Not so long ago I had the misfortune to be unemployed for the first time in my life. I had a number of fixed ideas in my mind as to what actually happened when you went to the Job Centre. These ideas all turned out to be false, especially my belief that the "advisors" are there to help you find work.

Apart from an initial meeting with a really nice older lady who asked me lots of questions about my qualifications, experience, and seemed genuinely interested in helping me, my trips to the Job Centre were a depressing and pointless experience. Every time it was the same. A bored and jaded advisor would ask me if I had been looking for work. I would say yes and show copies of job applications I'd filled out since the previous visit... and that would pretty much be that. Never were any suggestions made to help me, or was any advice given. I'd check the computers for a few minutes to see if there were any interesting vacancies listed, then go home.

Apart from trying to combat benefit fraud by checking people exist I really do not see what the point in these appointments is!

In saying that, I had a much better experience with the Jobcentre Plus on the telephone. After I had been unemployed for about six or seven weeks I received a call asking if I could work in a town about 15 miles from home. I replied that I could and was given details of a job and a phone number to call. This actually led to me getting a temporary job on a three month contract. It seems like part of the system does actually work!

Whilst the visits the Job Centre itself really did nothing to help me find a job, it does seem that things do happen behind the scenes.

Perhaps the actual role of Job Centres these days it to provide jobs as advisors to those who would otherwise be claiming benefits themselves, or am I being a cynic?