AIBU to want a different Universal Credit work coach?

It is part of the enshittification of society. We are all supposed to be pathetically grateful for scraps, know our place (bottom of pile) and stay in our lane.

The whole benefit system is actually very anti any kind of training or the concept of betterment - when obviously for society as a whole it would be good if they could support progress.

There is no concept of social mobility left anymore.

Have you looked at agencies like Indeed etc for work? I skim read your responses so might have missed that?

Exactly what I was thinking. I've had to apply a couple of times and my work coach was never the person who does the id check

I had to claim UC for a few months after a contract ended and I hadn't found a new job - my work coach wasn't quite that bad but also fairly clueless (I've got a Masters and not had any previous breaks in employment since I was a teenager - not what they're used to dealing with). The worst bit was having to go to 'jobs fairs' which were just a few people sitting behind desks with posters, mainly for construction job schemes - I also don't drive so wasn't suddenly becoming a digger driver... I did get asked to apply for a job they had going in the job centre 😬🤣

It was a depressing few months. Just turn up to the appointments, keep applying for jobs and keeping your records of what you're applying for, to make sure you're ticking all the boxes.

They were so excited when I did finally get a job - my work coach was desperate to give me money from a fund they have for new work clothes - which I did take up, but turned out to be the slightly humiliating experience of having to send the exact links to the cheapest items at Matalan and tell them what size I was (I wrote a small essay about how I couldn't buy the very cheapest trousers because I'm short and needed petite length so could I please have an extra few pounds 🥹).

Many years ago I applied for a job at the Job Centre-the system was appalling, all sorts of errors. Yes, that was years ago, but as with the NHS, schools and councils, there are some amazing workers, but it seems some awful ones are tolerated.
You could ask. If everyone complained about incompetence, things might improve. This is the first time in history that a lot of very capable, intelligent, willing and experienced workers are having to use the Job Centre-it used to be that a greater proportion of their clients didn't want to work Not holding my breath though.

Seen enough threads like this to think the smart move if you find yourself unemployed is to get a job as a DWP work coach

Your job coach is not the issue. As PPs have said, the title is a misnomer. They are essentially an administrator who processes your benefit claim. You are undoubtedly better qualified than them and could do the job better than them. I don't think there's much point asking for a new one. The new one might be marginally more competent at filling in the paperwork quickly but they won't be able to offer you any of what you actually need to find a new job, which is actionable intelligence on local/national opportunities or labour market trends.

The job market for well-paid knowledge workers in mid-career (which is what you sound like you are and I am too) has currently ground to a halt. If you are a woman it - anecdotally - seems to be worse. See, for example, all the recent media interviews by an unemployed fashion editor called Stacey Duguid.

I don't agree with Duguid that AI recruitment processes are the problem (although they are a problem). I think these are a symptom not a cause.

IMO, the multiple causes of the frozen labour market:
Brexit - took a huge bite out of the UK economy and we exported 000s UK jobs to Europe.
Other geopolitical factors leading to rising business costs eg Ukraine war, Straits of Hormuz - less £££s for companies to spend on wages
UK business tax rises by Rachel Reeves eg NI didn't help (although are a local difficulty compared to the two factors above)
The rising business costs are leading some companies to export jobs, like what's happening in your ex-workplace
Then AI. Is it taking knowledge worker jobs? Well, some, already, for sure. If any freelance translators or audio transcribers are reading, to name two former jobs, their work has been decimated. But there is probably also a factor that businesses are currently spending their spare cash on AI-related software, or tokens, or improved cybersecurity and so on ... and not on back office services that they can automate or outsource.

All this leads us to ... it being very very hard to find a job at the moment.
It's also hard for grads, NEETs and other groups, of course but in this post I just want to focus on mid-career knowledge workers who can't get a job.

MN isn't on average very helpful as a source of real intel on what to do next. It's easy to say: "well get a job in a supermarket, or as a care worker, or as a cleaner" or as you heard above "become a freelance accountant" but these are often a sort of substitute moral position statement (eg "work, get a job any job, don't claim benefits") rather than sensible advice that takes into account an individual person's skills or future aims.

These are the most helpful things I can say:
*To get a future job in your industry you will have to have a look at future trends to form your own judgment about whether it's still got any life in it or is dying. It is quite hard to take a step back at a stressful time but it is a thought-provoking exercise. You can mine the FT for this, for example and listen to some industry podcasts. Is there any place in finance that jobs are expanding right now? In fintech? Or could you move over into wealth management for HNWs? Or pensions. And so on. (I don't know much about the finance industry so these are just sub-sectors I'm plucking out of the air - I'm sure you can think of better).
*widen your search to national or even international, not just local (I appreciate this might be hard if you have young kids etc).

*recruitment consultants are pretty useless atm. Not because some of them aren't nice well-intentioned people but because we are in a falling labour market and they don't have many vacancies to recruit for. Don't waste too much time with them.
*don't invest money or time in "retraining" unless you are really certain it will lead to opportunities. I know several people who took a law degree as adults about 5-6 years ago in the hope of becoming a paralegal, getting articles etc. It mostly hasn't worked out, because of outsourcing and AI although they could not have predicted this when they excitedly signed up for their courses. Ditto becoming an electrician or tradesperson. You can pay to attend a training course but then you have to find an apprenticeship which is a big blocker, not because of AI but because of the structure of the industry.
On finding any work at all.

*don't bother with supermarkets etc. They are all staffed up by existing workers or the young grads who can't get the other jobs. If your job coach suggests you apply for Tesco put in an application and then you can say you have. If you get the job great. But you almost certainly won't.
*think what practical skills some people don't have for work and see if there is anything you can trade on. Driving is a good one. A requirement to drive and access to a car as part of a wider job eg salesperson will knock quite a lot of potential applicants out of the frame. But there are other non-core but necessary skills that might differentiate you
*look for where the zero hours contracts that you can do might be. In the finance industry are there tasks that are outsourced to agencies that you could do, even if min. wage. Most of these types of agencies are now assigning tasks by apps.

I could say plenty more but this post is already too long!
The main thing is you are not on your own. There are plenty of us in the same boat even if on MN the discussion is a bit fragmented and keeps getting mixed up with NEETs and grads etc.

Stick with it OP. Summer is a terrible time for recruitment. Things might get better soon.

Re Stacey Duguid and all her media outreach, in case she's reading ...
I do think that she has been really brave and created some much stronger visibility on this issue of mid-career worklessness. But I think the problem is structural in the economy ...

My mum worked in retail for 30+ years, then applied to her local college as a SEN TA. She got the job with no qualifications or experience and has been there for 5 years now.

SEN teaching assistant (as in your OP) or SEN teacher (as in your subsequent posts)? They are two different roles. Some vacancies for the former do not require any specific qualifications or experience. Sometimes that isn’t a problem because in some situations it is more about having the right fit rather than someone with SEN qualifications/experience.

I’m a SEN teacher and you don’t need any qualifications to be a SEN teaching assistant, experience with children (with or without SEND) is preferable but even that isn’t essential especially in the current climate where recruiting staff is a real challenge. If you have your own children you would have more experience than most of the people we employ!

Just to add, obviously you would be working under the direction of the teacher and at my school you would receive training to support you in the role too. There is also the opportunity for TAs to gain on the job qualifications once they’ve passed probation.

I was in a very similar situation to you last year and unfortunately my partner is now going through it. Truthfully, if you’re an experienced professional then they don’t know how/have resources to help you so changing your work coach won’t make any difference. On one occasion the only advice they had for me was to just stay positive. Sorry you’re going through this, I hope you find something soon.

The DWP don't and can't help. It's merely an admin centre where they process claims. Their job is to harass you and pressure you into work and give out sanctions.
That's basically a punishment for relying on them and daring to need assistance.

Hope you can find yourself something soon. You won't get any help from the jobcentre just harrassment and threats.

It's many years since the job centre would actually help.

In fact there's rumours they are going to be renamed at the sanction centre 🤔😧🙃

These threads always astonish me. I'm a work coach in Denmark and I cannot imagine treating my clients this way.

What did they say?

Try the civil service jobs site - there should be finance roles across the service but HMRC might be a good bet as it sounds like you have lots of experience and their recruitment is supposed to be ‘blind’, so no age discrimination (allegedly).

I had a long civil service career and ultimately had to resign when trying to work, be a single parent and care for a terminally ill parent became more than I could cope with, after three years of juggling. It took me almost two years to find a new job which fit around my caring commitments and it was pretty depressing, to be honest. I had a number of work coaches and some of them seemed lovely, we had some mutually supportive chats - a good number of them we not
enjoying the work coach experience, as it’s a low band, low paid civil service admin role with more targets/micro-management/people related aggro than the pay warrants.

But, as many people have mentioned, their role is basically to tick the boxes, make certain you are jumping through the relevant hoops and prod/harass you until you get a job. You should have an easier time of it as you will be seen as low-hanging fruit because you are actually willing to work.

Good luck, it’s rough out there.

Alot if the JC staff are horrible, it's a shitty job, and they are under pressure to stop people's money.
If they weren't working at the job centre they would be out of a job too.

I can't believe anyone chooses to work there these days.

I think a lot of people's experience of work coaches seems to hark back to the harsh sanction days under the Tories. Currently they are supposed to help people actually find work. They are not just administrators, they are junior management level, the administration of UC is generally done centrally and has nothing to do with individual jobcentres.

Sorry you are not finding your work coach helpful, but she does appear to be right in suggesting the SEN TA role though. And She probably has between 120 and 220 people on her caseload so you not having transport may have slipped her mind. On the other hand she may just be shit at her job. You could ask for a new work coach but if you do it through the journal you will be asking her!

I was allowed the slightly more expensive trousers that fit 🤣 They did also pay travel expenses for my induction day in that job (mostly remote role but had to go in person for that) - these little bits did help after running through a lot of savings.

DWP Work coaches are notoriously useless. Your own job searches will be more use.

Op i feel for you.

This is not exactly the same but I have been through similar trying to navigate the council sen system for my very vulnerable child.

I have been honestly gobsmacked by the poor levels of professionalism and general incompetence in many people I have been forced to rely on for support.

I'm afraid you need to keep your expectations so low they are in the bin.