Ideas please - getting DH back to work

[Sallypuss]

Long story this but will try to keep it short. After running his own business for the last 2.5 years and the business making no money we've decided that DH has to return to paid employment and bring some money in.

DH is an IT project manager (Prince 2 qualified) but with limited experience. He's been looking for work for nearly 6 months now and is going slowly stir crazy with all the rejections/being at home.

He's visited all the IT employment agencies in the local area and been to the job centre, who wanted to put him on benefits (to which he isn't entitled due to my salary/his lack of NI contributions whilst self-employed) but offered no real practical help.

I'm concerned that being at home is doing him no good and that he needs to get out and build himself a network in the local area (we moved house recently and know no-one locally). Does anyone have any ideas how he could do this?

I've investigated job clubs locally and there aren't any. Have also suggested he does some charity work both as a time-filler and as a way of building a network. Does anyone have any ideas on how he could go about this?

I'm all out of ideas and feeling quite depleted.

If he can project manage in IT, can't he PM in other industries? How about the defence industry? I would go directly to the companies, rather than only agencies (not sure if he has and if yes, sorry) and tell them what he's done, what he can offer etc. He needs to get in there and tell them what he can do.
Or how about the NHS or other huge organisations, like govt. depts? yes, the money might be less but it could lead to better things in the long run?

might be a stupid q (if so ignore!) but have you trawled all the local publications - local papers, advertising papers, newsletters - mine often has networking lunches and breakfasts advertised. also local chambers of commerce? for voluntary work it might be worth looking for a (local?) charity trustee position and/or school governor (IT skills always welcome in both I believe). if you google charity trustee positions there's a good website with lots advertised - including smaller, local charities. if trustee positions don;t sound quite right he could still send a spec letter and cv for other vol work.good luck - and try not to get dis-heartened. also can he get out and about with the kids more? or even combine that with vol work - any of them play in local teams/go to local activities where he could help out?

For various reasons ( business failure, requalified in are with little experience, redundant from lecturing, aged 50) I thought I was totally unemployable. Did some temping for an agency and worked for a few weeks for a charity, I gelled there and retrained in yet another field, have been here 5 years now, stressful but not too badly paid. Would definately say do some voluntary work for a charity, or some temping, it worked for me.

He could give volunteer work a try. Many charities, such as Age Concern (which I can personally reccomend!) need volunteers who can provide training to clients in IT, things such as how to use the internet and stuff. www.do-it.org.uk is an excellent website as it will tell you all you need to know about volunteering.

I work in IT and IME many agencies just use a program to match keywords on cvs to jobs and send millions out. Perhaps he could look at rewriting his cv so it stands out better? Did the agencies have any idea why nothing has come up - nothing of that type in the area, he's overqualified, there aren't many projects happening - or there are lots of more experienced PMs?

I also agree with hatwoman about local papers, not just for networking events, many companies don't want to receive all these automated cv feeds, they want people to apply individually.

He could also try IT4communities.org.uk, which matches volunteers with charities that need some work doing but can't afford to pay.

Ecademy does networking events www.ecademy.com. It's a social networking site where you create a profile and then connect with other people - I'm not sure how much business people get out of it but it could be a start.

Thank you for your suggestions and website links etc.

Does anyone have any other ideas about building a network in a new location?

Have you checked to see that there isn't a local network of IT professionals / small businesses already? There might be an official one, or something via a University, or perhaps something on MeetUp.com

Maybe he needs to set up a network if there isn't one already?