Should be interesting read, good luck Stuie :)

Good luck with the job hunt Stuie - wish you the best.

I moan about working 90 miles away from home but I should really be thankful I have a job in the present climate as a lot of good people are looking for employment. I was made redundant 20 years ago and was job hunting for 6 months and in that time I nearly went bonkers so would not like to experience that again.

Hopefully things will pick up in the not too distant future.

Good luck Stuie and congratulations on the 1st Class Honours

Stuie

Good new its £72 a week, don’t rush and spend it all at once though. You can get help with your mortgage interest only, but with your wife working you may not. The benefit is called Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) you can look it up on direct.gov, you have to wait 13 weeks for it though and the rules are shrouded in secrecy by the job Centre plus. They didn’t mention it to me either.

Sadly your experience at the job center will not get any better, do not expect any help from them other than helping you write a CV which you can already do. They are not there to help you get a job, they are there to stop you claiming benefits.
If you apply for a job via an agency, that will count, but just registering does not ( towards your 3 things). Looking in newspapers job sections count, as does general looking on the Internet at agency web sites (but only counts as one thing). Networking also counts, though I rarely put this down. As you applied for 15 jobs, you have done 15 things. Just look at the silly little form they give you to complete, there are examples.

This is for me only the second time I have been out of work, and have over 26 years of working, so the job center was quite a shock. Almost no help in getting a job and were more concerned about benefits (except if you ask them how it is going, then they don’t know). Come to think of it if you ask them any questions at all they don’t know and give a number to phone.

All the best with the jobs that you are currently waiting on and look forward to the ongoing blog.

it can be very hard having to go through the process of signing on, they can make you feel like the wasters that they just let sign on and out they go, i have signed on a couple of times over the years, i last signed on for about 3 months when the recession hit in 2008, i hit the agencies and even applied for my taxi badge which they wouldnt help fund even though i was on 60 something pounds a week and had a pay for a medical, crb and badge application itself.

there was a program on the other day called dispatchers (channel 4 i think) in which they sent 2 people undercover to claim benefits and ask advice for job hunting, 1 man put his shopping list on the list of jobs he had applied for and got away with it and the other showed them job letters which he had put that he didnt want a job and wanted to stay on benefits. he even pulled up outside in a painters and decorators van with overalls on and just told them he was painting a room in his house.

the best 1 was that the job centre themselves had over 100 jobs available and not 1 of them was on there website but was on the civil service site, the reporter interviewed the director of job centre plus, you could see the colour disappear in her face and she gave the usual customer service answer that she would look into it.

there are some good people there who do like to help, but an awful lot just look at you as if your a drain on society and are just there for form filling, it seems that you are better not working and having a few kids and claiming what you can, when i drove a taxi i struggled to make a living but it was better than signing on and some of my fellow drivers claimed for everything because they had a rented property and i had to move back into my parents house for a while. i just about had a weeks caravan holiday and they had cars, sky tv and at least 2 foreign holidays a year, yes i did report a couple of them and 1 was prosecuted that i know of.

sorry for going off the subject, rant over.

i will say though make sure you attend the meetings/seminars/return to work things that they tell you about because they will not hesitate to stop your money, be careful taking on short term temporary work as they dont like you signing off and back on again, they use to say you couldnt sign back on for i think it was 6-12 weeks depening on circumstances, bit of a bugger when going from one agency to another for work.

i think they also say you have to be willing to travel for up to 90 minutes to a place of work, if you tell them you have car, that can be some serious mileage, tell them that if you have a car it is broken you have use of a shared car and you would have to get the bus, it came in handy for me as i live in a small village in north wales and the buses are few and far between, 90 minutes on a bus is alot less distance than 90 minutes in a car.

good luck with your job hunting

24/8/12
The interview I attended on Tuesday I thought went OK, the organisation is in a pretty bad way in terms of H&S – 600 employees working 4 on 4 off conti shifts with no H,S&E support whatsoever. I felt that they were looking for someone to go in there and lead the workforce which I would have been able and happy to do. The interviewers told me that they wanted someone to start next Tuesday (28th) which would have fitted with me, and as such they would feedback by Thursday at the latest. When Thursday late afternoon arrived with no feedback I called the recruitment agency, only to be told ‘Sorry I should have called you back but was so busy yesterday I forgot all about it!! Then I was told that 'they are not taking you or the other interviewee forward as they want someone to go in a kick the place into shape and they don’t think your management style is appropriate’ Thanks mate!!
Wednesday involved my interview at the jobcentre – this was not as bad as I was expecting, the lady who I dealt with seemed to be fairly genuine and did try to help, but all of the stuff that she was suggesting I am already doing, the only thing that I did get from it was to try the local careers centre for some further support, I have an appointment next Tuesday.
Thursday was another interview, this went OK nothing special, I don’t really hold out much hope as I let myself down on one of the competency questions in relation to the changes/new asbestos regs. As we had no asbestos at my last place this is something that had slipped off my radar so to speak. So what I will do there, is brush up on the reg’s/changes and then email the people concerned to tell them that I feel I have brought myself up to date with this and have used the interview and this experience as a good example of CPD. Maybe this will go some way to showing them that I am keen etc?
On the way home from this interview I took a call from a local company that I had approached in reference to an engineering job that they are advertising for – I have an interview arranged for 2nd week in September. Maybe time to ‘go back to my roots’ – I would on the face of it probably take the job, local company, good money, good local reputation, but not a full time H&S role, although there is some elements of H&S.
Today has been taken up by following up on a lead from last week, sending a copy of my CV and a specifically tailored cover letter to the person concerned, as well as calling a couple of recruiters about jobs that I have seen advertised – which miraculously seem to have just closed for applications!!
Life is not good, but it is better than that of a close friend of my wife who has breast cancer – sort of brings things into focus a little!!
Have a good weekend
Stuart

Stuart

have you considered getting onto the books of recruitment agencies? I worked for four years in interim roles and within that time only had three weeks without work. The rates are higher than in standard employment but no sick pay, holiday pay - but at the moment I don't imagine what you do as long as you keep busy.

I could not send the details you asked for before as I realised that there was a copyright issue, so sorry about that, but if you want I can give you some of the agencies that had successfully placed me in the past. Can be lucrative - bloke working at the Trust I work with is on £375 a day. Highest I have heard of was £1200 a day, two days a week, again for a high level project manager in a different Trust.

PM me if you want. In the meantime, you will get another job - so keep calm and carry on.

JSA doesn't go very far, but any benefits are based on the governments belief that you and your wife can survive on £52.98 each per week, but the good news is that your children get £62.33 each per week plus a £17.40 family premium. A total of £248.01 per week. Just over £1000 per month.
As you said due to your wife's income you et no other help, but watch out, after 28 weeks they stop your JSA payments.
Any income is included to make this up including child benefit, tax credits and even my Disability Living Allowance.
You're right about the jobcentre being a depressing place of little help to very few people and the advisors unqualified to give guidance to more experienced job seekers
As for Agengies I find the jobs don't really exist but are just CV gathering
As they say keep trying and good luck

Nigel

Stuie, hi.

Did you claim your travel expenses when you met with the job adviser (you can't for ordinary sign on or if appointments are together). You have to ask - they don't usually offer.

The new "90 minute travel" rule is new and so has yet to be challenged, but without access to your own car, it's dead in the water. Walk or bus (direct bus here goes only 4 miles, so 90 minutes includes connection time - therefore radius in this neck of wooods about 10 miles max). They can't make you 'get on your bike' if you can't ride one. Also, how would this be translated to realistic travel times in peak hours in a busy city. It can take 90 minutes to travel half-way round the M60.

Good luck - you are making progress. Interim / temp jobs would give you a fantastic CV within very short space of time.

Have you tried the HSE???

The issue of mothers in H&S roles is a whole new topic. I have yet to find a part time health and safety role advertised or one that fits in with childcare responsibilites. While the children were at nursery this was much easier than when they are at school due to the extended hours nurseries work, but then of course you have to pay. It cost me £1000 a month for preschool childcare which meant I was actually working for £300 a month (4 days a week for local government). I'm not moaning and I did love the job I was in however its has been next to impossible to achieve a good work life balance in the private sector as a mum and a health and safety specialist.

Please start another thread rather than muck up Stuie's.

29/8/12
I hope that you all had a great weekend and that you are happy to be back in work today – don’t knock it - I would swap with you any day of the week at the moment.
Can you please try and stick to the idea behind the thread if you have any comments can you keep them relevant please? The idea was/is for me to tell you how I am finding the whole job hunting process, with a view to trying to assist others in the same boat as me, by sharing the ups and downs and pitfalls that I may stumble across along the way. Thanks.
I had a quiet weekend on the application front started to broaden my horizons a little by applying for jobs that can/will utilise my engineering background more and not concentrate solely on the H&S – which on the face of it seems to be a bit of a waste of my degree and CMIOSH status, but needs must and with so many of us looking for work – many much more experienced and higher qualified than I am – and in the hunt for the few jobs that there are I am forced to look elsewhere.
I had a phone call today from an agency offering me an interview for an interim/temporary role that they have on their books – interview is tomorrow with a second round on Thursday if I am successful tomorrow. That means a 200 mile round trip tomorrow and possibly another on Thursday all for the chance of a temporary role. To give you some idea this will cost me about £22 each day in diesel alone, which when you are only bringing in £72/week JSA makes a darn big hole in your weekly budget! This also means I have postponed my careers advice meeting that was planned for tomorrow – I will take any help I can get at the minute. What with ‘signing on’ on Friday what seemed like a quiet week may well turn out to be busy after all.
Whilst sat at the computer earlier I had an email ping through – another interview next week for a job that I had applied for a couple of weeks ago that I had given up hope for – in a University but again it is a 200 mile (everywhere seems to be 100 miles from home!!) round trip, at least I had the opportunity to select the time of the interview so I don’t have to rush there first thing.
Another ‘job’ that I have been meaning to do (which may come in useful for the keeping Job Centre ‘happy’) is to compile a list etc of the interviews that I have had recently. After doing this I was quite surprised to find that I have had or have planned 12 interviews since the 2nd of July, five of which have gone nowhere in terms of job offers, four I am waiting for further feedback from and three are planned within the next two weeks.
Also today I have completed some on line tests that I have had to complete as a part of the recruitment process for another job which I have passed through the initial sift by the agency, there was a literacy and numeracy test. I hope that I get through these as I gather the pass mark is only about 40% I will be gutted if I don’t pass – mind you the numeracy test was mind boggling and I had to guess at the last three answers as I nearly ran out of time. This role will be a fast moving one (telephone interviews this week) as they are looking according to the agency at making an offer on the 7th of Sept the day after the face to face interviews.
Other tasks involved calling agencies that I have had no feedback from, mostly to hear the same thing – ‘we have not had any feedback from the client yet’ or ‘they have closed the role’ or such like. See also my comment on the SHP4 Jobs thread on the forum.
Take care and thank you to those that have PM’d me for various reasons and with offers of support and assistance etc – very much appreciated.
Stuart

stuie

pm'd you again

cheers

martin

Its dire out there there are a few jobs here hsejobs.proboards.com and on the SHP online.

Well Done Stuie - hope it all goes well and thank you for keeping us up to date.

Bit concerned about your comments regarding your sore back and shoulders - can I refer you to the DSE Regs??!!!!!!!

All the best in the future

SW

Stuie Good Luck

Well done Stuie, really pleased you've found something (albeit temp), hope it all comes good for you with a permanent offer :)

Alan

Excellent news Stuie, well done.

Shows others looking for a position that it can be done in the current climate.

15th September
Hi sorry for the lack of postings.
I have started my temporary role at an automotive parts manufacturer (body panels) which involves me travelling almost 200 miles each day, to get into and from work, I get up at 04.15 in order to be at my desk by 07.30 – but at least there is an early finish on a Friday; I have not done a full week yet but at least it covers the diesel costs of going to interviews.
Other news – still having interviews come through – which puts me in a bit of an awkward situation with my employers as I need time off for them and being a contractor if I am not there I don’t get paid. Last week involved two interviews one for a maintenance manager’s role and one second stage interview for an EHS manager’s role. The engineering role will be good (going back to my roots) as it is local (12 miles) and the employers have a very reputation in the area – money is not bad either!! The EHS role is for a large multinational organisation, I was the only person from the interviews the previous week that they wanted to see again on Thursday, not having heard back from them I am not holding my breath. This role is over 100 miles each way from home but the money is better (approx 30%).
I did not get the role at the education establishment, someone with more experience got that role, I have not heard back from the ‘other’ multinational that I interviewed for last week – the HR person was going on holiday so maybe when she gets back?
I have two interviews lined for next week now – both with consultancies – which is something I have been interested in for some time now but have not, had the opportunity to move in that field – yet?? I have just completed application forms for a part time (22.5hrs) H&S adviser's role – I need a permanent role so would consider this – maybe supplemented by working part time elsewhere. As I am fully aware of the organisation (personal reasons) I know the present incumbent is full time – but apparently he is leaving the organisation in such a good place that he can be replaced by a part time person as there will not be much for them to do!!!
This role and the engineering manager’s role show to me that it is not necessarily what you know but who you know – I have had information/support from people that work in both of these organisations.
Another plus is that I don’t have to sign on – it was relatively easy to sign off one phone call was all it took – almost as if they could not wait to stop paying me. Which incidentally I had a letter through a couple of days after signing off asking me to justify why I had ‘left to pursue other interests’ which is what my previous employer had said when the DWP had written to them – THANKS. I was given the chance to put my side of the argument over which I would not have been able to do if I had been fired apparently - hopefully no one else will find themselves in the situation I did - but a bit of insider knowledge if you do.
Take care and thanks for the support.
Stuart