Job hunting sucks!

[gellerbing]

i know exactly how you feel and i havent been a student in years lol
ive been searching and applying for nearly 7 years now and ive only been invited to 1 interview which was unsuccesful in that time, ive got the point now where i really want to give up :/

[Onion]

I live with my partner yes, I'm currently trying to get housing benefit and keeping my fingers crossed. It isn't that I don't want a job but thats how they treated me at the job centre :/

[Charley101]

I don't understand why they wont reward you HB. The person I know doesn't work and she has been rewarded it and has been claiming for over a year now!

[p_anda]

Originally Posted by Onion

The job situation is just dire at the moment, and people's attitudes towards those on benefits because they NEED it are even worse. I didn't want to go on benefits but without them wouldn't have a home, and they refused me anyway so it looks like I still won't. In the time I have left in my current house I'm applying to anything and everything just to keep me off the streets. Insane isn't it.

They should have told you they were stopping your benefits panda, but at the end of the day they just don't care. Its pitiful.

Do you live in the same household with your partner? Because if not, you should be entitled to JSA and Housing Benefit. If you're only living together in a student accommodation, that doesn't even count...to me it sounds like they're talking crap.

[Onion]

Yeah I live with my partner in a private rented accomodation which is controlled by a student letting agent, so technically its just a private rent. I think they are talking crap just because how can a student loan that is meant to support 1 student be expected to support the student and their unemployed partner? They think we can live on £17 a week. Sorry I keep going on, I'm just stuck as to what to do XD

[p_anda]

Originally Posted by student1304

and slightly off topic but I noticed that Panda you said you wanted to be a zoologist...I've just finished my degree in zoology.
Have you ever thought of doing an animal care/management course as a route into zoology?
You'd only need your GCSE's to enter this, not A level qualifications but then I'm a bit confused, do you already have a diploma at the equivalent of A-levels?
If so you could apply for a foundation year at university for Zoology and see if you get in (which I'm sure you would). If you got in, you could apply for a student loan etc- which would help with the money situation.
I think it would be worth investigating further education again, especially if your passionate about zoology or illustration. Then again university will cause a lot of student debt and the possibility of no job at the end, however in theory with a degree jobs should be easier to get. (I say in theory because I know a lot of students are getting degrees and still having limited job opportunities).
I think it's completely disgusting that they stopped your money and you are right to feel hard done by! I also think it's a horrible that your parents kicked you out (no offence) but at least you have a lovely boyfriend with good parents and it's great that you've got work for the olympics I hope it works out!

The reason I applied to do Illustration when I was 18 was because I don't have any A levels and the course I did at college has absolutely nothing to do with animals, so they wouldn't accept me to do Zoology.

I did look at animal care/management courses, it seems that they will more readily take you on if you're over 21, even if you don't have the relevant A levels. So I've decided to wait another year before I even pursue any kind of further education.

I do feel like the education system tries really hard to put everyone into categories from the day they enter school...like, you end up in low achievement classes in year 10 if you don't get good grades on your SATs, even though teachers will keep telling you that they mean nothing. It's the same with the stupid pathway system. It's just there to weed out the 'stupid' children from the 'clever' ones...so if you end up in pathway 1, you pretty much have zero chance of ever going to university, but no one even informs you about that. It's just another way to divide the social classes, and re-enforce the idea that because you do better in school you are superior to people who don't. Though I can't exactly complain, as I was in pathway 3 and I was put in the higher set classes. Even though your parents try and tell you that doing well in school will magically lead to a great future, yet the so-called 'under-achievers' are the ones with good, well paying jobs and sometimes even have their own property by the age of 30.

[p_anda]

Originally Posted by Onion

Yeah I live with my partner in a private rented accomodation which is controlled by a student letting agent, so technically its just a private rent. I think they are talking crap just because how can a student loan that is meant to support 1 student be expected to support the student and their unemployed partner? They think we can live on £17 a week. Sorry I keep going on, I'm just stuck as to what to do XD

Will you be able to stay there after you both finish your degrees? If not, when you move out, just tell the Jobcentre that you are no longer in a relationship and the two of you only share the accommodation. They can't prove that you two are together, because you are not married.

That's another thing...this whole thing with couples is a double standard as far as the system is concerned. Unmarried couples are forced to share their finances when unemployed, yet if you decided to leave your partner after 10 years and you had a child together, and if he bought the house you two lived in, you wouldn't be entitled to squat as far as possessions concerned, only child maintenance, and only then if you registered him as the father. Yet if you were married, you'd get half of his property, even you never contributed financially to the marriage. It's absolutely nuts.

In the eyes of the law, unmarried couples have no financial obligations towards each other, yet the Jobcentre says they have and thus they screw us over, and we can't do anything about it.

[kyrilliondaemon]

£17 a week is insane... They should be willing to support you but its horrible what they do. I hope the housing benefit thing works out better...