Man sanctioned by job centre after applying for 67 jobs in a fortnight

[Peter Styles]

Last week Brighton job centre considered my job search insufficient despite applying for 67 positions in the previous fortnight.

It was covered by the Guardian this week:

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/12/jobseeker-applied-posts-protest-dwp-policy-sanctioned

My blog '67 jobs' has so far received nearly 27,000 visits since it was created on Tuesday.

www.dwpvendetta.wordpress.com

Have also received hundreds of good luck messages from around the world.

N.B. I am a longstanding Albion fan - my first game was versus Mansfield in 1977/8 aged six. We won 5-1, hoorah!

 

[Deanbha]

Last week Brighton job centre considered my job search insufficient despite applying for 67 positions in the previous fortnight.

It was covered by the Guardian this week:

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/12/jobseeker-applied-posts-protest-dwp-policy-sanctioned

My blog '67 jobs' has so far received nearly 27,000 visits since it was created on Tuesday.

www.dwpvendetta.wordpress.com

Have also received hundreds of good luck messages from around the world.

N.B. I am a longstanding Albion fan - my first game was versus Mansfield in 1977/8 aged six. We won 5-1, hoorah!

Mcdonalds in Shoreham are looking for night staff. Better than nothing

 

[bennibenj]

Also saw an advert in Morrisons down st james street.

 

[Mackenzie]

Good luck with the job search.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

The obligation that is apparently being imposed on benefit claimants to prepare and submit dozens and dozens of job applications isn't helping anyone.

Employers are increasingly being bombarded with applications from people who are clearly not suitable for some of the jobs that are on offer, or applications from people who might be suitable, but won't ever take up a particular job for simple reasons like it is too far away. All of these applications need to be responded to and it is a time consuming (and expensive) process to do so.

And it is a complete waste of time to interview someone who answers the question "Why do you want this job?" by saying "I don't. I'm only here because the Job Centre insists that I apply for as many vacancies as I can".

 

[Greg Bobkin]

Last week Brighton job centre considered my job search insufficient despite applying for 67 positions in the previous fortnight.

It was covered by the Guardian this week:

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/12/jobseeker-applied-posts-protest-dwp-policy-sanctioned

My blog '67 jobs' has so far received nearly 27,000 visits since it was created on Tuesday.

www.dwpvendetta.wordpress.com

Have also received hundreds of good luck messages from around the world.

N.B. I am a longstanding Albion fan - my first game was versus Mansfield in 1977/8 aged six. We won 5-1, hoorah!

What's your copywriting/PR background, Peter?

Good luck with the job search.

GB

 

[Ernest]

Everyone thinks this kind of thing is a laugh and scroungers deserve it, but wait until it happens to them or someone close them and it will

 

[Peter Styles]

Hi Graham,
Have best part of twenty years as a journalist, journalism and public affairs lecturer, content manager, copywriter, PR and published novelist. Thanks for asking

 

[Vegas Seagull]

How is 'humiliating having to wait ALONE (my caps)'?
As a PR man is this how you'd recommend a job seeker to maximise their skills to the employment world?

 

[Guinness Boy]

Last week Brighton job centre considered my job search insufficient despite applying for 67 positions in the previous fortnight.

It was covered by the Guardian this week:

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/12/jobseeker-applied-posts-protest-dwp-policy-sanctioned

My blog '67 jobs' has so far received nearly 27,000 visits since it was created on Tuesday.

www.dwpvendetta.wordpress.com

Have also received hundreds of good luck messages from around the world.

N.B. I am a longstanding Albion fan - my first game was versus Mansfield in 1977/8 aged six. We won 5-1, hoorah!

Read this via a friend's FB last week. Good luck with the job search and getting answers from the DWP.

 

[beorhthelm]

something sniffy about this story. immediate assumption was someone looking for the wrong jobs, carpet bombing every job to look active might work until someone notices they dont have any hope of getting those jobs. ( i know this is a popular method of staying on the sausage in the past, im sure it works today). or maybe someone inistiing on keeping to some high level role that arent available, unwilling to adjust?

then i see the blog. its, well, its rather too good isnt it? certinly doesnt look like my first theory fits. so im wondering if there is a motive, an agenda... then the final paragraph: " if anyone needs someone with experience as a journalist, journalism and public affairs lecturer, content manager, PR or copywriter or related disciplines please step forward ".

ah. a journalist who can PR and copy. unable to find work in the southeast or freelance, really? or trying to create a story of their own prehaps?

 

[Peter Styles]

Christ, there are conspiracy theorists everywhere - sorry to disappoint you beorhthelm, this is completely legit...

 

[Ernest]

Following a redundancy I had to sign on for 7 months.

They treat you like cattle. They offer absolutely no support (apart from the £70 a week which is nowhere near enough to live on) and did not take into account that there was a global economic recession, nor did they take into account my skills.

I ultimately got sanctioned for 13 weeks for failing to apply for a job that didn't exist, despite applying for scores every week. I gave them the middle finger after that and had to live off my credit cards. Luckily I found work a couple of months later, but it certainly seems as if the whole system is designed to bully people off benefits, rather than give any kind of support or training.

Good luck with your job search, it really is a terrible experience.

Well said, it would be nice for some of these smug w**kers to go through this and then they may start ignoring the Daily Mail headlines they lap up and see what people are being put through

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

something sniffy about this story. immediate assumption was someone looking for the wrong jobs, carpet bombing every job to look active might work until someone notices they dont have any hope of getting those jobs. ( i know this is a popular method of staying on the sausage in the past, im sure it works today). or maybe someone inistiing on keeping to some high level role that arent available, unwilling to adjust?
then i see the blog. its, well, its rather too good isnt it? certinly doesnt look like my first theory fits. so im wondering if there is a motive, an agenda... then the final paragraph: " if anyone needs someone with experience as a journalist, journalism and public affairs lecturer, content manager, PR or copywriter or related disciplines please step forward ".

ah. a journalist who can PR and copy. unable to find work in the southeast or freelance, really? or trying to create a story of their own prehaps?

I think you are only able to do this for 6 months, after which you cannot if you want to keep your benefit ( and claim any employment insurance you may have [ for which you will have to be signing on in order to claim ]).

 

[soistes]

You have my support, mate. The whole "welfare to work" DWP circus is driven by the assumption that unemployment is the fault of the workless person who is somehow not trying hard enough, or is wanting to fund a lifestyle on benefits. The whole point of unemployment benefit (or "Jobseekers Allowance" as the Orwellian language of government would have us call it), and indeed the whole point of the welfare state, is that it provides support for people who fall on hard times, for whatever reason (redundancy, ill health etc) at various times in their lives; it's a kind of collective social insurance that we can all rely on (or should be able to rely on) because these things can occur to any of us, if we're unlucky.
The public employment service (Jobcentre Plus), rather than 'sanctioning' people for these kinds of bogus reasons, should be helping unemployed people to find work that matches their skills and experience and, if appropriate (e.g. because their skills are outdated for the current labour market), giving them support or training to acquire new skills.

The idea that a large proportion of unemployed people don't want to work, or prefer a life on benefits, and therefore need to have someone standing over them with the stick of benefit sanctions, is a fantasy of smug Tories who've never been in this position themselves. Time after time, studies which look at this question conclude that "benefit scroungers" are a tiny minority of the unemployed, and to tar everyone who's out of work with that brush is entirely counterproductive.

Actually, you could argue that even if there is a small number of people who'd rather subsist in miserable conditions on 70 quid a week than look for a job, then given that there are not enough jobs to go round, rather than castigating them we should be grateful to them for not competing for those jobs which do exist, and leaving those jobs for people like the OP who clearly do want them!

 

[BN9 BHA]

Good luck with the job search Peter.

Many years ago when I was doing my plumbing training I was made redundant, I had less than a month left at college where I attended one day a week, I was getting ready to take my exams for my City and Guilds certificate.

I went to the Job Centre to register and try to claim benefits ( think it was all in the same building back then)
I told the Job Centre about the college and my ambition to pass my exams and have a good career in plumbing.

This is no word of a lie, I was told by some complete plank at the Job Centre to GIVE UP GOING TO COLLEGE.
I said if I finished my course I would be qualified and stand a much better chance of gaining employment.

I was told that I wouldn't be looking for work when I was at college, and to give up and look for work five days a week.

Of course I told the Job Centre I would give up college and signed on.
Really I kept going to college and passed my City and Guilds and found another job, I also did a further qualification and I have never been out of work, and I now have my own business.

I sympathise with anyone dealing with the Job Centre as it sounds like nothing has changed.

 

[Peter Styles]

Thanks all for messages of support. Indeed BN9 BHA they've got considerably worse.
Have put in appeal against the decision and an official complaint against two DWP staff, and have recommended they be sacked for discrimination. Caroline Lucas is also now involved. Blog has had nearly 27,000 visits since Tuesday, but currently have zero income and there have been no concrete offers of work off the back of the story yet.

 

[perseus]

The advice given by outside agencies on how to deal with the DWP is wrong! That is the scroungers manifesto. It needs fine judgement not to be identified as a malingerer.

With a few exceptions most people are quite keen to get a "suitable" job. Best if these others don't get a job as they muck up the workplace with their negative attitudes and unmerited sense of entitlement.

 

[The Large One]

I've been unemployed (though managed to find some bits and pieces of freelance work) since August.

When I was unemployed a few years ago (1996-97 - it was for about 10 months), and went to sign on, I found the staff in the Job Centre friendly, helpful and sympathetic. I haven't sign on this time around, but the stories I'm reading from other people's experiences sounds horrific. I know they have their job to do as given to them by the DWP, but it seems they're doing it with spiteful gusto. From my experience when it was all handled by the DSS in the mid 90s, there were still the rules to adhere to, but the staff went that extra mile to help.

bn9 9ha's and Peter's stories above sounds as daft as they do spiteful on the part of the Job Centre staff, with no recourse to common sense or proper help. Incredible.

Thankfully, I've found a full-time job, and I start on November 24.

Meanwhile, good luck Peter.

 

[Machiavelli]

Can I commiserate with you for your situation and treatment, and congratulate you for the way in which you've gone about publicising this issue. It's only by people taking a stand and making their case that more people will come to understand what a dire state we're in, and how so many are being scapegoated.
I'm glad, but not surprised, that Caroline Lucas is backing you. Can I wish you all the luck, because you'll need it, given the paucity of support that's on offer from the government and so many sections of our society.