“I understand now why they use sleep deprivation to torture prisoners.”

Well, so do I.

Unlike the Lloyds boss, stress does not keep me awake at night, but living in the south coast and  working in Central London, I spend at least four hours a day on trains, and the amount of free time left within any 24 hours is so limited, I am constantly torn between sleeping more and doing less or sleeping less and doing more (of what I want to do when I am not at work), while risking total burnout and a desperate craving for even 30 seconds of shuteye anywhere….sitting, standing, even walking.

Two months into my new full-time job in London, life could not be have turned out more different from my days of unemployment, enforced idleness and ‘escapist’ oversleeping.

My day starts at 5.50am for catching the 7am service into London. In the evening, due to train delays and poorer train connections, I am rarely home before 8pm.

It is not unusual for me to be eating dinner at 9.30pm. With a few hours added of winding down and personal work time afterwards,  I am lucky if I can get eight hours’ sleep over two days.

Forty winks on the go
The sleep I miss during the night I try to make up for on my homebound train.

In the first few weeks, as an unpractised novice, I barely managed 10 minutes of light catnapping, before being woken by the conductor checking tickets or someone sitting down next to me. As I learned to relax more, the catnap got extended to a 20-minute uninterrupted snooze, then 30 (the conductor must have given up on me!). I am now able to expertly delve into deep sleep for 50 minutes to one hour and wake up feeling re-energised.

While comparing notes on our commutes and respective lack of sleep, a journalist friend, who travels to his office in west London from Brighton, told me he had become “quite anal” about tracking his sleeping habits and had been using an app called Sleepbot, which logs data and analyses your sleep…with stats and graphs.

Being  presented with a personal ‘sleep infographic’ showing  how awful my sleeping habits are might serve as a mild motivator to go to bed earlier, but in reality, the more stressed I am, the longer I need to stay up in order to feel I have had some quality me-time before calling it a day.

Some people find slumping in front of the telly helps relax, others may prefer to read or listen to music. I am addicted to my emails and my social networking sites, so online is where I go to unwind.

Balance
One of my biggest frustrations right now is not being able to find the time to blog, when writing is the activity that most brings me joy. Between blogging and sleeping I’d choose blogging every time. But until someone invents a pill that can replace sleeping time, sleep deprivation will always get me in the end.

Chronic sleep deprivation can lead to fatigue, impair your brain function and cause weight loss or gain. I once read that when you are tired for not having had enough sleep, your body craves carbohydrates and sugars for the energy boost they can provide. No wonder I snack so much during the day.

Even at the cost of becoming a little bit stupider, fatter and uglier with ever growing dark circles under my eyes and a constantly bloated face, I can’t help pushing my body to carry on with minimum sleep and maximum achievement, and not only in my professional life.

When just travelling to and back from work takes up so much time and energy, where do you find the time to pursue your non-work activities f0r that perfect work-personal life balance?

How do you enrich your daily life when your everyday is so time poor? If you know the solution, please let me know.

Super efficiency
In contract to the slumbering mode on my journey home, I feel driven and motivated on the train into work.  I discovered that checking my (work) emails on the morning commute with a laptop and dongle is very efficient and gives me a sense of achievement. This, I find, is also the perfect time to revise my to-do lists. By the time I arrive in the office, I have already replied a few emails and set the priorities for the day.

How to keep more focussed and productive during the day despite distractions and interruptions is an issue I am still grappling with. Ideally, I would like to get so organised, I’d have the time and head space to write short blog posts during my lunch break, purely for pleasure, to be continued after dinner in the evening.

On the occasional down days, when I feel I can no longer bear the commute, I remind myself  of the alternative: I could be back in that dark hole called unemployment, where there is abundant time for sleep but no light at the end of the tunnel.

Tablets or teleportation?
I find solace in the the thought that I am not alone in this daily struggle. The vast majority of passengers on my morning and evening trains are long-distance commuters, who live in the south coast because they cannot afford a London home. We are united in our shared exhaustion and our sleep-deprived stupor.

For the amount of money I fork out every month on travel cards to Southern Railway – one of my colleagues rents a room in London for less than my train fare – one would expect seats to be fully reclinable with a complimentary pillow and blanket for an optimum sleeping experience.

My sleep obsessed Brighton friend says that if there is a company developing matter transportation he will buy shares in it. So will I. Teleportation Star Trek style is definitely the way forward.

That or a sleep replacement pill.

Even though it was written 26 years ago, the content is as relevant as if it had been penned this morning.

Fed up with getting nowhere with job hunting through the JobCentre, Kim Blake Baker decides to stop looking for work and, instead, spend her days writing novels on an “ancient borrowed typewriter”.  For that, she becomes a much happier person, who is interested in and enjoys life.

Her insight into the devastating effects of long-term unemployment is surprisingly mature for a young lady. She talks about the impact of long-term unemployment not only on those who suffer its effects directly, but also on the next of kin: the parents’ sense of helplessness, marriages that crack under the strain of financial stress,  even children feeling guilty about birthdays and Christmases.

In the meantime rejections to job applications pile up, despair increases by the day, while everyone labels you a benefit scrounger… Nothing changes.

Baker, now 51, proved by example that there IS an alternative to the endless pursuit of misery. Her letter provoked a “furore”, and “sackloads of letters” came pouring through her door (this was pre-email times) in response. One person “someone reported [her] to the DHSS (the current Department of Work and Pensions (DWP)) for not actively looking for work”…

Baker says in her letter:

“[...] there is an alternative. By refusing to accept the ‘work ethic’, which is not the same thing as ‘a day’s work for a day’s pay’, which measures a person’s total worth in terms of whether he or she works at all, you can stop the rot. If you accept that continually chasing non-existent jobs is harming you, and that by not doing it you can be a healthier and happier person – and have time to devote to whatever it is you would really like to do, be it brewing homemade beer, or reading, or gardening, or learning judo – then you can start to respect and value yourself again. You can truthfully tell yourself that it is not your fault that you do not have a job; you have tried and it did not work out. That too is not your fault.”

Her comment about the government of the time still rings true:

“The last thing that the Britain of the 1980s needs is a government without understanding, without vision, and without even the most superficial regard for large sections of its populace.”

Whether it is actually feasible for the unemployed to follow in Baker’s footsteps in 2011, and be successful, is a debate for another day, but her chutzpah and her resilience in the face of hardship filled me with inspiration and pride.

Kim Baker, I give thee a standing ovation.

Read Kim’s blog in full here.

“So…what do you do?” In an age of soaring unemployment and people struggling to find any work at all, nothing can kill conversation as promptly as this seemingly innocent question.

I had a good share of those when I was on the dole. It made me start avoiding all social gatherings requiring self introductions, or I’d attend, but stick with people I knew, carefully avoiding eye contact with strangers. 

Having been unemployed for a long time, I can relate to that sinking feeling you get when, upon revealing your jobless status, the enquirer suddenly changes the subject of the conversation, or worse, they swiftly switch their attention to someone else who does have a job they can talk about. 

Columnist Oliver Burkeman wrote in a Guardian magazine that, in troubled economic times, the question ‘what do you do’ “is far more likely to draw attention to the fact that someone’s out of a job, or tolerating one they’re not proud of”.  I couldn’t agree more. 

“What do you do?” is no longer an icebreaker; it is a humiliator, a self-esteem destroyer. How do you explain to someone your occupation is….to look for an occupation? And why do we feel so guilty about it? No wonder there are so many sociophobes among the jobless.

Yet people can’t get out of the habit of asking it. Have you ever scanned delegate badges at a conference, looking for “the right” people to talk to? We feel compelled to classify and label people to increase our chances of associating ourselves with the right crowd. We need to know where we stand in relation to them, whether they have anything to offer us, anything in common with us. 

Being a terrible liar, when asked, I usually told people I was a “freelance journalist”, which is not entirely untrue, as I am NCTJ qualfied and am regularly involved in several journalistic activities. But the next question always tripped me up:  ”What type of freelance journalism do you do?” “One that does not pay and keeps me going to the JobCentre”….is what I was tempted to reply.

There is no denying our job titles pigeonhole us into some type of definition of us as people. Think about how differently you react when someone has just told you they are a doctor (“must be educated and knowledgeable, wealthy”), or an actor (“never heard of you so you must be unknown and therefore poor, probably waits tables to supplement income”) or an accountant (erm…fill this space yourself).

We are going through the worst recession the world has seen since World War II, and many highly educated professionals can be found driving buses, stacking shelves or cleaning toilets in order to feed the family because they aren’t enough jobs in their field. There is no room to misplaced pride in the age of austerity. You do what you can in order to survive. But can people accept that? Can the unemployed accept it themselves?

During my many months of unemployment, I came to realise how much of my identity is defined by what I do as a job. Because without one, I felt like a nobody, I felt embarrassed and ashamed, as if I no longer deserved a place in society. 

The sentiment behind the stock answer: “I am between jobs” is like an apology on a train’s PA system: “We are very sorry for the interruption to your service. Normal service will resume shortly.” Like train services, we don’t actually know when normality will resume.

If losing a job blurs the borders that delineate who we are as people, if we can then no longer be defined by association with a profession, I wonder whether we should not use that time to reassess who we really are when we are not playing roles described on business cards.

I now have a job again, at least for the next few months, and a job title I can proudly announce when asked what I do. The irony is: I no longer identify myself with my title. That alone may have been the most valuable lesson I took away from life on the dole. Having experienced first-hand how transient jobs can be (here one day, gone the next), I now don’t take titles nor jobs for granted.

The new me is “dedicated but detached”, a healthy balance, come to think of it, for someone who has been overcommitted to work all her life.

I am no longer enamoured with concepts such as “career”, “promotion”, “progression”. I am, of course, immensely grateful for my current job, but what I do is not what I am, nor necessarily what I want to be remembered as when I die.

No experience, however mundane, teaches us nothing. Unemployment has taught me my real value lies in what I have to offer as a person, the things I can see and understand beyond the job, exactly because I am not blinded by the false security of one.

It is quite a nirvana. 

Do you have a lesson to share too?

In other words, I am off the dole. Off to a part-time freelance job.

Bizarre as it may seem, while you are claiming any benefits during uenmployment, the JobCentre Plus is technically your employer, the employer of the unemployed. Once you are off their books, you are “fired”, you get your P45.

And what a pleasurable dismissal it was too.

Signing off
On my last sign-on day, my amiable personal adviser Dennis greeted me with his usual enthusiasm: “How are you this morning, Mrs Elliott?” In keeping with our fortnightly routine, he moaned a little about the pain on his frozen shoulder while typing into the computer and preparing papers for me to sign.

“Oh dear. Is your shoulder still bothering you?” I asked, as sympathetically as I could, trying not to betray my glee at the prospect of never having to attend a  sign-on appointment again.

For once, the JobCentre didn’t feel like a dreadful place. I was actually glad to be there, glad to see Dennis, glad to talk about the hundreds of jobs I had applied for and didn’t get.

It is funny how drastically one’s mental status can colour the glasses through which you see the world. The security guard had smiled when I handed in my “dole book”, my latest personal adviser was friendly and helpful, even the JobCentre manager had shown a wacky sense of humour: a short time ago I had noticed the advisers at my local JobCentre were seated in clusters of two, with a sign above each pair named Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael and Donatello… That’s right – the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Whether this was meant to entertain glum jobseekers or provide comic relief to their own staff from the drudgery of their jobs, I do not know, but I appreciated their attempt at humour when there is so little for the jobless to be amused about.

Random acts of kindness
My adviser made a note of all the information he needed for closing down my jobseeker file and asked to keep the protective plastic pocket into which I used slip my “dole book” – the government had cut their supply to JobCentres.

Then he stretched his hand and wished me good luck.

“Thank you. Thank you for all your help,” I said.

“That’s what we’re here for,” he replied.

“I hope your shoulder will get better soon.”

I must have been grinning like an idiot as I exited the building. As I walked past reception, T., who had once snapped at me for arriving too early for an appointment, stopped chatting to the security guard to say goodbye. I saw both their eyes were smiling too.

Later a friend left a hilarious comment on my Facebook page: ”You should have screamed ‘cowabunga!’ before somersaulting out the window like a true ninja turtle…”

I laughed, but I felt the panic rising inside. What exactly was I somersaulting into?

Expressions such as “career dreams” and “professional aspirations” have now left my lexicon…I am no longer unemployed, yet not fully employed, living in a vacuum I struggle to describe, where all that matters is food on the table, heating for the winter and a little spare cash to buy a present or two for Christmas.

Having only just left the dole queue, it feels as if I am already standing in line again at the back of another long queue. Where it will lead me I do not yet know, I’m afraid of knowing.

In my mind I am still unemployed, but in practice, I can finally sign off the JobCentre, which is almost enough reason to celebrate.

Later, at home, as I busied myself telling the good news to all and sundry on Facebook and Twitter, I saw a friend had sent me the link to a blog post by Bristol-based unemployed journalist Steven Baxter. It was one of those amazing serendipitous moments. Once I opened the link, I instantly knew it was all meant to be.

I read Steve’s blog and cried like a baby. All the anger, the frustration, the sadness and despair that had been festering inside me  for the past seven months came spewing out in one massive flood of tears and emptied me of all the heavy weight I had been carrying around on my shoulders for so long.

It occurred to me it was the first time in months I was crying at all.

Woman on the verge
Only the previous day, I had googled “nervous breakdown” and was dismayed to find out I could tick almost every single item on the symptoms checklist. I had been having inexplicable outbursts of anger, unable to cope with the simplest domestic tasks without injuring myself and screaming my head off each time, partly in pain, partly as a desperate cry for attention… Worst of all, my behaviour pattern reminded me of someone I knew well from my childhood: my own mother.

My mother was an intelligent, ambitious woman, good at languages. Before she married, she had dreamed of becoming a career woman but my father was an old-school Japanese man and would not allow her to work. She was forced into a lifetime of domestic slavery and her frustration at being stuck at home, as I am now, led her to several nervous breakdowns when I was a child. I remember them vividly: the constant screaming and hostility, the hysterical crying, objects flying about in the living-room followed by days in bed shunning the entire family, completely indifferent to the world.

It frightened me to think I could be becoming the kind of woman I had dreaded turning into all my life…

The D-word
I devoured every word on Steve’s blog with the emotional craving of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Every question Steve had asked himself, every thought and every emotion he describes in his blog I had had too. He had translated into words sentiments that had been tormenting me for months but I had not dared express in public because I was concerned about the risks to my employability. What if a prospective employer saw my blog and found me too psychologically unbalanced and unfit for work?

Steve, however, with disarming honesty, goes on to admit on a very public platform that he is on anti-depressants, 40mg to be exact, and gives two fingers to any employers who may find out and object.

In the past few weeks, at least two of my jobhunting friends have had interviews on Skype, from the comfort of their own homes. 

The Internet made video conferences and web chats possible across all geographical and time zones at the click of a button, so why not hire people that way too? An interview on Skype saves travel time and cost, and it fits in nicely with the Internet-centric, borderless world we live in.

But are there pitfalls we should be aware of?

Anita Isalska, who has just started a new career as a freelance writer/editor, guest blogs below about her recent experience of a Skype interview and shares some tips. 

Excited as I am about my decision to go freelance, I recently saw an advert for a full-time job I couldn’t ignore. An exciting company, a sterling copywriter role, and way out of my league. Applying for the role felt as wistful and hopeless as faxing a love letter to Angelina Jolie, so I was delighted to be offered an interview a couple of weeks ago.

My surprise was matched by dismay when I learned the interview would be conducted on Skype.

Job interviews by Skype, where a face-to-face meeting is replaced by a webcam beaming into your bedroom, are becoming more common in an increasingly global culture. In my case, the company was overseas, looking to start a new UK office and recruit local staff in advance, but many aspirational jobseekers are also looking for their dream jobs in sunnier (or perhaps snowier) climes.

The jobseeker and interviewer could be thousands of miles apart, but Skype trumps an impersonal phone interview by allowing the candidate to demonstrate their personability and professionalism over the webcam. I had never experienced an interview in this form before, but it made the world feel a little smaller: what’s to stop me from looking beyond London’s grey skyline for jobs in Paris, New York, Melbourne?

Dream destinations aside, if Skype interviews become common practice, jobseekers looking for employment further than their hometown (as the government recommends) won’t have to choose between train tickets they can barely afford, and a potential telling-off at the Job Centre if they try to claim transport allowance.

But even the most seasoned interviewee faces new challenges when interviewing by Skype, as you’re not only showcasing yourself and your skills. Assuming you’re interviewing from your home computer (as I did), you’re also putting your interview success at the mercy of your internet connection, as well as giving the interviewer a window into your interior decoration tastes. For me, preparing for a Skype interview was much more than dusting down the sofa and replacing my horror movie collection with a shelf of Tolstoy.

Here’s how I avoided the pitfalls of the remote interview.

1. Warn your family and flatmates.

Simply mentioning that I had an interview was not enough: I pinned a notice on my door, nagged my housemates to tiptoe, and begged them not to imperil the internet connection by downloading Family Guy during my interview hour. A Skype interview can be interrupted by anything from the loud thrum of a washing machine to a well-meaning housemate looking for his shoes. Temporary internet glitches, or your hubby in his bathrobe accidentally wandering within view, may not be fatal to the interview but it will leave you flustered and ensure you’re remembered for all the wrong reasons.

Spare yourself the palpitations by giving your loved ones plenty of warning.

2. Dress as if you’re attending in person.

An interview by Skype is not an excuse to wear your slippers. Granted, the interviewer will only see the view you’ve chosen for your webcam, usually just your face and shoulders. But my posture radiated confidence when I discarded my jeans and smartened up.

3. Groom as if you’re going to a photoshoot.

Webcams have a diabolical way of turning healthy glowing skin into distracting shine (and for the gents, a five o’clock shadow into a grubby-looking beard). Don’t just check the mirror, check how you look on the webcam. If neutralising those shadows or toning down the shine mean extra make-up, a different hairstyle, or adjusting the lights, don’t hesitate: because you’re worth it.

Experiment with the lighting in your room too: I found the window behind me created glare, and the position of the lamp gave me an unwanted halo. A desk lamp pointing towards my face produced a much better result, making me appear brighter (and whitewashing my many imperfections, as an added bonus).

4. Tidy the entire room.

Don’t just clear the area behind you — if the interviewer asks you to adjust the webcam because of the lighting, you don’t want to be fretting that the pile of pizza boxes you swept away has now come into view.

Be aware that aspects of your personality are on display, which could make your job application somewhat ironic. “Would you say you work well with people?” they might ask, spotting your collection of Jack the Ripper biographies. “I’d definitely describe myself as the sociable type,” you nod earnestly, as the framed photo of you dirty dancing with a man in a toga at a university party comes into view.

5. Be time-zone aware.

An early-morning interview with an Australian company may leave you struggling to stay awake, but the interviewer is in the middle of his or her working afternoon, and will expect you to be similarly alert. Wake up at least an hour before the interview, to shower, breakfast, and knock back a coffee. It will be painfully obvious if you’ve just crawled out of bed, so resist the urge to cut corners for an extra few minutes’ sleep. You may not be tempted by a pre-interview 5am scrub-down with Original Source Mint shower gel, the lathery equivalent of an electric shock, but it did give me a vigorous wake-up call.

6. Imagine you’re a newscaster.

My only experience with Skype before the interview was chatting to my boyfriend when one of us was out of the country. Most of these exchanges involved energetic waving, and hesitation over whether to look at the screen or the webcam lens. Have a practice run where you channel Natasha Kaplinsky: focus on the camera, to give the impression of eye contact, while glancing back to the screen quickly every few seconds to check how your interviewer is reacting.

A practice run is invaluable to get this balance right, as you’ll be tempted to fixate on your pores, that weird thing you do with your mouth, and the angles that make you look slimmer. Iron these out in your practice run so you can concentrate on the interviewer, not your appearance.

7. Take advantage of crib notes.

Unlike a face-to-face interview where shuffling through notes would be a disastrous faux pas, artfully taping a Post-it note to the edge of your monitor can be a saving grace for the Skype interviewee. If there’s a question that makes your memory go blank, jot a considered answer onto a Post-it. (I wanted to prepare for the dreaded “what are your biggest weaknesses” question, which luckily they didn’t ask.)

This can be particularly helpful if there’s something you need to phrase with care, such as a gap in employment, a very short time spent at your last job, or a dramatic career-change. A quick look at the Post-it will seem like a thoughtful sidelong glance to the interviewer, while allowing you a quick reminder of your rehearsed answer. But don’t crowd your screen with notes as constant, distracted sideward looks will give the game away.

So did it work for me? After a tense couple of weeks of silence (during which I assumed I had failed and tried to erase the memories), I have now been called for another interview, this time in person. Mood lighting and Post-it notes won’t save me this time, but at least I won’t have to worry about men in pyjamas making a cameo appearance.

Anita Isalska is a freelancer who edits and writes on food and speciality diets, travel, finance and corporate law. She also writes a travel blog at http://wanderingfordistraction.blogspot.com and can be found on Twitter at www.twitter.com/lunarsynthesis.

Have you also experienced a Skype interview? What worked for you and what didn’t? Add your own anecdote or tip in the comments below.

Photo by 'santibon' (Flickr)

A few days ago my husband mentioned an article he had read in the Guardian about Scottish actor Jeff Stewart. I didn’t even know who Stewart was, but the story struck a chord with me so I went to look for it myself.

It was an ‘a-ha moment’. Sometimes you come across something seemingly trivial, which can unlock the key to a deeper understanding of your present situation.

My story
My situation was that I had reached an all-time low after a string of unfortunate job rejections, despite several interviews for which feedback had been excellent.

One thing is is not getting a job for failing to meet its requirements, or for interviewing poorly. That’s easier to accept and move on. Another is to be praised for your “strong CV”, your “outstanding skills and experience”, being told what a “fantastic candidate” you are…only to be informed you haven’t got the job for reasons that have no connection with your competency for the role.

Had this happened in the first few weeks after I became unemployed, I would have put it down to bad luck. But in my seventh month looking for work it pushed me over the edge – I felt literally suicidal.

Much as I try not to rest too long on thoughts about the past that cannot be changed, it has become increasingly harder to get back on my feet after a fall. When you can see no flicker of light at the end of a tunnel, is it even worth continuing the journey? How can you want something so much, work so hard for it and still not be able to achieve it? How can the universe be so cruel, slamming all doors in your face one after another?

Stewart’s story
The lights must have gone out in the life of actor Jeff Stewart too when he was told his role as PC Reg Hollis in the long-running ITV police drama the Bill was to be axed after 24 years. Feeling  let down, he went into his dressing room and cut his wrists but  changed his mind and called for help moments before he blacked out.

That was in 2008. After a complete change of image ( he did not cut his hair for three years) to avoid being typecast as his old character, Jeff Stewart went on to get roles in four films. One of those, Under Jakob’s Ladder,  a low-budget movie made in only 21 days, and Stewart were both winners at the Manhattan Film Festival last month: the film won best period piece while Stewart earned the best actor award.

Newspapers this week have been reporting that Stewart’s award will probably shoot him to Hollywood stardom. The Bill, on the other hand, only survived for two more years after Stewart was sacked.

Jeff Stewart must be glad his life did not end when he thought it was no longer worth living. He told the Sun his suicide attempt was “sobering”.

His story reads like a fable.  He understood that  playing Reg Hollis was not the be all and end all of an actor’s career – there were many more roles for him to play in life, both artistically and literally. As a result, he got to where he needed to get.

Jenga blocks
Jeff Stewart’s success story reminded me that sometimes things you want don’t come your way because what you want is not necessarily what you need at the time. But if you persevere, sweet rewards and greater joys may be in store.

If you have ever played Jenga, you know how the blocks wobble every time a piece is taken out. How many pieces can you remove before the whole tower collapses?

You may also be aware that the blocks you can safely lose are those that will easily come out when you gently tap them with your finger. Likewise, if you treat each blow during your unemployment as a ‘loose’ wooden block you can get rid of because it is actually dispensable, you are more likely to end up winning the game. Remember: those blocks are expendable; there is no need to hang on to them. Let go.

Losing them may momentarily shake the structure but won’t destroy the building, which is supposed to grow taller. Think about this concept for a minute. By disposing of unnecessary “baggage” of past anger, hurts and resentments, whatever they may be, you can travel lighter and faster to your personal stardom.

Not that I am aiming for a career in Hollywood; I simply want to bid  farewell to life on the dole.

I thank Jeff Stewart for the inspiration.

Yesterday I was admonished at the JobCentre for travelling to too many job interviews, then snubbed and bullied for daring to claim for another rail warrant to attend an interview next week.

Travel to Interview…no more
I have blogged before about Travel for Interview Scheme (TIS). If you need to travel to a job interview outside your local area, you may be entitled to TIS – if your local JobCentre approves your claim, they will issue you a rail warrant, which can be exchanged for a train ticket on the day of the travel.

This helpful scheme is one of only two reasons (the other one being NI credits) I decided to stay signed on at the JobCentre, as I am not entitled to a single penny in Jobseeker’s Allowance this year for not having paid NI contributions in 2008 and 2009 (I was studying in 2008, unemployed in 2009).

It is the only incentive I have to keep filling in “the six actions I have done to find work” in the JobCentre’s “dole book” and present them to the JobCentre every fortnight.

Well, the bad news is that the scheme has now closed. I only found out because as I called the JobCentre to tell them I had another interview in London (I live on the south coast) next week, instead of the usual invite for an appointment to get TIS, I was summoned in for a “meeting with a personal adviser”.

It didn’t sound good.

So I googled “Travel for Interview” in advance and found out, purely by accident, that the scheme is no longer available. That is according to the DirectGov website, but, in reality, it seems as if, despite tighter controls, each branch is still handing it out at their own discretion.

Investigated
The appointment with the personal adviser turned out to be an inquiry into why I had been to interviews five times outside my local area and still had not landed a job. Was I going for the right type of jobs? Was I preparing myself appropriately before interviews? Had I requested feedback after each job rejection? Could I not find jobs more locally?

I had indeed claimed for TIS five times in the past few months, including two for second interviews, and all of them for publishing jobs. I happen to have more than 15 years of publishing sales experience; and my last job was in publishing… To me it is the fastest and most obvious route back into the job market. But not to the JobCentre.

“Money is tight,” the personal adviser said. I was not to assume I could automatically claim TIS, was I clear, and they would not be able to issue any more warrants for jobs in publishing, as it seemed I was not getting anywhere in that field. Instead, I should go for more general jobs, such as PA, which I could find more easily in the local area.

She then deleted “journalism” from the list of areas “where I am looking for work” to include “PA”. I now have:

1. publishing
2. PA/secretary
3. event organiser

under the “type of jobs I am looking for”. Curiously, searches on the JobCentre site under those codes still produce jobs in “store cleaning” ,”nursery assistants” and “charity fundraising”…

Once the personal adviser was satisfied that I had not been trying to abuse the system but was genuinely trying to find a job, she printed my new “Jobseekers Agreement”, which I had to sign to show my commitment towards finding work. I was then sent to the floor below to see the adviser who deals with Travel for Interview warrants.

Bullied
The TIS lady received me with the warmth of someone about to interview a mass murderer. Scowling, she spat her words to drive home the fact that she was less than pleased I was travelling out of town for yet another interview.

She reminded me once more I would not be paid any more TIS for jobs in publishing, that any further claims for TIS would be considered on a case-by-case basis.  The conversation that ensued left me speechless and later drove me to tears:

“Where is the interview in London?”

“The nearest station is Sloane Square.”

“Sloane Square?! We can only pay until Victoria. You’ll have to make your own way from there. Sloane Square is not far fromVictoria.”

“….”

“The 12.05 train will get you there at 13.28. That’s an hour before the interview, so plenty of time….”

It suddenly dawned on me this was my punishment for daring to ask for a Travel for Interview warrant. She was suggesting I get there an hour early so that I had time to walk from Victoria to Chelsea. With trainers on, it might take me half an hour. Wearing an interview suit and heels, and if it rains, it could take from 45min up to an hour and my feet are likely to blister and bleed (Update for those who thought I was exaggerating: I have huge, problematic bunions on both feet).

I looked at her eyes and recognised the same crazed hatred I used to see in the bullies at school: those who spat at me for being the only Oriental kid in class, cut my notebooks in half with a knife and scribbled unrepeatable swearwords on my seat.

In shock and humiliation, my mind drew a blank and I had trouble remembering my postcode and my home telephone number to fill in my TIS claim form…

I can understand rules are sometimes harsh but need to be followed. But bullying? Can there ever be any justification for unnecessary cruelty, especially towards the unemployed, who are skint, demoralised and most likely depressed? Isn’t the job of the JobCentre to give support to help jobseekers get back into work as soon as possible?

Wasting money
I noticed the TIS lady wrote down £24.90 on her copy of the document. This is because it costs £24.90 for a return ticket from my local station to London Victoria if you buy it on the day. This is because the JobCentre doesn’t, as a rule, allow you buy your own ticket and claim for reimbursement later.

The absurdity is that, if they did, I could have bought an advance ticket online, including London Underground Zones 1-6, for £13.30 on the Southern Railway website. This would have saved the JobCentre £11.60 and myself the unnecessary humiliation of being “dropped off” in Victoria and told to walk the rest of the way.

How much travel money is actually being wasted by the JobCentre this way, while they try to make savings by restricting the number of times anyone can have their travel to interview subsidised? How much more money wouldn’t they save from closed JSA claims, if active jobseekers were, instead, encouraged to attend as many interviews as they can get?

Thankfully my partner is in work and, although we live on an incredibly tight budget, I can just about buy a London underground travel card once I get to Victoria.

But someone virtually on the breadline may not have been able to afford the extortionate £6.60 that an off-peak day travel card costs for zones 1-2. Depending on the time of travel, you can pay up to £15.00 for a London underground travel card for zones 1-6. That sum could exceed the cost of a family dinner in some households. What if it is a choice between eating or paying for a train ticket to get to a job interview, which, if successful, would mean one fewer benefit claimant for the Department for Work and Pensions and the JobCentre to sustain?

None of this makes sense to me.

Not too many interviews
In 10 days’ time I must present myself at the JobCentre again to show the adviser “the six things I have done to actively find work”. Due to the JobCentre’s ambiguous attitude towards interviews, I now know those entries cannot be six job interviews, as subsidised travel clearly becomes an issue after five interviews, especially if potential employers in your field tend to be located out of town.

I will have to start turning down any interviews I get from anywhere beyond zone 1 or 2 in London, as that is the most I can afford out of my own pocket, in my seventh month of unemployment.

Now I am also obliged to spend a few hours a week applying for secretarial jobs I come across, even though my experience as a PA is so outdated I am highly unlikely to be shortlisted for interview. Although time spent applying for such jobs will take away from time I could spend applying for jobs I am far more likely to get (in publishing), that is what the JobCentre wants me to do.

Again, I question: how many unemployed people are having their jobseeking efforts hampered by their JobCentres by being artificially forced to apply for jobs that are not suited for them at all? And how much precious government money is going down the drain because of an inefficient system that penalises rather than support active jobseekers?

Failure and guilt
More bad news awaited me when I got home. A voice message from a recruitment consultant confirmed I had not got a job for which I had been interviewed twice already.  Four nights without sleep preparing a presentation for the final interview; 16hs of travel in total; hundreds of pounds in train fares. For nothing.

I feel as if I have failed myself, my recruitment consultant, my friends, my parents, my partner, and now also the JobCentre for having wasted two of their TIS warrants. This is not right.

Being rejected from a job hurts. But having to feel guilty for going to too many interviews, and being bullied by the JobCentre before travelling to one is not only preposterous; it is utterly inhumane and disgraceful.

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Have you had a similar experience and would like to share? Please leave a comment below or write to me privately if you do not mind being contacted for an interview for an newspaper piece. All names will be kept confidential upon request.

Related articles of interest:

• Jobcentre tells unemployed man they’ll stop dole money if he goes for job interview (Manchester Evening News)
• Discussion forum on the end of the Travel for Interview scheme from May 2011 (The Money Saving Expert’s forum)

A day after the interview, I came across an article in the The Guardian, which I wish I had read before. It was a piece by Adam Bryant, deputy national editor of the New York Times and author of Corner Office: How Top CEOs Made it and How You Can Too (Harper Press, RRP £12.99).

Bryant’s book is a collection of interviews with more than 70 chief executives about how they do their jobs and the most important lessons they have learnt as they rose through the ranks. In the article, Bryant identifies five common, essential qualities that helped set these CEOs apart, and which they also looked for in people they hired.

Do you have what it takes to be a future leader?

Luckily for us jobseekers, all five attributes are skills or attitudes you can learn and acquire with, if you don’t already have them. If what you are looking for is not only a job but career progression, focussing on developing these leader characteristics could help you get ahead.

You can read the full Guardian article here, but I have tried, below, to apply the CEOs’ five big tips to an interview situation:

1) Passionate curiosity

Are you passionately curious? Do you ask big picture questions? Do you try to find out why things work the way they do and whether they can be improved? Are you interested in other people’s stories, in human nature?

Bryant says chief executives may exude confidence and authority at external-facing meetings but within their organisation their greatest contribution is their ability to ask the right questions so they can spot opportunities, understand people who work for them and how to get them to work effectively.

“CEOs are not necessarily the smartest people in the room, but they are the best students.” 

Perhaps you should prepare some questions to ask at the interview, which indicates a strong interest in the business of the company you want to work for, questions that will show the interviewer you have the “hunger” to succeed. How is business being done now? Where do they want to be in five years’ time and what do they feel they need in order to achieve that ambition?

2) Battle-hardened confidence

CEOs are looking for indications on how well you will perform by checking how you dealt with adversities, even failure, in the past. They will be testing your resilience and resourcefulness. Those who can best handle difficult situations tend to get recognised and promoted.

It is one of the most frequently asked interview questions, so make sure you have a good story up your sleeve, preferably from a professional situation, which will illustrate how you owned a challenge and overcame it with your positive attitude and perseverance. If you have only recently finished school and have limited work experience, a challenging personal situation can be used as an example instead.

3) Team smarts

This is not just about being a team player but the ability to form “ad hoc teams”, “recognise the players the team needs and how to bring them together around a common goal”.

Employers are looking for people who will be able to build and manage a team and get on with their peers. Are you the linchpin type, who can hold it all together, collaborate with different people, lead, mentor, motivate?

“People who truly succeed in business are the ones who [...] have figured out how to mobilse people who are not their direct reports.”

This may not be so easy to prove, as it may be linked to your character and how you project yourself. But practising active listening during the interview, showing confidence without arrogance, even a good sense of humour can help make you look personable.

Your interviewer will be trying to find out if you get on with other people. They may even ask you questions such as “How would your colleagues describe you?” Have the answer in your head before the interview day. Don’t lie, of course, but try to stress qualities that highlight what a great colleague/team worker you are.

4) A simple mindset

Great advice here if you are asked to present a Power Point presentation at the interview (I was!).

One way of proving how clear your mind is is to produce a concise, uncluttered presentation, NOT a long one crammed with data showing off how much research you have done on a topic. You will not impress more by talking for longer than necessary either. Less is more, so keep it simple.

“Lose the ‘Power’ part of the presentation and simply get to the ‘Point’”, says Bryant.

A good leader-in-the-making has the ability to connect dots and find solutions “by asking simple, smart questions that lead to untapped opportunities”. I suppose he is trying to say a smart person should be able to think and communicate even complex ideas with clarity and simplicity. Easier said than done.

Most people tend to either talk too much (my case) or clam up when they are nervous. If you feel yourself starting to do either during an interview, try this trick, which a friend advised me: take a few sips of water (don’t forget to ask for a glass of water at the beginning, if they don’t offer you one) while you collect yourself, breathe in and carry on. Make sure your thoughts are coming out coherently.

Many recruitment agents these days offer interview coaching; get some practice beforehand if you think it will help.

5) Fearlessness

People who will only ever do what they’re told to do, or are only concerned about maintaining the status quo will not be seen as “leader types”. In the competitive world we live in, CEOs are looking for people who are not afraid to challenge and push ahead of the competition. By taking risks. By being comfortable with being uncomfortable.

This does not mean you should tell your interviewer your hobby is bungee jumping. In business, you need to be making calculated, informed decisions, even when taking risks, so a balance of fearless and sensible is probably ideal.

You could be asked how you would improve their business if you were in the role. However unusual or risky the suggestions, as long as you can explain your line of thinking logically, you may impress with your ingenuity. But if you overdo it, hoping for the ‘wow factor’, you may talk yourself out of the job. Show you are creative/innovative but back it up with plenty of shrewd business acumen.

Bryant says there is a lot to be learned from CEOs about leadership, as they practise it daily. They have tried and tested their leadership styles and know what works and what doesn’t.

Whether your aim is to one day become a senior executive or your ambitions are much more modest, the fact is employers like candidates with a winner mentality. We all know there are more jobseekers than jobs out there right now, so the more you sound like a winner, the better your chances of landing a job.

Your CV and cover letter will get you the interview. But to survive the interview and beat the competition, you need more than a list of skills and achievements. The following tweet from a recruitment consultant I know says it all:

Those are, however, few and far between.

Every jobseeker knows employers these days rarely bother to acknowledge receipt of an application, let alone write back to let them know when they have not been shortlisted for interviews. Some already pre-warn you in their job  ad that it is up to the applicants to figure that out by themselves: “if you have not heard from us within X days, you have not been successful.”

Sadly, not making any personal contact at all with a job applicant throughout the application process has become so commonplace that when they do get in touch, it comes as a pleasant surprise, which we tend to remember long afterwards.

I have written a post before about how much pain rejection letters (or the absence of them) can cause but, ultimately, not sticking to good old-fashioned HR manners ends up hurting  employers too. Just as employers vet candidates for the best skill sets, candidates mentally bookmark companies that made them feel valued because an employer that treats applicants with dignity will most likely also value their employees. Wouldn’t we all like to work for a place that acknowledges our worth?

Mirrors
Whenever I attend job interviews, I use my interaction with the receptionist as a barometer to gauge whether the company has a good or bad work environment. The receptionist is the “face” of the company, and you can discover a great deal about your prospective employer just by observing their behaviour.

If he/she is friendly and makes you feel welcome, you can be sure the work environment is healthy and staff are respected and well treated. On the other hand, if the receptionist looks obviously miserable, doesn’t make eye contact and continues chatting to a colleague while asking you to sign their guest book, it could be a sign that the company tends to treat staff as disposable commodities and you may not be so happy working there.

Likewise, rejection letters mirror the HR policies of a company. Employers who take time writing to a candidate to thank them for an application, and let them know even when they haven’t been shortlisted, show respect for people and therefore they deserve respect in return.

I understand during a recession some vacancies can attract hundreds of applicants and employers may not have the time to respond to all. But with most applications being sent and received electronically anyway, how much time can it actually take to copy and paste email addresses and send out template letters if only by way of thanking candidates for the the time they have put into the application?

If job ads are an invitation to apply, then applicants are “guests” responding to that invitation, not unwanted gatecrashers. Would you be so rude as to blank out guests to an event you were hosting, even if you did not personally like them?

“Simples”…
Rejection letters do not require time-consuming, elaborate language. Candidates need to know only two things:

1. That they were not successful in their application.
2. If possible, the reason for the rejection.

“We  have had applications from other candidates with more relevant skills and experience/who were better suited to the role” is a good diplomatic way out, as it stresses the fact that the candidate didn’t ‘fail’; they were simply ‘not suitable’ for that particular position.

The noblest letters conclude by inviting the unsuccessful candidate to apply again in future for any openings they may have. Despite being the bearer of bad news, such a letter leaves you feeling positive about yourself. Who wouldn’t feel flattered being invited to try again in future?

The candidate may eventually forget what you said, but he/she will never forget how you made them feel. If you come across them again in business or social circles – and that is a real possibility – they are far more likely to return your kindness. Remember: the Internet and social media have reduced the six degrees of separation into three or four.

Winner
One of the most touching rejection letters I have ever received was from a major trade publisher in North London. I had been called for an interview as a result of sending them a speculative letter, but did not get shortlisted for a second round.  Their message was so thoughtfully worded, it made me think they must be a wonderful company to work for.

“Dear [my name], Thank you for attending the interview for the position of xxx and apologies for not coming back to you sooner.

Unfortunately, on this occasion I am sorry to inform you that we will not be inviting you back for a second interview. If you would like feedback on your application or interview, please let me know and I will follow this up for you.

I hope that you will not be discouraged by this news and I hope you will consider applying for a position at [company name] again in the future. Please continue to check our website for details of all our current vacancies.  Kind regards, [HR officer's name]“

Communication
While many jobs list “good interpersonal skills” and/or “excellent customer care” under required skills, very few employers actually seem to display those qualities themselves.

Just as in polite society people will make a judgement based on one’s social skills, the way an employer treats jobseekers interested in working for them can change their brand perception for better or for worse. Information sharing through virtual walls, microblogging sites, private messaging and blogs has never been easier. Poor (as well as great) reputation can travel fast…

Businesses need to understand good communication is not just about talking to customers. It is about keeping all communication channels open and fluid; and that includes knowing when and how to reject jobseekers gracefully.