Parked

2012

The Work Programme

"Anyway on my first visit to Work Programme provider Ingenus my case/key worker was great with me. She told me what it was all about and sent me away with my bus fare refunded. "See you next Monday, be lucky with your jobsearch," she said. But it was all bullshit. She told me I could use their computers, get paper for sending out CV's, and get more help than I had been getting from the Jobcentre.

But hey, I still had to to do my jobsearch diary for the jobcentre, or as I found out, to the cost of me receiving no JSA for two weeks (which was eventually paid to me when I won my appeal against this decision). Pity it did not help with my offending behaviour that week, when I was nicked for shoplifting in a supermarket.

Well after six months with the WP I had still not completed a new CV, and nobody at Ingenus seemed to care because I was a 'problem client'. The problem they had with me was that I had put the truth about myself on the CV and that I had been in and out of prison most of my life. So nobody would even offer me an interview ( I can't really blame employers - who wants a reformed drug smuggler, burglar, thief, liar and cheat working for them.

"Don't you think it would be best if you left the prison part of your life out of your CV," said the caseworker. Ok, so how do I account for what I did between 1979-83, 1993-98, 1999-2004, 2005 -2009, etc. The case worker said we will make something up for it to make it look good on your CV. So I was advised to LIE on my CV, to at least get my foot in an employer's door for an interview. "If you get the job, by the time they find out the truth they may like what they see and keep you on."

So what would you do? Tell the truth and not ever get an interview OR lie and hope they don't dig too deep into your made up references and sack you for being a liar (even though you are the best welder on the line?!!).

No. I was torn, now as I had the chance of a full-time job, but it was cash in hand, as the builder who could have given me three months work, was himself struggling to keep his head above the waterline in the flood of unemployment."

Nigel