thanks broady

I was out of work for 8 months recently and had to do the Jobcentre/directgov shizzle.....someone i know who works for another local Government department told me the reason they dont always put the company name and hours etc is to stop people going directly to that company rather than via the agency who want paying for setting you on.

That's what I'd assumed, it still doesn't encourage people or give them confidence to apply when you don't even know who for or where you'll be working. Especially those who either can't drive or don't own a car.

That, and often the company in question don't actually want candidates coming directly, and prefer to pay agencies to vet candidates before sending them for interview, rather than spending god knows how long sorting out advertising, sifting through CVs, arranging and conducting interviews, etc. You will pretty much always find out the name of the company before going to interview - you have to, otherwise how will you find them?! The same is also generally true when applying via any recruitment agency.

Some recruitment agencies are great at finding high quality candidates while others will send anyone in the hope of gaining commission. Of course it also depends on the role up for grabs.

I had a couple of months doing the jobcentre bit last year when a new job I took fell through (nearly launched the MD through the window before leaving). Found the process a fairly harmless experience. The Directgov universal jobmatch site is actually not bad, seems to act as a 'job supermarket', sourcing from several good commercial sites.

One observation is that they actually did very little for me apart from directing me to universal jobmatch. That could be because I've got a strong CV and was already attending 2nd/3rd stage interviews for several vacancies, but 30 seconds a fortnight to sign on was all it came down to. They were efficient and friendly enough.

I had to do this as part of an Assessment Day with the law firm I'm working at now.

The job centre are useless. I had to sign on for a few months when I was made redundant from my last job and my 'advisor' (who never actually advised me on anything) was one of the most useless people I've come across. A lot of the people sat on the other side of the desk from him on a daily basis would probably have done a better job than he did.

One time when I told him about an interview I had lined up, in his usual professional manner, he said 'They don't give a monkey's what job you get, they just want you off benefits'. Another time I arrived early for my usual 2-weekly meeting and got a call outside the door, offering me an interview. I walked in 3 minutes late and had to show my call history and a confirmation email I'd received as proof, otherwise I probably would have been sanctioned.