Job Searching Every Week Is A Pointless Exercise

Job searching is a pointless exercise as its the same jobs week in week out that are advertised bar about ten new ones. Some of the jobs are over 29 days old and were ones me and other job seekers would have looked at the week before as well as the month before. Type "jobs Ireland" into google and you will get a list of websites that advertise jobs in Ireland, here are some:

www.jobsireland.ie
www.jobs.ie
www.irishjobs.ie/
ie.indeed.com
www.monster.ie

Now go into any of those sites and type in Donegal or any other part of Ireland you live in and you will see the jobs that are advertised, go into the same sites next week and you will only see about ten new jobs advertised and the rest are all ones you looked at the week before therefore rendering job searching every week for Jobpath a pointless exercise.

Then there is travelling. If an unemployed person lives near their nearest People1st center then they might be able to walk to their nearest center, yet there are others who don't live near their nearest center and have to travel and pay to travel out of their own pocket to job search every week at their nearest People1st building.

Some one living in Lifford their nearest People1st center is Letterkenny
Some one living in Moville their nearest People1st center is Buncrana
Some one living in Gortahork their nearest People1st center is Dungloe

An unemployed person only gets travelling expenses if they have to see their job adviser for a review or if its for the Gateway CV course they have to attend which is compulsory for everyone that is put on jobpath, they don't get travelling expenses when they have to go and job search every week so if they travel from say Lifford then they would have to pay the bus fair themselves every week out of their dole and will only get travelling expenses for the day they see their job adviser. They don't tell you this at the Group session the only thing they do tell you is you will get reimbursed if you drive or if you travel by bus and it has to be a public bus not a private one. 

So for the week an unemployed person has to travel to Letterkenny or Buncrana or Dungloe or which ever center is nearest to where they live they have to pay out of their dole the bus fair or fuel for their car if they drive. An unemployed person in receipt of jobseekers allowance or benefit and not on Jobpath (yet) has to sign on every 4 weeks, if the unemployed person lives more then 10 miles from the nearest social welfare office they don't have to travel there every 4 weeks to sign on, If they live over 10 miles from the nearest social welfare local office they only sign on every 12 weeks.

Yet anyone on Jobpath that doesn't live near a People1st center has to travel and pay a bus fair every week or pay for the price of putting extra fuel into a car just to go into a building every week to sit and look at the same jobs that were advertised the week before bar about six to ten new ones.

An unemployed person only gets paid travelling expenses when they have a "review" with their job adviser, so the day they have to see their job adviser they would get reimbursed either their bus fair or if they drive they get a few extra euro. They don't get travelling expenses if they use a private bus or a taxi only if its a public bus or they drive their own car.

I have spoken with other job seekers and they have also told me that they have to pay the bus fair out of their own dole every week and they only get their bus fair paid the day they have to see their job adviser. I know one man who has to drive to his nearest People1st building to job search every week which is 18 miles from where he lives and 18 miles back home again that's 36 miles every week, all he gets is 12 euro towards his fuel and that is only paid if its a day he has to see his job adviser, every week when he has to go into the People1st building to job search he has to pay for the fuel himself, its hard enough for people to run a car in Ireland but to have to drive 36 miles every week to look at the same jobs being advertised is nothing but a disgrace. People1st/Seetec calculate the mileage from google maps. Someone driving a 1 liter car is going to use less miles per gallon than someone driving a 2 liter car yet both get paid the same amount of money for travelling the same distance.

Take for example someone who lives in Lifford, their nearest Jobpath People1st center is Letterkenny which means two things. They take the bus or if they have a car then they drive. If they take a bus but don't live near the bus stop then not only have they to take the bus but might also have to get a taxi to the bus stop which they are not reimbursed for. They are only reimbursed travel expenses if its for a "review" and if they take a public bus or drive. Getting from Lifford to Letterkenny takes about 20 to 30 minutes in a car depending on traffic and slightly longer on a bus.

Therefore with the bus taking about half hour to forty minutes to get to Letterkenny then the person walking from the bus station at the Station roundabout in Letterkeny to the People1st building on Main Street they have wasted about an hour or more just to get there. Then once there they have to spend an hour and a half looking at jobs on a computer before having to make the journey back home again which could take about an hour after leaving the center, that's about an hour just to get there and back then an hour and half job searching which by the way is always the same jobs advertised week in week out bar maybe ten new job adverts so about three hours of wasted time, time that could have been spent looking for real jobs instead of sitting on a bus and sitting there for an half hour or more then having to "job search" an hour and half looking at the same jobs.

As there are so few new jobs being advertised each week it can be very onerous not only in job searching but also applying for jobs as once you apply for a job you can't apply again for the same job and with so few new jobs being advertised it is an arduous activity.

If driving from say Lifford to Letterkenny after getting into the town and hoping there is no traffic jams a person then has to find a parking space. The job searching is for an hour and a half so that rules out the parking spaces on the Main Street as they are only free for a half hour after that its 1 euro per hour so unless a person who drives wants to go out and keep putting money into a parking meter which by the way costs money and for which Jobpath don't reimburse then a driver needs to find a car parking space that will allowed him or her to park for more then an hour.

If a person has their review and lives far away then they might want to do their job searching before or after their review so either way your talking an hour and half then anything from a half hour to 40 minutes for the review so again that's nearly two hours a person is going to spend in the People1st building at any given time.

Jobpath is a bit like giving 20 people €10 and telling them to go into the bookies every week and place bets on horses, after a while one or two people out of that 20 might win something. Jobpath is the same its all about sending C.V.s and spamming employers with said C.V.s and job applications every week in the hope that out of all the C.V.s sent and jobs applied for an employer might give someone a job.

Nothing more then a pointless exercise.

Seventh Review

For my seventh review my job adviser had told me that she had gotten word back from the place where she had sent my C.V. and told me that they are not looking for anyone at this time but if any positions came up either she or they would contact me as they have my details and C.V.  

She told me that she had also contacted the other place where I am interested in working to see if she can get me work experience and that she spoke to the same person I had spoken to who told my job adviser that at the minute they can't take on any more people for work experience but that my name was on the list and as soon as an opening came up she would let me know. My job adviser told me it could be around or after Easter before I could get the call for work experience but that I was on the list so there was nothing more to do but wait.

I told my job adviser about another job I was interested in doing and she had a look to see if she could help get me a job in that area. She had a look at the website for the job I was interested in and sent me the link to my email address and told me to contact them to ask if there were looking for any workers and to send my C.V. to them. She also said she would contact them herself to ask if there were any job vacancies available and to see what she could do to help in that regards.

She told me it I was 26 weeks on Jobpath and that I would need to take the online skills assessment survey again. As I have mentioned before this it is a Likery scale which is a psychometric scale that is a psychological measurement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likert_scale

This involves multiple choice questions and you tick one of the boxes that say, strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree before moving onto the next question, there are five questions per page and after you answered the questions on the page you were on you click save before then clicking next and moving onto the next set of questions. The survey is only about 5 minutes long and there is about 20 questions.

After I had finished she had a look on her computer to compare the survey I had done the first day I started Jobpath as well as the last survey I did to see if there was any difference in the results. 

She then typed up my review and then digitally signed her initials on my review on her computer and I had to do the same by moving the computer mouse and signing my initials on screen after which she then printed out my review and handed me a copy to take with me.

Before it was time to go she made another appointment for my next review and give me her card with the time and date of my next review and we said out goodbyes and I left.

This Likery scale survey takes place on the first day an unemployed person starts Jobpath, the surveys then takes place at 13 weeks, 26, weeks, 39 weeks and 52 weeks.

Below is copied and pasted from the Kildarestreet.com link at bottom of page.

JobPath is a “payment by results” model. An initial fee will be paid on the production of a personal progression plan for each client; subsequent "sustainment" payments, which will make up about 90% of the total fees for any individual client, will only be made where a person completes 13, 26, 39 and 52 weeks of sustained employment. The fees paid to contractors are tiered based on unemployment durations such that contractors are incentivised to provide an equal level of service to all clients rather than focus their attentions on the clients who are easier to place. In addition, contractors will be required, under contract, to commit to a specific level of progression to employment across all clients. Fees paid to contractors are also subject to a number of controls, including retention fees and automatic price discounts. Retention fees, which reduce the level of payments to contractors, apply if contractors fail to meet contractual performance commitments and-or if they do not deliver a satisfactory level of customer service as measured by the Department in independent customer surveys.

https://www.kildarestreet.com/committees/?id=2014-10-15a.5