Why Doesn't Benefits Agency Keep Score On Claimants' Rejected Applications?

[Hypognosis]

So, there are no shortage of sanctions on benefit claimants.

Why can't we have sanctions on employers who fail to hire a claimant who has already clocked up a nationally-agreed "excessive number" of job rejections?

That is to say, if they advertise a vacancy but hire a person other than the one who has the highest number of previous rejections, then they must supply

i) a written explanation to the BA for why they hired the other person instead
ii) supply a free traing course to the failed applicant to bring their skillset up to the same standard as the hired candidate (which can be the only justifiable reason for not choosing the one who has been waiting longest for a job).



Inspired by gordiescotland's recent thread
http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question1401055.html

[Buenchico]

>>>which can be the only justifiable reason for not choosing the one who has been waiting longest for a job

What absolute rubbish! Employers need to look for the best applicant, irrespective of whether that's a person who already has a job (and simply wants a change) or someone who has made thousands of previous applications.

Further, what exactly constitutes a 'job rejection'? I applied for over 2000 posts. Only about 80 employers even acknowledged my applications and I got just 3 interviews. (One employer then gave me a work trial but didn't even have the decency to contact me again afterwards. Another employer gave me a work trial, praised my efforts enormously but refused to employ me because I was 'too intelligent' for the post. The third employer told me that I'd got the job subject to the approval of a senior manager who, upon his return from holiday, decided that there wasn't a vacancy anyway).

So was I rejected from 3 jobs, about 80 jobs, or over well over 2000 jobs? Whatever the answer, I can't see how the number of job rejections I received should affect any further job applications (either positively or negatively).

[ummmm]

You can train someone as much as you want but that doesn't change their personality. When employing someone you also take into consideration who they will be working with and how well you feel they'll fit in.

[factor-fiction]

It sounds unworkable to me. I think some employers would probably decide it was easier not to recruit at all than have to take a candidate who may be totally unsuitable or go through a beaurocratic justification exercise and shell out for the free training course. We'd also need an army of administrators to check up on it- although I suppose that would create some jobs

[factor-fiction]

How do you count'job rejections' anyway.
The system for claiming JSA now requires you to sign up for Universal JobMatch. You are expected to log on every day and do searches and make applications. I did it for 2 weeks and was able to apply willy nilly for dozens of jobs simply by clicking on them and linking my CV- it wasn't a proper application with a covering letter etc and not surprisingly I never heard back.

[Peter Pedant]

Golly when I returned from Egypt having rendered myself virtually unemployable in 1980 [ spoke good Arabic but not really required in Devon ]

I fired off five written job applications a week until I got hired.

The fact that X didnt want me didnt stop me from applying to Y and er not letting on that I was on the unwanted pile....

[Peter Pedant]

The real answer is
because they have a really crap computer system which doesnt work for the purpose it was bought, let alone another one

[Hypognosis]

Well, it's nice to get a smattering of replies. I guess there's a real knack to getting a thread about something seemingly uncontroversial to run to 13 pages.

My intention here was highlight the way that politicians make out that it is the "wealth creators" and "job creators" (aka "trickledown"ers) who are important in getting the unemployed into work and help boost the economy but that, if you legislate the fair distribution of work to those most impoverished by a *sustained period* of unemployment, you end up with absurdity in job-filling and additional layers of administration.

I was hoping we could help gordiescotland feel better about his situation but, apparently, not.

2000 applications, chico? If only I had a tenth of your constitution! I would have topped myself by the first hundred.

[Hypognosis]

@ummmm

You seem to subscribe to the "if the face doesn't fit" school of thought? I suspect my previous workplace was run like that. In fact I think having a degree was a bit of a handicap, against people with only school-level quals.

Hearing people tell me "don't worry, it's personality that counts" I find profoundly depressing.

[Hypognosis]

@factor-fiction

I hear all the fuss about working the system but I assumed jobseekers just compile a list of employers who they know can be relied on to come back with a rejection eg due to mismatched skillsets and just send applications to them, week-in, week-out, so as to perpetuate their claim?

But, before anyone dreams up a rule forbidding you to apply to an employer repeatedly, what about people stuck out in the sticks where there are limited number of factories and offices? They'd be forced to apply to workplaces further and further away. They might succeed but it would be a life-destroying work/commute/sleep existence.

Market economics drives jobs into the big cities, not to remote places, where the locals are crying out for them.

[THECORBYLOON]

What is an "excessive amount" of rejections? Does it vary according to each different type of job? What about those claimants with rejections made prior to such a scheme being introduced, there would have been no count kept so what happens to them?

[venator]

Forcing an employer to hire someone just because he has been rejected a number of times could only work in the old Soviet Russia.

[Hypognosis]

@PeterPedant

Technically correct, your second answer but the thread was meant in a figurative sense. That is to say it is not the BA's remit to monitor which employer is rejecting which long-term claimant or for what reasons. They ate merely there to enforce the turning of the crank, not count the number of revolutions.

Given the choice, I would prefer the lump hammer and some rocks to smash up. That would, at least, be therapeutic and work off my frustrations.

[FrogNog]

So when, as in the company I work for, a jobcentre applicant rides into the reception on a bike bare chested for his interview, are we supposed to take him because he always gets rejected?
I don't think so and it's not the company's job to fish out the people who try to get rejected, nor is it their job to finance it.
That's the job of the employment agency.

[Hypognosis]

@corbyloon

Checkout gordies' thread (link at foot of OP)

@venator

I think the Soviet model was that they assess your abilities and then shove you into whichever job they think most suits you.

I recall that Horizon prog about their missile program and more than a couple of officers who were made to be head of the program couldn't hack the pressure. Resignation was not an option, hence they had to resort to the pistol.

I wouldn't have lasted long there.

[Hypognosis]

@Frognog

Usually the debate revolves around jobseekers 'not even bothering' to look for work. Now you're saying that they do come to interview but make themselves out to be completely whacko to ensure they don't get hired?

This is an interesting development.

What if they actually *are* a bit whacko? ATOS is going to pass them as fit for work (# of limbs=>1).

[tamborine]

Who wants to employ a benefit applicant that arrives 30m late for an interview. For some jobs its worth knocking on company doors as soon as they open.

[THECORBYLOON]

What figure(s) do you suggest then?

[Hypognosis]

@tambo

//Who wants to employ a benefit applicant that arrives 30m late for an interview. //

Fair point but that's a parameter you've introduced (without explanation) not what I was asking. Gordie was saying he's hardly ever being given the chance to come to interview. Could be his CV is up the spout but we can't exactly pry into details, can we?

//For some jobs its worth knocking on company doors as soon as they open.//

I found that remark slightly ambiguous. Do you mean
1) "as they open" as in the sense of as soon as a new business sets up in town? (I don't know about Gordie's location but, if in a remote peninsular, this doesn't happen often).
2) Doorstepping them just as they open for business, in the morning.


@TheCorbyloon

Per my previous reply, however many it took to trigger Gordie into expressing his exasperation. I don't think he mentioned an exact number.

Anyway, whenever this topic comes up, we're assured that "the jobs are out there" yet the whole JSA system seems to revolve around collecting job application rejection letters and I am struggling to reconcile the two facts. They cannot both be true.

I think the fact is that workplaces consider them not just unemployed but *unemployable*. That, doubtless, does not qualify as a disability so, once they've been sanctioned for failing to get a job after 'n' weeks of claiming, they'll be cut off from all benefits, presumably in the hope that they will starve to death or throw themselves under a train.
Have you noticed how IDS already has the thousand-yard stare?