Work coach with UC job interview and flexible working

[NishaaS123]

Hi,

I have recently applied for dwp work coach and got a pre recorded interview invite. Has anyone done that? What sort of questions do I look out for?
also is anyone working for them how’s their situation with hybrid working. I have a 3 year old who I need to pick and drop to daycare etc.

Hey, I recently applied and got the job offer

I'm yet to find out the working hours etc! 2 kids 2 and 6 as well hahahaha

I didn't prepare just answered how I thought and got it :) It asks about the behaviours of the DWP :)

@Arowley
Hey congrats! I did my interview yesterday so fingers crossed hope we get good flexible hours 🙈

I’ll let you know if i hear!

jobcentres are not flexible.

There is no home working, it will be completely office based.

The job can’t be flexible as during the day you’ll get appointments booked in so you can’t necessarily leave early or start late, as you’ll have people coming in to see you.

You also can’t leave the office outside of your lunch break, so don’t think they’ll let you nip out for 15 minutes to do the school run.

You can put in a change of working pattern request - which is common but not guaranteed.

@londonba is right.
what they can be good at is part time and/or part year working patterns.

I work from 8.30 to 2.30 on a part time contract. I work flexi but my diary is open and usually fully booked from 9 to 2 with half an hour for lunch and no other breaks. I have a meeting and admin time outside of this. Not much chance of flexibility.

How could you work flexibly In a job centre? Genuine question.

I gave a friend who is term-time only through flexible working request.

You can request term time , part time or compressed working hrs or a combination but you can't work from home. Once trained your diary will be fit to burst with lots of 10 min appointments that will constantly be changed and moved around to meet targets based on weekly and fortnightly appointments.

One of my friend recently got employed and does do 2 days from home where she does phone appointments and handles the journal. I just wanted more thoughts on it from others. It states on DWP website aswell that with the new IT support employees can work from home aswell.

Is yours IT based? I assumed the work coach role is job centre and it did say full time/ part time etc, I’d be interested in term time only and see how the salary goes,

did you agree to this when you first started ?

@AlRRRR
i haven’t actually gotten any offer yet I just did my interview it does say on the advert flexible working option available and it did say on their website aswell that work coaches can work from home aswell with the new technology in place

You definitely can't do it in our district, many have complained but there is no chance of wfh as a work coach.
Part time/non contracted weeks are possible though.
If offered it you could take it and suck up the childcare costs then look to move to another role once you've passed probation.
Interview wise it will be a combination of strengths and behaviours.
Format behaviours using the star method and think about how you might have done things differently/improved
Good luck.

How did you apply for this job sounds interesting

Interesting! I heard pretty soon that I had got the position. I think it was about one week

Just typed DWP work coach rules and it came up from what I believe they get released twice a year, but I had no idea of this

@BBno4
hi I applied on their website recently as they are recruiting a lot of work coaches recently.
@AlRRRR
ah okay, I did my interciew yesterday so let’s see.
I am just panicking about not bieng able to do at 2days from home 😩 I really hope I can figure something out with them

Ah yea, I just did the chat bot thing from my application centre and it asked if I was free between 745 and eight and on a Saturday as well sometimes and I click no and it said this role won’t be for you then but it was just the chat bot hahahhahaha

@AlRRRR

oh wow really? 😩 but then again it’s a chat bot lol. Hopefully they will be able to provide me with some flexibility I was reading their advert and it said “flexible working available” and I Googled what comes under flexible working and it said work from home lol. So let’s see how things go. I didn’t even get interviewed by real people who I could have asked the questions to lol

@NishaaS123 Yes, I saw that too, I think they'l start to go through everything when the checks have gone through. I submitted the documents such as ID, refs etc about 1.5 weeks ago, but I waited few days between doing what they asked and submitting. I am no awaiting the final checks, they seem pretty quick. Only then will we get to ask about working hours. I have 2 kids anyway so I can't work from 7:45 and up till 8pm loooool unless I employ a nanny which UC will pay 85% for, so we'll see. I'd actually be willing to do 3 long days and have 4 days off hahahahahahhha

@Arowley
same here! I have a toddler so I won’t be able to do long days lol, let’s see what they have to say really hope we find hours which suit our needs x

Flexible working doesn't necessarily mean WFH.
It can mean variation of hours, term time or condensed hours.

Was there not a way of asking about this when you applied?

You don't sound exactly motivated by the role!

Full Time is 37 hrs pw and a 7.24 day. JC's are open 9am - 5pm and your working patterns and diary is set for 6 months at a time. You have flexi time but in reality you are locked into your appointment times. Your diary is built for you and anybody as well as yourself can book into it. Your breaks and or lunch will be built into it the diary so that you get away from your desk. Many offices have to open Saturdays and there is a rota system for covering until 6.30 some days of the week.

@EarringsandLipstick They don't give you any information and throughout the whole recruiting process there isn't a human you can ask! It's all online and even a pre-recorded interview... haha So you have to go through it all, and then I suppose you get a human !