Following the previous guest post on the experiences of Jobmatch, an update:
Another day, another wildly inappropriate job recommendation…
Today’s Jobmatch specials for a qualified librarian: car salesperson or MOT tester (image c/o Hugo90 on Flickr).
So, it’s been a few weeks since I gave my last view on Universal Jobsmash (my…affectionate…name for Universal Jobmatch), let’s see how well it’s done in its task of enabling me to gain employment by giving me access to, and matching me up with employment opportunities.
Now, it can’t really be so hard to get this right. I am in Edinburgh. My specified search categories are “Library and Information Science”, and “Social Media”, with a range of 20 miles of Edinburgh (don’t worry: I’m using real, useful job sites for my actual job search!) . So why it persists in ONLY giving me matches that are completely inappropriate, I cannot understand. Unless, of course, it is an utterly useless site? Well, that’s the only thing I can think of that would explain why, for over 2 weeks now, it’s recommended every day that I apply for the role of an MOT tester in Fife. Or a car salesperson (although at least for variety, this one IS actually in Edinburgh, instead of the previously suggested ones in Glasgow). In fact, for the last week, those are the only jobs it’s emailed me about with the daily alert service. Strangely enough, I am neither qualified for, nor interested in these positions. You can tell I’m not qualified, as I’ve uploaded my CV to the site, like a good girl. And I’m not interested, as they’re in no way related to my stated interest areas, or my skills.
There’s little point in me browsing for jobs by region, as Jobsmash only recognises one region in Scotland. That region is: Scotland. There are 9 regional search options available for England, but Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are just big, homogenous masses of “people not in England” to Jobsmash. So browsing for local jobs (since you never know when a job title may hide a good job in the details) is a pointless activity, as jobs of interest may be hundreds of miles away from my location. Added to this is the fact that many of the unvetted adverts going onto it are nonsense. Did you know that Blackpool and Manchester are located in Scotland? No? Me neither, until I saw these adverts in the Scotland browse section. Is this helpful to jobseekers? No. It’s a blanket spamming of the site by people looking to employ agents, possibly on less than minimum wage (can you see an actual rather than potential salary in those adverts? No? Me neither). Woo-hoo – feel my trust for this site just building up!
So – what I’m continuing to receive from Jobsmash are totally wrong job recommendations that are a waste of my time, and the provision of completely unuseable location browsing options. Brilliant. A site to avoid at all costs. But I wonder whether at some point my “advisor”* will ask me why I’m not using the site. I’ll have to explain to them yet again that it’s beyond useless. And then maybe, if I’m really lucky, I’ll get the chance to try out their new time-wasting effort: the personality test.
Oh my! There’s another waste of time, which won’t have the least impact on anyone’s ability to get a job, or to use the Jobsmash site, but will instead take up time that could have been spend, ohhhh, I dunno – actually applying for jobs? This is a particularly important point if you have restricted access to the internet: what’s more useful, an unemployed person filling in a questionnaire that will tell them they’re lovely and should have a job, or an unemployed person filling in a job application to attempt to actually get a job? If you have limited time on the internet, I know which task I’d prioritise…but what happens if your Jobseekers advisor informs you that if you don’t do the test, you don’t get your benefit? Is it a choice you’d want to have to make?
*An odd name that, since I haven’t had one iota of advice from any of the 4 different people I’ve met with in my 6 weeks of being on Jobseekers Allowance thus far – in fact the second advisor had to correct the errors the first advisor had made with my details. I feel like I’m in such safe hands….