"The idea that claimants need to change"

The first line of this Guardian article is that "the underlying problem with the flagship Tory policy is the idea that claimants need to change". The former hard right wing Work and Pensions Secretary’s conviction that the role of the system was not simply to allocate benefits, but to "change claimants’ behaviour". I as a person with Asperger who has had a good job for nearly 8 years but about to be made redundant due to outsourcing, thus sending me back to the open job market, raise the question of "What of typical EMPLOYER behaviour?" Will the EMPLOYER choose me over a good communicator anywhere? It was all very well when the said former Work and Pensions Secretary would say "disabled people have to get back into work", but did he question EMPLOYERS on taking them on? They set their Person Specifications and choose the other person avoiding any question by just saying "the other applicant more closely matched the role profile".

Annoying temp at work watching videos

So, with a few months to go until our reduncancies, there has been this temp at work, he is quite annoying with constant yacking, often asking colleagues very personal questions, and most annoyingly, watching videos on his work computer.  Just the other day the team leader finally walked past his desk and reminded him he wasn't being paid to watch online videos, and rightly so.

Ties in with this Quora.com debate about employers monitoring work computers.  The link goes straight to a reply where the poster has said they didn’t actively monitor why their team was doing, but would notice if they were playing videos on YouTube etc.

Now comes the crux of the annoyance to me, if I was being interviewed against this guy for only one position, the chances are he would have been chosen.  He has the gift of the gab that I, as a person with Asperger, do not.  He would be brilliant at "selling himself", yet once employed, has that inclination to time-waste.

Three buckets of skills

This article from Hays is covering "horizontal career moves" in the context of moving sideways from one job to another, to gain the skills, experience and knowledge required to progress their upwards career path in the future. It is interesting, but what would also be worth covering would be the context of someone who did not necessarily want to "progress an upwards career path" at all, it is taken for granted that everyone should want to do that.

"When the Job Centre used to find people jobs"

Gone direct to a comment on a thread on Reddit where the poster's father used to work for the Job Centre. The post describes how they met employers to match their requirements to seekers' skills and personalities. More such meetings should still be in place, this could help for the Job Centre person to introduce an Asperger jobseeker to an employer, as the Job Centre person would be able to better explain the positive offsets than the Asperger jobseeker themselves in an open interview in competition with others who do not have the condition.

Why do employers ask: “Why do you want this job”?

This thread on Quora.com "Why do you want this job" is a well thought debate on this open question. The writer himself has been recruiting for over twenty years and says "PLEASE STOP ASKING THIS QUESTION", couldn't agree more!

Jobcentre ordering someone to purchase a smartphone

This article in yesterday's INews shows a Jobcentre adviser ordering a 56-year-old jobseeker to purchase a smartphone for his job search because his basic model was "not good enough". Even the Department for Work and Pensions spokesman in a statement said there was no requirement for Universal Credit claimants to own a mobile phone, but this one adviser had said this.

I agree because I don't like smartphones myself, I too own only a basic mobile which can call and text, also having a calculator and alarm clock. I see people so glued to smartphones to the extent of seeming to be oblivious to everything else, and 24/7 connectivity is being thought to be detrimental to mental health.

"Increasingly rigid job and person specifications"

This had been a comment on "21st century welfare" chapter 2 "Problems with the current system", a link which was on the DWP's own website back in 2010 (however now removed - edit Jan 2018). Most of the discussion is about "rates of welfare dependency and poverty" and "work incentives being poor", ie part time hours on mininum wage with regard to top up benefits. So much discussion of welfare reform does centre on blaming (a) unemployed people for not being willing to take jobs (b) the complexity of the system preventing the ones who ARE willing from taking many lower paid and/or part time jobs. No mention of the employer's role in this equation! First there have to be the jobs to take though, difficult enough in the current climate, then factor in the willingness of employers to offer them to some people who may not meet the criteria 100%, and I'm not just talking about disability here. This comment ties in with what I've often said about the need to re-educate employers. The writer touches on "Increasingly rigid job and person specifications" and the "human resources driven ‘closed shop’ mentality of employers", I've often wondered that many 'human resources' bods sometimes don't pass applications to the line managers that they might actually be interested in if they were to see them. How many applications / interviewees are turned down having only been interviewed / application seen ONLY by an HR bod and not the manager who would be responsible for them if taken on? Very good post, and standing out in that it focuses on the employer for once.