If you have read my previous 2 posts you will know how to do your initial signing on interview and how to do your job search. What about when you have to go to see your job coach/advisor?

You will be given a time when you have to go and sign on from your initial interview, you MUST attend this interview to be paid. If you do not attend you will not get your money. Also make sure you get to your interview on time or you can be sanctioned.

So you arrive at the job centre and will usually have to tell the receptionist that you are there to sign on. They will usually then ask for your booklet and ask you to wait in a seating area for your job coach/advisor to call you. When you are called your advisor will ask you to sit the other side of the desk from them.

Your advisor will ask you what steps you have taken to find work since you were last in there and this is where you get to show them your job search that i discussed in the last post. They will then make sure you have completed everything you agreed to do in your claimant commitment and if you followed my guide you will have completed it. 

They may ask you for access to your UJM account but you can just tell them that it is not mandatory to allow them access and it is your account. You can refer them to this document https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/166488/response/410483/attach/html/4/UJ%20Toolkit%20Chp%203%20v37.0%2011.07.13.pdf.html which is the UJM toolkit that advisors have to follow when using UJM and it tells them on there that access is not mandatory so you can tell them that their own guidelines tells them its not mandatory and is illegal for them to ask for access. If they persist on asking for access ask to speak to the office manager and let them know your advisor keeps asking for access. This usually stops them straight away from asking for access again as they know they shouldnt be doing it and if you are ready to show you wont just lay down and roll over they back off. So no matter what pressure they put you under, dont allow them access, they just want this to look for ways to sanction you easier.

Your advisor may also ask for other things you have done or are going to do to look for work. Here you can say you will be contacting more employers, visiting more employers, visiting/phoning/emailing more employment agencies, checking UJM and other online job sites, asking friends and family for jobs, checking facebook, twitter, linkedin and other media online to find work. 

Your advisor may be nice and helpful and genuinely be interested in helping you find work, they may be just interested in just getting you signed on and out of the office as fast as possible or they may be intent on being nasty to you and try to sanction you at any point. It just seems to be a lottery on who you get but just make sure you do everything on your Claimant Commitment form and there is little they can do to sanction you and if they attempt it and send it to a decision maker to see if you can be sanctioned, appeal it, if you have been doing everything on your claimant commitment form your appeal should be upheld and you will not be sanctioned. 

The biggest advice i can give you is do everything you can to do everything you can on your claimant commitment form and dont give the dwp access to your ujm account and you will be more safe from sanctions than if you give them access and dont keep up with your claimant commitment agreements.

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Yesterday i wrote how to sign on initially, so if you have not read that yet go back and read it so you know what you have to do to set up your claim and how you should get your Claimant Commitment set up so it is not unrealistic for you to manage your job search.

Ok so you are now signed on at the job centre and you now have to complete your job search for the next time you go into the office to sign on. If you have never done this before it may seem daunting and where do you start with it and what exactly do they want to see when you go back in to sign on?

The first place to start is your claimant commitment form. This is exactly what you have agreed to do in your job search. Lets take a look at an example.

Your claimant commitment form will look something like this:

Check Universal Jobmatch                   - Daily
Check local newspapers                       - Weekly
Check indeed.co.uk                              - Daily
Visit 3 employers per week                  - Weekly
Apply for at least 6 jobs per week        - Weekly

You will have different things on yours that you have agreed to do but whatever it says you have to do then this is what you HAVE to do each week you are claiming benefits or you will be sanctioned if you dont.

So lets take a look at our example. Remember your own claimant commitment will be different but you still have to follow what is on your own form along the same lines as this example. Dont just copy this example as a job search, you will get sanctioned, this is just an example to show you what kinds of things you will be expected to do to keep your claim going.

Ok so the first thing on our example is Check Universal JobMatch. On the example we have agreed to do this daily so this means logging into your universal jobmatch (UJM) account and checking for all the jobs you can do and if you see one you can apply for it as long as you can get to it if you are using public transport. If you have followed my m previous post on how to set up your claim you wont have given your advisor access to your UJM account, if you have then go back and read my previous post and uncheck the boxes giving them access. The reason for this is they can see exactly what you have been doing on your account and if they dont think you have applied for all the jobs that are available on your account they can sanction you. So it is in your own interest to keep your UJM private to you. Remember keep a record of any jobs you apply for so you can show in your job search the next time you sign on.
The next thing we have to do is check Indeed.co.uk as we have agreed to do that daily too. So just log into your indeed account and check for jobs that you can apply for and apply for them, remembering to keep a record of what jobs you apply for to show when you next sign on.
So next we have to check local newspapers as we have agreed to do that weekly. Personally i agree to look in 3 newspapers from different towns local to where i live to give myself more chance to find jobs. Remember to keep a copy of the jobs you apply for to show in your job search next time you sign on.
Next we have to visit 3 employers a week to see if they have any jobs. This may sound like a good idea when you first sign on and you may think this will get you brownie points with the advisor because you have shown you are pro-actively looking for work but remember you have to keep this up for the whole period of your claim. Once you have visited all the employers in your area that have jobs you are qualified to do you will have to look further afield in places you might not want to work in such as outside public transport routes or places that are miles away from your home. Remember that if you agree to something on your claimant commitment you have to keep it up or you can be sanctioned if you dont do it. This is the most important part of your job search as you MUST do EVERYTHING you agreed to do EVERY day to keep up your claim or you can and will be sanctioned which means you can lose your money for up to 3 years. So if you agree to something like visit 3 employers per week you have to be able to keep up with it for the whole period of your claim. If you do manage this remember to keep a copy of it to show for your job search. I take a photo of myself outside the employers office to show that i went there and ask the reception to give you a 'with compliments' slip with their signature on saying you dropped of a CV to show with your job search to prove you actually did it.
The last one is Apply for at least 6 jobs per week. If you agreed to 6 jobs then apply for 12. This may sound crazy or hard but it pays in the end because you will be showing you are doing what you agreed to. On our example we could have applied for 3 jobs already by visiting 3 employers, we could have applied for 3 jobs on UJM, 3 jobs on indeed.co.uk and 3 jobs out of the local newspapers and that gives us the 12 jobs for that week. So we have already filled this one in and completed it by completing the other steps.

There are also other things you can do to look for work which will give you more things you can put down such as asking friends and family if they know of any jobs. If you are on facebook or twitter to ask on there or join the local job groups and check on them each day/every other day. If you use Linkedin this gives you another method of applying for jobs and more steps you can put down. Visiting/phoning/emailing employment agencies, if you register with at least 5 agencies this will give you 1 contact per day you can put down on your job search. There are plenty more things you can do and im sure you know of other ways of applying for jobs but just remember to put them down on your job search form to show exactly what you did each day/week to find work.


If we did all the above then our jobsearch should look something like the following:

Monday - logged onto UJM and applied for cleaner at A1 Cleaners, Logged onto Indeed and applied for a Gardener at B1 Gardeners. Phoned Best Employment Agency to see if they had work. Asked my friend Bob if he knew of any jobs.

Tuesday - Logged onto UJM and applied for builder at One Builders, Logged onto Indeed and applied for cleaner at Sparkle cleaning Visited Sun Manufacturing and dropped off CV. Visited Happy Employment Agency to ask about new vacancies they have. Checked my Linkedin and applied for admin at Great Business plc. Checked my Facebook for new jobs in the "jobs in mytown" group

Wednesday - Logged onto UJM and applied for sailor at Seaside boats ltd, Logged onto Indeed and applied for carpet fitter at ace carpets. Emailed Very Good employment agency about their current vacancies. Checked my Linkedin account for new jobs and joined 3 new job groups in Mytown area and introduced myself to 3 managers of businesses in Mytown. Checked my Twitter for new jobs and asked my friend Henry if he knew of any jobs in Histown where he lives

Then basically keep this kind of thing up each day and you will be fulfilling what you agreed to do on your claimant commitment form. Remember you have to do EVERYTHING you agreed to do so make sure you can achieve it or you will only set yourself up for a sanction. I cannot stress this enough, say with our example claimant commitment form we applied for 300 jobs in the week but didnt visit 3 employers per week we can still be sanctioned because we did not do everything we agreed to do. They would not care you have applied for 300 jobs they would just say you didnt visit 3 employers and send your claim to a decision maker for a sanction and you will lose your money. Do EVERYTHING you agreed to do on your claimant commitment form.

I hope this helps you with your job search and how to complete it. Next up is your signing day.....

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Ok so you find yourself unemployed and your savings are running out so you decide you are going to have to sign on and join the unemployed. I am going to give you a guide of how to sign on and make your initial contact as smooth and easy as possible.

You have a choice of either completing the online form or via the phone here https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance/how-to-claim

You can also go into your local job centre and as for the form to sign on or you can download them and fill them in then return them to your local job centre from here

This form is for families: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/185491/response/456544/attach/4/JSA1.pdf

This form is for single people: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/185491/response/456544/attach/5/JSA1S.pdf

This form is for a rapid reclaim (when you have been signing on for a while then sign off for less than 26 weeks and then sign back on again using the same details like address and bank details to make your claim faster): https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/185491/response/456544/attach/6/JSA4RR.pdf

Once you have completed your claim they will contact you and let you know of an initial appointment at the job centre so you can take in your ID and sign your claimant commitment form. You MUST attend this interview as this is the interview that starts your claim. They will also ask you to fill in a Claimant Commitment form. This form is the most important piece of paper you will sign when you claim job seekers allowance as this form is what you agree to do when looking for work. I cannot stress this enough that what you agree to here is what you MUST do each week to look for work. If you agree to apply for 10 jobs per week you HAVE to apply for AT LEAST 10 jobs per week. If you go with only 8 jobs applied for you will get sanctioned. If you agree to look in 3 local newspapers or visit 3 employment agencies per week then you HAVE to do that. If you go back saying you only looked on 1 or visited 2 agencies you WILL get sanctioned. So what you agree to do in your initial interview is what you will have to stick to for the whole period of your unemployment. Whatever you do, dont think that by putting more down on your claimant commitment form will gain you brownie points because you said you would do a lot to look for work. It just makes their job easier to sanction you later when you cant keep up with applying for the 30 jobs per week, visiting 30 employers per week you agreed to in the first place. Only sign up to things you KNOW you can do and can stick to. If you dont have access to the internet dont agree to check the internet for jobs each day as you cant stick to that. If you dont have your own car bike and have to walk or take public transport dont agree to apply for jobs that you cant get to on the bus or train or you will be setting yourself up for a sanction when they tell you to apply for a job 5 miles out of town with no bus route that you then have to walk to each day. Only agree to do what you know you can do. They will try and bully you to add more but remember they are only doing this to make their job easier at the end of the day and make it easier for them to sanction you later. Stick to your guns and only agree to what you know you can do as you may be signing on for a few weeks or months so dont make it easy for them to sanction you and cut off your benefits.

The next part they will want you to sign up for is Universal Job Match or UJM for short. This is the governments job search engine which is run by Monster.com for the DWP. This website pulls job ads from other job sites like Indeed and CV-Library but with one big difference. UJM tracks what you do to look for work and then gives your job advisor a breakdown of exactly what you have done to look for work. "wow that makes my job easier then" you might say as you may think you dont need to provide any evidence as its already on there for them to see. Well no, its really a tool so they can sanction you faster. Imagine if you will that you agreed to apply for cleaner jobs within a 90 min travel distance from your home (for this say you lived in Hammersmith in London) now 90 mins on public transport would take you to the outreaches of London to places like Amersham, Watford, Morden, Uxbridge, Upminster, etc. When you go into the job centre to sign on your advisor will then look at your UJM account and see what you applied for and what jobs were available in the area that you agreed to look in and if they find even 1 job you have not applied for that you could have done even if you have applied for 200 jobs they can sanction you for it. Dont believe they would? look at all the people who are getting sanctioned each week. Dont leave this to chance and just dont give them access. It is not mandatory to give them access as they need your permission to view your account via this check box

If you agree to tick both of those boxes you give them access to your account and make it so much easier for them to sanction you than if you dont give them access. Remember this is YOUR account and is linked to your National Insurance Number (NiNo) which is also then linked to your driving licence number and passport number, you wouldnt give those out to just anyone would you? They will try and bully you into giving them access by all kinds of means from telling you that it will be mandatory soon so you might as well give them access now to they can help you more if you give them access but dont give into their tactics as they just want to sanction you easier which means you will lose your benefit for anything up to 3 years and you will then have no money. Your advisor does not care about you or if you have no money, at the end of the day they will go home to their own warm house with a cupboard stacked with food and not think twice about you going hungry. Dont give them chance to take your money away. If they ask for permission just say the following:

Advisor - "We need access to your account to check your job search (insert some excuse here)"

You - "Do you need my permission to gain access?"

Advisor - "Yes I need you to give me access so just tick the check box on your account"

You - "So you need my permission to gain access" (repeat as needed)

If they were supposed to have access to your account they would already have it. Due to the data protection act they have to ask your permission to gain access, if you dont give it to them they dont have access. Dont let them have more of an excuse to sanction you easier. If you already ticked those boxes then you can just go back and untick them and there is nothing they can do because they still need your permission to access your account and you can withdraw it at any time without penalty.

Once you have agreed your claimant commitment and to open a UJM account they will then give you your signing on booklet. This booklet has sections inside where you can plan your job search and show what you have done to look for work. Use of this book again is not mandatory and you can provide your job search by any method you choose but if you find it easier to use this booklet instead of using your own paper you can but remember you have to show everything you agreed to do on your claimant commitment form in your jobsearch evidence or you will be sanctioned.

You will then be given your appointment to come in and sign on, your signing day will always be the same day, they can get you to sign on each fortnight or weekly or even daily if they think you need to do this so make sure that you are showing job search evidence of what you agreed to on your claimant commitment form on whatever day you sign on. They will also ask you for a copy of your usual signature and you will have to sign to say you received your booklet. After this that will usually be all for your initial signing on appointment and now starts your job search.....

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