wrt entry-level jobs being offered without application...

[cimorene]

Okay! As background, one must remember that our life has been turned upside-down since last June when we first moved and has not ever regained equilibrium from the chaos, what with our camping in the half our house intended for MIL and dealing with two floods even before MIL's unexpected death in September, after which point we've been completely uncertain of our financial future pending the settlement of her estate.

I got a couple of envelopes from social security (KELA) over the last few months, then lost them without remembering to get around to opening them in the piles of stuff around my desk, because chaos and stress and forgetting everything, but I didn't think they were urgent because social security sends one of these when they issue any payment or alter or renew your employment status in their database or whatever... but I was wrong! They were urgent.

The first one was a notification that the employment bureau was temporarily rescinding my 'unemployed' status because someone offered me a job and I didn't take it (without any explanation of who, what, where, when, why, how, etc), plus a note that I could appeal this if I wanted to (but... appeal what? how?) but that social security would just appeal it on my behalf anyway. The second one was from some... social security judgment... processing... thing... and clarified (somewhat) that a specific company offered me a job on a specific date in September and I had failed to respond in writing.

Now, I was never aware of anybody having offered me a job, and it's not like you could forget being offered a job you hadn't applied for out of the blue. I'm sure this happens to people who already have jobs, or desirable CVs... but are people now going out headhunting people with no formal qualifications or relevant employment history who haven't even applied?

It just so happened that I had an appointment today with the social workers in charge of employment for the entire town we've moved to (because there's one employment bureau officer and one officer from the city's social work department who cover the entire city because it only has 15k people and they have plenty of time for you, unlike in Turku), as I'm now transferred to their jurisdiction. I presented them these letters and explained I had no idea what was going on with that.

So according to their records, I've actually gotten two paper job offers that I never received that came in the mail, and since I didn't respond to them my status automatically went to not-unemployed (the second one hasn't made its way through the appeal process at social security I guess?). Well! It turns out that I and apparently many other people thought that when you move you only have to notify the government officially of your change of address once, with a form to the magistrate which then distributes it to all the government databases. Actually, it only goes to all the databases except the employment bureau's, so they will have sent them to our old address. (The automatic forwarding period is up.) They've now updated my address manually.

I asked what I should do next, and the two social workers agreed the best thing would be to simply carry on and apply to the course I was planning to apply to. Not only did they print out the application for me because my printer isn't working at home right now, they filled out part of it for me and created a whole secondary backup plan for if the application takes too long to process, as well as taking my number to call me once they check how long the processing is supposed to take and how long the waiting list for the course is so that I will be able to instead do a work practice in the meanwhile at one of the stores that apparently wanted to hire me.

I have already almost cried about how nice and helpful they were, but in retrospect, I realized I still didn't learn anything more about how and why these businesses are offering jobs I didn't apply for. Because that still strikes me as at minimum somewhat unusual, and I'm kinda curious how they even knew to do that? Yeah, the employment bureau has a database of CVs, but I think the last time I updated mine was over two years ago and the last thing I heard about it was someone saying they were planning to phase it out??? And also nobody I've ever talked to has ever had anyone contact them at all on the basis of this database before???

Comments

[yvannairie]

When I started this job and left myself on permanent "employment pending", waiting for Posti to hire me, I got told that the open CV database is kind of a longshot, because almost everywhere has rec agencies that most companies go to first. A lot of times people getting "offers" through that method are getting offered the kind of partial internship where you're working for the company but the government is paying your wages, so TE is pretty strict also about who gets to offer jobs through that to make sure employers don't just use it to pump money out of the government.

The problem is -- yeah, if you're offered a job through the open CV they can just cut off your benefits because it's assumed you'll take the job >_>) That's why my CV has strictly stuff relating to my education, because animation and game design is such a longshot thing in amongst the other longshots, it's just not a job people "look" people for.

[cimorene]

Wow, this is the first I've ever heard about anybody actually getting such an offer though? Or, well, you didn't, but you were concerned about the possibility? Because I mean. I've been through TET-provided CV-writing help classes, Finnish language course CV-and-application writing classes, and two different courses designed to help people get jobs which I forget the cheesy names of, plus worked at Kontti which was entirely staffed by long-term unemployed people trying to get back in the workforce. And I've never heard ANYTHING about CV-netti being anything but useless! Every person I've heard who had anything to say on the subject had never gotten any contact from it. Some people also referred that other people they'd talked to never got any contact from it! And the last thing I heard about it at all was someone - I think it was the HR manager at Kontti, but maybe I'm wrong there... maybe a social worker? - saying they were under the impression it was going to be phased out, which evidently was wrong...

And while I can see that that would be a logistical problem, these jobs sound like they're in line with what I was looking for and the only problem really is that they sent them through TET which didn't have the correct address, without an electronic copy to my email or anything. If I hadn't been enrolled in a KELA course at the time, I probably would have taken the first offer (if I actually ever got it).

[yvannairie]

Yup!!!!! It's like the fringest of awful fringe cases that helps almost nobody because... IDK. I guess their client-to-worker matching is just so damn bad that even though there are a bunch of jobs and a bunch of qualified people, unless you match exactly or you or the employer bothers to actually look through candidates.

If they did phase out CV-netti, I'd be.... actually, I'd be kind of sad b/c being at the mercy of SOL and Monster and whatever other companies hire folks like me out is way worse than being at the mercy of the government because I am, effectively, at the mercy of BOTH atm anyway, and if I could just be directly hired through the TET services, I'd be currently being paid way higher.

[cimorene]

It seems like they aren't, but maybe they're going to stop requiring that you keep it up to date or something instead? Or maybe they just changed their minds.

Because when I think about it there definitely are people that it's useful for, like people with multiple relevant skillsets who are moving to different areas of the country or re-entering the workforce for some reason... and there's always headhunting of people for jobs that need really specific things, where they try to recruit people even if those people already have a job elsewhere. Something like CV-netti is useful, maybe even essential, for groups like that. It's just very very silly for people who have little job history AND no formal degrees or qualifications, and there are always a fair amount of people like that out there.

[yvannairie]

Yeah I think the biggest problem with CV-netti is just the lack of access and knowledge from the employers, and a lack of support for a changing job market instead of one where everyone gets a forever job at 23.

[princessofgeeks]

Fingers and toes crossed!

Bureaucracy OMG WTF

[hebethen]

Yeah, what a weird-ass thing for a hirer to do, honestly. I'm glad the social workers were kind to you and good at their job, though!