'Dumb down your CV or bosses will think you are too qualified': What job centre adviser told furious graduate After years of hard work, Liza Fitzpatrick was proud to put her degree on her CV. So she was understandably devastated when, she claims, a job centre adviser told her to take it off – because it made her ‘overqualified’ for some roles. Miss Fitzpatrick, 36, graduated from the University of Hull in July last year, and has since been unable to find a job despite applying for more than 200 positions. She says she was reduced to tears after one of the Government’s welfare-to-work advisers ‘bullied’ her into changing her CV, claiming she needed to make it more basic. The adviser, who she sees as a condition of claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, ‘threatened to sanction’ her if she did not remove her 2:2 BA Honours degree in social and community care work within three days. Miss Fitzpatrick claims the employment adviser, who she describes as in his mid-50s, told her that he used to be an employer and he would not have taken her on because she was too qualified. ‘They’ve told me I have to dumb down my CV but I’ve studied hard for this,’ she said. ‘I’d take any job to be able to stop signing on. He bullied me into changing something I was really proud of and threatened that my benefits could be taken away if I did not do as he told me.’ She added: ‘By removing my degree, I would leave a five-year gap on my CV [she studied part of her degree part-time], which I thought would cause me more problems.’ The former care assistant, from Hull, would like to find a job in support work, for example as a probation officer or social worker. But she has also been applying for jobs at supermarkets and high street shops. She also volunteers at a Fair Trade shop to gain retail experience and helps out at North Hull Women’s Centre, a charity that gives women counselling and support. But she claims her employment adviser said her volunteering was ‘irrelevant’ in terms of finding work. Her long-term partner, 39-year-old Sean Hardy, later telephoned the Work Solutions job centre. Mr Hardy, who works in the building trade, said the manager insisted it was not the centre’s policy to advise job-seekers to remove qualifications. But Work Solutions said that the career aspirations of its customers are not always ‘realistic’ in the current labour market. In a statement, it said: ‘If customers are struggling to gain employment in their chosen field, we would help them look at other realistic opportunities. 'This can mean re-looking at the make-up of a CV and the labour market it’s aimed at.’ It insisted, however, that this would only be a suggestion, adding: ‘Qualifications and degrees are achievements to be very proud of and we would never request their removal from a CV but would recommend that a CV is focused clearly towards the vacancy or industry sector that a candidate is applying for.’ Labour’s Karl Turner, MP for Hull East, said: ‘It is very worrying that unemployed graduates in Hull are being advised to remove qualifications in an attempt to secure any type of employment. ‘It is clear that the bigger issue here is the lack of suitable graduate jobs in the city.’ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...graduate-told-dumb-CV-remove-degree-work.html
It Dont Pay To Be Too Clever > "Dumb down your CV or bosses will think you are too qualified': What job centre adviser told furious graduate" A Con-Dem-ing Government mantra:- "Lets get People off the Benefits system" - So where are the jobs? = The Lunatics have taken over the Asylum !!
Hmmmm ... if I were an employer, I don't think I'd look too favourably on anybody who suppressed the truth for the sake of trying to get a job with me. And that would apply just as much to somebody who pretended not to have spent five years studying and getting a degree as it would to somebody who pretended not to have spent five years at Her Majesty's pleasure. I would want people to tell it like it is ...
From personal experience - and not having any degrees to hide - during a previous round of being between jobs (somewhere around 2003) I had to attend a CV writing course, which promised to do big things to my CV. It certainly did. They deleted one job altogether, thus leaving an unexplained hole in my work history. The combined two jobs into one entry (two different jobs in the same industry, but different employers and times) thereby creating another unexplained hole. Then they gave me two hobbies that I dont have ! Never have had, never will have. I never fill in the 'hobbies' section, should application forms have one, on the grounds that (a) what I do away from work is none of their business, and (b) if I was truthful and told them about the membership of the Church of Satan and the leather fetish it might just prove counter-productive. Just for good measure, they rounded off by changing my birthdate, making me 6 days older.
