I had this, they encouraged me not to look for IT work despite the fact of me wanting to start my career in It with certs to back it up and a little experience they just wern't having it and insisted I looked for three different types of jobs. Now i'm stuch moving furniture LOL. I think they should have separate departments helping IT work because it's one of those jobs at the moment that has nothing about. Despite people training hard in their own time to get a good job which is surely un-noticed my Job centres.

Are we treated the sameway as other professions that have a job shortage at the moment.

I can see them doing this if you have never worked in IT before as it kinds of makes sense, but if you have years of expierence then i think it is pretty pointless.

They do it for everyone mate, Surely if your qualified in only one area (IT) then theres no point in going for a sales job or a warehouse job ect, but I guess they just try to put as many people in jobs as they can not caring about what jobs suits each person best. Which will probly lead to skill shortages amoung the UK in years to come. Personally i have had so much trouble with Jobseekers but I hope someone else has something better to say.

Dave

Considering that the job centre use a shared excel spreadsheet to arrange all their appointments, it's hardly surprising they aren't really in touch with IT.

Dont be ridiculous

sorry, but if you are getting support from the Jobcentre, its because you are signing on. ANY job is better than no job. I would be telling anyone in ANY sector to broaden out from their desired field after three months. Get a job, get an income, and THEN you can get selective about the job you pick.

They arent saying you cant look for IT work, they are saying that after a short period, you should be looking for other work too.

If you need an "idiots guide" to why this is a good thing, here you go:

1) Less of a drain on government resources
2) Gaps in your CV look bad, its better to fill the gap with an unrelated job than no job
3) being unemployed is BORING. You cant do anything (no money).

My sentiments exactly.

The problem today with people from all corners is that they are picky when they haven't the leverage to be picky with. Too many "I'm not doing that" when on the other hand they want a hand paying their sky.

Any job is better than no job during these times. Then again, even before this recession the job centre was too broad and didn't cater to specialists at all but then again, they are paid to help you find a job, not an IT job.

Fixed.

I speak to Engineers on a regular basis and when I hear a unemployed engineer tell me that they can't afford to take a drop from £17 p/hr to £15 p/hr because apparently they "can't afford it" when in my opinion there just being smug b*****ds about it, makes me want to give them a couple of slaps and shout at them "wake up mate, whats better A) No Job or B) 1 Job" its pretty f***ing simple really.

Maybe these kind of people like to think they have expensive lifestyles and aren't prepared to make cutbacks but people these days need to realise that "beggers can't be choosers"

The amount of people i have seen sucked into those TPs and not gained any qualifications from them. As well as the amount of people in college who have been there years and still do not have a good grasp of the difference between RAM and ROM i would have to agree.

Actually I have a bit of an issue with this post. I spent from the end of August until January this year out of work, at no point in that time did I even consider signing on (I can't anyway because I am a Company Director), however the last thing I would do as an established IT professional is sign on at the Job Center, stuck looking for work? Look at Jobsite, Jobserver or Reed, not finding anything? spend the time improving your certs or doing work around the house.

I will admit that towards the end of November\December I was starting to struggle with things (financially) but seriously.. signing on at the jobcenter wouldn't be an option for me.

As far as gaps in my cv are concerned, I have some but they have never caused me any issues, the fact is I explain what's happened (time off or time spent training). I think the longest I ever spent out of work was about 5 months but again that never went against me either.

There is nothing that says you HAVE to spent all your time in work, my brother spent 13 months travelling the world, did it hold him back when he came back into IT? Hell no.

Actually some of that's not smug bastardness, thats actually trying to keep the market alive and with decent rates.

Imagine this, you're earning £17ph and the end of your contract comes along, you then try and find another job at that rate and there aren't any, they want to pay £15ph instead, now one of two things will happen, either someone will take the drop in rate or they won't find anyone will to accept that rate, two things happen then, rates either start dropping across the board, or rates stay the same and people don't start taking liberties.

I have actually turned down work that was paying £21ph for a short 1 month contract, why? well I had spent 3 months out of work at this point, my last contract (Central London) had been paying me £37.50ph, whilst I was desperate for work I had to take a step back from this because once you start down the slope of reducing your rate it takes a long time to get back up again (I once walked out of one job and took a £14ph pay drop, it then took me 6 years to get back to the same rate, admittedly I did it to get away from a failed relationship and it did me the world of good emotionally but financially it really hurt me).

As it stands now, I am now earning the most money that I have ever earnt in my IT career, if I had actually taken the first thing that came along who knows where I would be today but I can tell you that I am earning considerably more than twice as much as the £21ph that was on offer at the end of November.

I for one would rather wait for the right job than the first one.

To your knowledge, they have never caused you any issues. They'd definitely be a cause of concern if I were reviewing your CV.

It may not have caused him any problems, but a 13-month gap would certainly cause me to question the candidate. And if he had told me that he took 13 months to travel the world, I'd question how dedicated he is to IT. Not saying he's not dedicated... I'm just telling you how many employers are going to perceive things.

I second that, I have taken the first job time and time again because I struggle to get into IT and now I have changed my mind I am studying for IT and trying day in day out to get a job in IT. Going for the first job may not give you job satisfaction? I agree everyone has to start somewhere but if everyone went for the first job would the UK have any skilled workers? Or would all uni graduates have an IT job because I dont think they would. I'm only 20 and have a lot to learn but from all the posts on CF saying about how they tried sending out 100's of applications to companies applying for jobs. Fair play to them, they didn't look in the paper and saw a job at Morrisons and applied there because it's all they can get. I guess the higher you start the higher you will be when your older. So I found that post quite rude Fergal1982 especially to member on CF looking around for some inspiration on getting into IT.

Although I've never had trouble getting work, I'd dig ditches and scrub toilets in order to put food on the table for my family, particularly if nothing else were available.

That said, I'd be knocking on doors across the city before it came to that; getting a job would be my full-time job.

He might have been rude, but he's right. I'd take rude over wrong any day.

I'm sure that comes as a complete surprise to most of you...

Why is it that when people hear something truthful that they don't want to believe, they immediately throw out the "arrogant" or "rude" flag? You know, there are times that I put up with the name calling, but there are also times that I grow tired of it and simply want to say, "You know what? You've been given the information you need. Go out and hang yourself."

Be thankful that there are people like him who will speak up. If he didn't have good intentions, he'd stay silent and let you believe what you will.

Why though? No one is ever that lucky to consistantly walk from one job straight into the next.
My CV is up here, have a look for it (one of my posts assisting someone else), all that's blanked out are the names.

Well it's lucky that he is recognised as one of the top in his field, that he constantly (even when he was away) get's calls asking him to take jobs all across the world (Singapore, Japan, S. Africa, London, LA). As far as dedication goes, there are times where for tax purposes you have to leave the country for a period of time, at his peak he was having to pay £40,000 in tax every three months (he was pulling in £1500 per day a few years back), now days he is 'only' pulling in £600pd, way more than me and he is the younger of the two of us.

Thats great - for him, however very few people are lucky enough to be in that bracket. I have to say that I am with the guys that say get any job as I know I dont have enough to fall back on in the case of redundancy. I assume that many people on here would be the same.

Really? I've never been fired, and I've walked from one job straight into the next...

As far as why gaps are a problem, gaps usually mean one or more of the following:

- the candidate was fired/let go/downsized/however-you-want-to-spin-it (causing the employer to question whether the candidate is a bad employee)
- the candidate quit without first lining another job opportunity up ahead of time (causing the employer to question their decision making abilities)
- the candidate is having trouble getting new employment (causing the employer to wonder whether this candidate wants too much money, interviews poorly, or isn't really looking hard for a job)

I'm not saying that this means that the candidate IS a bad employee or that they DO make bad decisions or that they DO want too much money or that they DO interview poorly or that they ARE lazy. I'm simply saying that the possibility is there. This is all about perception, mate. If a gap leaves a potential question mark even in SOME employer's minds - and it does - then gaps are to be avoided whenever possible.

Just understand that when you bring up the "my brother" story, you're using a single isolated case where someone didn't have any problems after taking an extended career break. If someone were to follow that logic and believe that the same thing WILL happen to them, you could absolutely be setting someone up for failure down the line, because MOST employers question gaps.

I know someone who won the lottery... but I'm not going to take my life's savings and buy lottery tickets.

It will also depend on the type of work you do, myself I am a contractor, have been for over 10 years now, that means that a position will naturally come to an end, it's not an if but a when, for example my current position finishes at the end of the month (March) because that's the date that the project I am working in finishes (actually it stops at the middle of March and then the final 2 weeks are project close down). One thing that people reading my CV will understand is that it's the CV of a contractor, admittedly my contracts tend to be in the 12 - 18 month bracket but they are still contract positions.

The criteria you posted above simply wouldn't\shouldn't apply to contractors, those that do apply them to contractors obviously haven't worked with them before or often enough.