Jobs and Hoops

I wouldn't mind a part time paid job and have been looking for quite a while now. There's been one or two I've been tempted to apply for but here's the rub, most jobs these days insist on a reference from your last employer. The last outfit I worked for doesn't exist any more and the company I worked for previously sold to a bigger fish and then the owners jetted off to sunnier lands overseas. That takes care of the past 18 years or so.

If that wasn't enough application forms (usually online) are a nightmare. They insist on an exact date when you started a job and the exact date you left. If you don't enter a day/month/year the application form won't save. I can't remember exact dates from last year let alone the previous 35 of the beggars.

All that aside I'm quite capable of earning my keep and doing a job well.

Has anyone been in a similar position and managed to overcome these obstacles?

As far as the date is concerned just put one that is close to what it would have been.

You give information on an application form that is "accurate to the best of your knowledge," so I wouldn't worry about precise start and end dates.

A PA who I last had contact with over 16 years ago was having a similar problem before she eventually applied (successfully) this summer for a part-time role in a school. She wasn't meeting job specs only because she didn't use examples of her transferable skills and could have used lots from voluntary work she'd been involved in, which she had been under-selling as her current attributes. I'll PM you what we came up with as her hobby - a real achiles heel for many application sifters-HR bods.

So, at present you're at least an Advocate for the homeless and vulnerable, a co-ordinator of a non-political borough campaign for social care services and User Groups - which also involves presentation skills, verbal reasoning, proactive liaison with various LA officers, research, report writing, etc .. You could ask an MP for a reference in context, , or go for one or more of the usual culprits deemed appropriately suitable to counter-sign passport photos.

Mojo Hill wrote:You give information on an application form that is "accurate to the best of your knowledge," so I wouldn't worry about precise start and end dates.

A PA who I last had contact with over 16 years ago was having a similar problem before she eventually applied (successfully) this summer for a part-time role in a school. She wasn't meeting job specs only because she didn't use examples of her transferable skills and could have used lots from voluntary work she'd been involved in, which she had been under-selling as her current attributes. I'll PM you what we came up with as her hobby - a real achiles heel for many application sifters-HR bods.

So, at present you're at least an Advocate for the homeless and vulnerable, a co-ordinator of a non-political borough campaign for social care services and User Groups - which also involves presentation skills, verbal reasoning, proactive liaison with various LA officers, research, report writing, etc .. You could ask an MP for a reference in context, , or go for one or more of the usual culprits deemed appropriately suitable to counter-sign passport photos.

Wow! That's made me feel TONS better. Might even get around to completing an application form and sending it off. Thank you

Plus you led a very successful campaign against the world's leading superpower in 109 BC and routed their army on the very slopes of Mt Vesuvius. So successful were you that to contain you, this same army was forced to build a wall across the whole toe of Southern Italy in a damage limitation exercise.

Although this campaign resulted in your untimely involuntary retirement followed by a grisly death on the Via Appia, so inspired was your leadership that your followers were prepared to organise a massive cover-up and risk their own execution by impersonating you in the first and only known case of mass identity-fraud.

The death thing could raise awkward questions at interview but you could say something along the lines of, "Listen sunshine, hire me and they'll still be talking about it in 2200 years time. I could put this company on the map. By the way, take your eyes off my six-pack and study the determined dimple on my chin instead."

I think the use of your campaigning skills is a good idea and shows that you are still firing on all cylinders.

Happy to help.

Rofl!

Made my day

Thank you.

Spartacus.

I know the position you mentioned happen to me years ago. Is there any old contacts you still in contact with who could help you. I do not mean the slave rebellion you led against the might of the Roman Empire either.

Funny I applied for a job about three years ago but they wanted someone who worked with me in a certain area of a job I had. The colleagues I knew had moved on or retired and wanted to know someone who worked with me now and the last couple of years previous before that. I was offereed the job subject to the usual referees. Caused me to panick a bit, but I started thinking of the managers I worked with but not that often previous to working with them. When I asked around it was a pleasant surprise how many would do a reference for me.

In the end I had to turn down the job for private reasons but a couple of years later the job I was to be offered at another hopital made people redundant on the ward. So I would have had a new job but may be made redundant later. Funny how things turn out at times.

Good luck with your job hunting but times are tough at the moment for everyone in most cases. I am sure with the campaign you led you will get something in the end.

Thanks TP - appreciated