Here we go again 😥

Me to, after 25 years service but heh shit happens. Keep smiling and something will turn up. Good luck.

Welcome back – hopefully September should be better

Best of luck guys.

Yeah, been out myself since Feb, with nothing on the horizon related to my career.

Trouble is at 40, I'm not exactly at the head of the que for re-training 🙁

Difficult to let go of my chosen career, but reality is, its all gone East.

So, I'm now thinking of what I'm going to do next.

Sorry to learn of yet another joining the jobless stats.

Good luck to you.

CC.

Andy at least it wasn't self inflicted 😯

CC – I'm 47 and been redundant since April – I think I'm in the same boat as you. Now having to explore new paths which is tricky when your CV shows your history.

my last day is the 31st of Oct.

I need to get my CV out there, and see whats about. I do get a decent layoff payment so I am not desperate …. yet;)

sorry to hear. Twice in a short period is not fun.

my wife's just found some work after 8 months of on and off looking. It does mean that we have to leave London though, and head off up north…. 😥

serious question, for those of you who have been unemployed for a while, is it there is no work, or is it there is no work you would consider?

I will be out of work in the new year and am a little concerned by the time some people seem to have been out of work.

thats agency work for you I guess, problem is full time jobs are a bit few and far between at the mo

Still I have just had a 5 month run of work and it could of been worse

mrmo – Member
serious question, for those of you who have been unemployed for a while, is it there is no work, or is it there is no work you would consider?

tbh in the south west there is not alot going on I am an electrician and there is bugger all, but I am not the only one from the building trades to have this issue.

Bottom line like everyone else I have bills to pay and I will do anything because even on the national minimum wage you are far better off than £62 on the jobseekers allowance

And bloody tescos have enough shelf stackers 😕

Same here, out since end of March. Been picking up the odd bit of freelance work which is really helping and gives a bit of a foot in the door. Made up a load of postcards and did a mail shot, pretty much covering from the South Coast to Scotland offering myself as a temp. Keeps the job centre of my back too.

Sad thing is there really is nothing out there. When i got laid off (firm went bust) i told myself that was me and printing finished after 25 years, but in reality the chances of changing careers when times are so tight are slim at best.

I'm applying for loads of different things; spent all day on an application for some drone position at the local council paying peanuts. I showed the app to friends and family and they were genuinely impressed….i didn't even get a response when i sent it off. Then met up with my ex workmates and half of them had applied for the same job and non of them got f-all back. It's pretty much knocked my confidence for anything other than waiting for more print work. But it's an industry that's falling apart anyway. I'm desperate to get a few more years out of it then look at a new beginning when things eventually pick up.

What's making me chuckle are the amount of programmes about lazy benefit cheats that are on the box these days. I think the reality is that there just isn't the opportunities out there any longer unless you are prepared to work for minimum wage. The last couple of companies i've temped at have employed pretty much all foreign labour doing the basic handwork. Those roles used to be a nice little job for mum's wanting to earn some easy cash, or the not-so-bright that didn't fancy Tesco. But they've probably been undercut by migrant labour. Sorry, this is not a racist rant, just an observation of how frighteningly things have changed in my trade. It doesn't take too much imagination to see my job being done for half the rate pretty soon.

Serious question, for those of you who have been unemployed for a while, is it there is no work, or is it there is no work you would consider?

Depends what you do I guess, but in my wife's case (contract IT project manager/ 16 years experience) there 'seems' to be loads of jobs, but, firstly, a lot aren't 'real' jobs- they're either agencies fishing for candidate cv's to go on databases, else they're jobs that rely on companies receiving the go ahead to do pieces of work- if you like getting a queue of people in place in case a role does come up.
Secondly, there's a huge number of unemployed out there- some vacancies are being shut down after 3 or 4 hours on the jobsites there's been so many cv's come in.
Thirdly, there's enough unemployed out there that agencies have an excellent chance now of matching a customers required skill set exactly. Used to be you could get by with the odd missing skill, but it doesn't seem that way at the moment.
I guess there's a variation of this theme going on in everything at the moment.
I could tell you how many jobs she's applied for, but the truth is it would be embarrassing…

saladdodger, a sparky I know spends half a day a week handing out cards in a few shopping centres round his way- hit and miss, but normally gets him some work. Helps if you're friendly and personable.

My experience tally's with vinnyeh's wife, human resources people in particular are really worried about losing their jobs so are attempting to stay mega-busy, getting people in to interview for non-existant/probably non-existant jobs. A house of mirrors.

A little nugget I learned the other day – an HR Manager has the power to say "No" but not the power to say "Yes".
You might want to bear that in mind when cold calling companies.

@ saladdodger

Do you have a local freecycle site?

Our one in Guildford also has a Cafe group where people can offer their services for paid work.

So far I've seen plumbers, electricians, junk removal/dial-a-van, cleaners etc and all seem to be getting bits of work or referrals.

I contacted a qualified electrician off ours and he came in with a very reasonable quote and some good references.

I've been 'job seeking' since the beginning of the year. The interviews have dried up and the only ads I see are the same ones in 5 or 6 different places each day.

I'm still signing on as, although I don't get JSA, they keep paying my basic NI and I need the sign-on for my mortgage protection which just about covers that. I've been doing some freelance training and provided I don't do more than 15:59 hrs a week I'm still officially classified as unemployed/jobseeking and not self employed.

I think the 15:59 per week is designed to encourage/force people to get a full time job no matter what it pays but I'm fortunate that the rate I get paid per hour is very good. It's a slog to keep sending out flyers and ringing potential customers and chasing payment of invoices but hopefully I'll be able to build a customer base while the mortgage protection is in place and take it full time self employed next year. The problem at the moment is keeping the hours within the limit and keeping the diary up to date.

To all who are still out of work or expecting to be in our position in the next few months, good luck in your endeavours and now may be the time to find a new career.

I had just turned 54 when I got the push and thought that was it but the wife bullied me into touting my training skills and it certainly has potential.

One final thought on CV, although they show your work history you should emphasise what you can do or bring to a new position, not what you've done in the past. Sorry if that's patronising but it's about using the skills you have.

John

Another out-of-work IT professional here. Only been a week and still getting over the shock of redundancy. Starting to apply today for a few positions.

I got absolutely nothing in 3 months of trying then was re-employed by the company that made me redundant in the first place (on lower wages obviously 🙁 ).
However in the meantime I'd been doing a bit of freelance and volunteer work for the bike industry and I ended up getting a job with British Cycling – complete career change for me, my old job was in chemical engineering.

I asked the HR woman at my exit interview how it was possible to walk into a job in which I had no formal experience but was paying a significant chunk more than a job where I have a degree and 7 years experience. Usual shite back about "The Board sets the wage structure, difficult times for all blah blah"

If you have a hobby that can make you a bit of money try that. Do as much volunteer stuff as you can as a) it gives you lots of experience, b) it keeps the Job Centre off your back and c) it looks impressive to prospective employers.
You may have to broaden your horizons of where to look though. Best of luck. In my case (aside from the financial hardships) redundancy was one of the best things that happened but that's only obvious in hindsight.

Got made redundant at the end of last year when they said i had to move office 50miles away (4 hours driving a day) or stay in my current post and take a 50% paycut and go onto 9 month rolling contracts with a compulsory 3 month lay off over the winter.

Basically, it's the best thing that has happened for ages. i went straight into freelancing (outdoor instructing) earning in 3 days what i was getting per week (working in the same industry for the county council). this month is a bit quiet due to the school hols and the new term etc, but July and Sept see me earning twice what i would have done being full time for the council.

I'm doing my chainsaw ticket next week as i've been offered work doing this over the winter. All's good 😀

Basically, look at it as a new start and a chance to be free and do what you want. dont pigeon hole yourself. it always makes me chuckle (sorry) when people call themselves an unemployed truck driver etc. if youre unemployed, then youre not a truckdriver. it might be what you were and what like to think of yourself as, but don't let it hold you back and stop you from looking at other options.

There was a programme on the other day about kids who cant get jobs. one insisted he want ed to work in construction and wouldn't accept there were no jobs and thus wouldnt widen his horizons and so didnt get a job

Good luck to everyone looking, according to a local article Cambridge is 'over' the recession, so it might be worth looking round here. I'm pretty sure it was just crazy talk though.

Although when my wife got made redundant she had a job by the end of the same day so there may be a little something to it, she's less specialist and more admin oriented though 🙂

Looks like i'm joining in October 🙁

Made redundant 3 times in 18 months, I am an architect and the last 18 months have been pretty dire although I must say things are defo on the move, my line of work is normally one the first and hardest hit in a recession and as easy as it is to say 'keep your chin up' things do seem to be picking up.

Me too – just found out that I've got until the end of October. Bobbins.

I am an architect and the last 18 months have been pretty dire although I must say things are defo on the move, my line of work is normally one the first and hardest hit in a recession

I'm in the building trade and similarly at the sharp end of the recession. Currently jobless, hence sitting here talking to you lot at one o'clock in the day. Things do seem to be on the turn, (if a bit slowly) but me being a plasterer, it could be months before that materialises in work for me.

On the upside I hated the last job I was on and have shaken off my depression since they sacked me. 😀

I just resigned my job to move to Bristol to be with my fiancee, not the best of times to be doing it, but I want back the seven hours it takes me each weekend to get down there and back.

Some top CV tips from folks in the know that I've been talking to:

Have a general CV which lists all your skills for automated searches. Send this round to as many agencies as possible. Remember, a lot of jobs never get advertised as good agencies will have people suitable for many vacancies already on their database.

Taylor your CV for each job application you make. You have only 90 seconds at most to get the attention of the person reading your CV and make yourself stand out from the crowd, so the relevant stuff needs to be in the top half of the front page, not your personal details.

Remember that a CV should be a SUMMARY of your skills and achievements, so don't go into too much detail – remember that 90 second time window. It should give enough information to hook the reader in and give them lots of questions to ask should you get an interview.

No need to include the words 'Curriculum Vitae' anywhere, as it should be obvious what the person is looking at.

I have my name in the header of each page in 14 point type, then section headings are in 12 point and main text in 11 point. I go with Palatino for the font as it's very readable and probably won't be used my many other people. This makes the CV stand out to a degree, but not in a glaring sort of way. Avoid MS Comic Sans 😉

My sections run as follows:

Profile

Relevant Experience / Key Skills
(These two can be swapped, the larger one goes at the top once I've worked out what needs to go in each from the job ad / description)

Higher Education – in my case, I have two degrees and I'm over 35, so no-one is really going to be interested in my A-levels and GCSEs any more

Employment History – this just lists job title, company and location, dates of employment and then ONE LINE listing briefly what the job entailed and what skills / technologies I was using. All the meatier stuff regarding employment experience and skills should be in the sections further up.

Personal Details

Referees – they're NOT 'References'

You may want to put other qualifications in with your education section, but in my case I don't really have any.

Get someone you know – preferably someone who hires and fires – to look over what you've done for spelling and grammar errors, readability etc.

Hope this might help someone out 🙂

if anyone is in south yorkshire area we need more people at on-one /planet x

actually we have several holes to plug , from pick pack order processing , to telesales , to order processing , bookkeeping , webupdates, and checking the spelling on the singletrack clearence page , cycle to work company sales , goods in

really though realistically we need flexibility and adaptability in all employees

anyone interested drop me a mail

dave@planet-x-bikes.com