New Deal

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Hi guys

Having recently finished a course in I.T, I have been desperately looking for a way to get some experience in the work place, well I have come up against brickwall after brickwall.....Until today.

I was advised by the job centre to sign up for new deal for over 25's (I didn't know such a thing existed) and was sent away to speak to one of their advisors. Anyway, that was last Thursday and we spoke about job placements and the like and discussed what type of work I would be interested in. She told me I was able to go on a placement for three months without the need to apply for the labouring jobs that were being forced upon me week after week. So I came up with a list of places I thought maybe suitable and she told me to leave it with her and she would contact these buisinesses on my behalf.

So today I had a phone call from my advisor telling me there was someone interested in taking me on a three month trial and could I make it for a chat with the guy tomorrow.

There is no guarantee that anything will come of this, but it is a start I suppose and if I'm honest I'm quite excited.

I know this might not suit everyone, but for the guys and girls just starting out in I.T, it might be worth looking into to gain the experience you need. It's also something to put on your C.V even if it is only for three months.

oober

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

That is excellent news, i will keep my fingers crossed for you.

 

Now that sounds like intelligence on the part of the JC. Nurture it - in case it goes away!

Good luck!

Harry.

 

Well I went to see the fella today and he seemed quite happy to have me in his shop for a while and said I could start Monday.

I also told him of my intention to sit the A+ exam and he said if there was any help I needed just to ask as he had already sat the exams and had passed.

So thanks for the crossed fingers and good lucks, they seem to have worked.

oober

 

glad to hear that, I hope that everything goes well for you.

 

that's great ooberman...well done!!!

 

All sounds good, dude - best of CF luck for Monday

 

Good Stuff!

Hope it all goes well.

 

Good luck mate. I hope it works out for you.

 

That's very kind of you all,

thankyou very much
oober

 

So hows it going then mate?

Mick

 

Well it was delayed for a week, but I started yesterday and the guy really seems to know his stuff. He had me strip down a couple of old machines for spares and then within a couple of hours had me working on customers machines, obviously I'm a bit more cautious working on a customers p.c than if it were my own but I reckon I did ok.

He also fires random questions at me out of the blue which I find amusing and to be fair to him if i don't know it, he will explain to me in as much detail as I want him to.

So all in all I'm over the moon that I'm finally getting some real experience, and I seem to have chosen the right place to gain it in.

Cheers everyone
oober

 

well done buddy, glad to see you are getting experience and enjoying it too

 

Glad your job centre is useful. My job centre informed me that "There was no such thing as New Deal for over 25's". There obviously is as it's on their website and I shall be taking a print out in tomorrow as I have an interview anyway.

When I asked if there was any funding available I was told "There is absolutely none available", again absolute rubbish as there are people on funded courses, IT related or otherwise, it is just difficult to get on these and probably more paperwork for the adviser!

I then informed my adviser that now I have my CCNA it would be helpful in helping me get a job (with experience of course) to which my adviser replied "Yeah well everybody has them these days" I know that more and more people are now studying for CCNA and MCSE but it certainly is not a common certificate among the non IT field like ECDL is which is what I believe he was confusing it with.
Furthermore I have to reclaim JSA as I was misinformed about the status of my claim so have to claim again!



I was thinking about applying for a job in the Job Centre, the interview must be so easy for our local one.

Interviewer: So tell me do you have any customer service experience?

Me: Not really

Interviewer: What would you do if you had an irate customer?

Me: Err ignore them and hope they go away.

Interviewer: Do you have any knowledge of benefits available to the unemployed?

Me: None whatsoever.

Interviewer: Congratulations your hired! You start on Monday!

Me: Can't start Monday have to sign on

 

Hope thats not true...

 

I think that Job Centre employee wants to check their own website or not be lazy and actually help people that genuinely want to find work and not tar everyone with the same brush.

 

OK just an update to this with some info you may find useful:
I had my interview at my job centre where they of course denied that New Deal for 25+ exists. I insisted that it did exist and that it was clearly displayed on the website.
So my interviewer went off and came back after a while confirming that there was such as thing as New Deal for 25+ but that it was not running in my area.
Instead they have a similar system in which they basically 'outsource' the scheme to an employment agency, in this case Reed.

• If you join this scheme then Reed are responsible for getting you a job for 13 weeks.

• If they can't find you a job after 13 weeks then you get referred back to the Job centre.

• You sign on with Reed every week instead of fortnight.

• The good news is limited funding is available if the course would be directly relevant to you getting a job. This means MCSE, CCNA etc may be eligible for funding. (£400 was quoted as the max but it can vary up or down).

• If you find a job you may still be eligible for funding if the course would get you into your target job. So for example if you want to become an IT technician but end up working in retail to make ends meet you could still be have an evening course funded.

• You have to be on Income based Job Seekers Allowance not Contribution based. This usually happens after 6 months.

These are the things I have been told but please find out at your own job centre as things may differ there.

The sad thing is the adviser for Reed was sitting in the opposite corner of the room to my interviewer, yet my interviewer did not about this scheme until she asked around!

 

sounds a lot like my own job centre, PS... they seem fairly willing to want to help you, but anything you ask about isn't available, used to be available but disappeared thanks to funding and service cutbacks, etc etc... and some things you ask them about they just don't have a clue with.

nice one two days ago where i needed to dash in and try to get a letter from them saying that i was claiming JSA, so that i could get my ECDL at a realistic price rather than paying through the nose... JC said something along the lines it wasn't valid until the money was being paid into my bank account (current backlog, going by my now-employed bro's recent dole scumming, is about 5 weeks!) and I'd get the letter sent through then. Until that point, i wasn't officially receiving any benefits and would have to pay full price .. even though i could be completely broke ATM for all they know.

called test centre up to let them know of this and ask if I could put off starting the course by a couple weeks. "Hang on" says they "You've already been signing on... so you have the signing-on book?" yep... "Oh, that's perfectly acceptable, it shows you're out of work and claiming for the benefit, even if you haven't received it yet. Bring it along, we'll only charge you the £25 registration fee then" --- in opposition to the £185-250 i was previously quoted.

...and similarly for dyslexia/educational psychologist assessments/reports/councelling and advice.. no.. sorry.. dunno what you're talking about.. even though it affects the way you work and could be important in sorting out what kind of roles you'd be good at, which you'd hate, your suitability for posts we may offer you etc.
i suppose they're still a good safety net for the truly strapped who have no career goals other than to find someone who will exchange them cash-for-slog, as there's thousands of such menial things on their electronic terminals i could easily apply for and walk into ... but i'm trying to build a half decent career here, so that i never need darken their door again, rather than doing it on a quarterly basis.

where do you live ooberman, they sound far more sorted, i want to register with them and see what someone with brains can offer

 

I'm in a similar situation,

I'm 38 and spent the first stage of my adult life doing menial jobs, that meant you could leave your brain at home - mainly because I couldn't wait to get out of school and start earning ANY sort of money, and also because I had absolutely no idea what the hell I wanted to do career-wise.

3 years ago I saved enough money up and decided to sod-off around Europe and Asia for a few months - the sort of thing I should have done after leaving Uni (if I'd have gone) - you know, gap year, and all that...

Anyway, I returned with a career at last sorted out in my mind. It was so obvious, how the heck did I not realise it before.

I've been so into computers ever since my Dad bought me a Sinclair ZX81 back in the day, and I've basically taught myself loads of stuff about PC's and networks and so on.

So I applied to the local college to see what thay had on offer and started an EAL IT course - yeah, I know, what the hell is that - I was naive and just wanted something on paper. It taught me about Helpdesks though and 1st line, 2nd line, Break-Fix, SLAs etc. From there, a C&G level 2 Diploma as a systems service technician which seems to be just as worthless in the field, although I built on my skills and got to tinker in the lab with all sorts of equipment.

That was done mainly because I got a free voucher for the A+ which I eventually passed and is my proudest achievement to date.

I've waffled on a bit, I know, but my main point was that while doing all this I was signing on. Turning up at the jobcentre with all the riff-raff that was there. Getting stick all the time from so called 'advisers' that I must be available to take any job at any time, even if it meant that i would have to forfeit my courses.

I learnt that you could only be in part-time education 16 hours or less a week, otherwise you'd lose your benefit and you'd have to hope that you got an adviser that was sympathetic to your situation and didn't treat you like a layabout that was just trying to 'work' the system.

I was lucky and managed to keep the 'New Deal' stuff off my back those last few months. Now, however, having left the college I'm still unemployed - still unemployed but now I've been sent to an 'over 25s New Deal' building somewhere in Brixton. I was promised that in the first week I'd be sent on a work placement. The truth is that this company has just won the tender for this New Deal role on the promise that they can put 50% of us back into work within the allotted 13 weeks.

Yeah, right !
50% of them don't turn up.
35% of the rest don't care or want a job or are just unemployable for various reasons.
And maybe there are 15% that are like me - stuck in a place that can't really help me and have no idea what I want and need.

As for work placements - they don't seem to exist. The company is so new at this that they haven't managed to get their feelers' out yet and have NO companies that they are in partnership with.

So if there are opportunities out there, then I'd sure like to know about them. I'm talking placements here - volunteer jobs and suchlike.

Maybe I should go back to the jobcentre and tell them what a bunch of Cs this lot really are.