be seen to treat everyone equally.
Everyone is clearly not equal.

In the case of the guy before me, the advisor had found him jobs he had not considered and sent him on his way, having really aided him in his job search

In my case he had wasted my time, and he knew it. The other frustrating thing is that despite the fact we both knew this we have to continue the charade for a few more weeks. Then if it continues to be pointless he will ask his boss if it can stop.

Until then we will both just have to pretend we are achieving something.