A job too far!

Needing to fill a clerical vacancy, I thought why not advertise at the Job Centre and save the cost of newspaper advertising or agency commission?

I soon learned why not.

I dropped by the local Job Centre, or rather 'Job Centre Plus' - I have no idea what the plus is - with a typed job advert. Sorry sir, we don't accept job details here, you need to log them online on the www.gov.uk 'Universal Jobmatch' website. Thanks.

Later that day I looked up the new Government website and found the Universal Jobmatch page. Lots of help here for job seekers but where am I meant to go as an employer? Nothing there at all. Backtrack to the home page, but nothing obvious. Tried the site's own search function and ended up on the jobseekers page again. Duh!

Back to the home page. Let's try the 'Employing People' link. Nothing obvious here, looks like information only. Try the 'Recruiting and Hiring' link - ah, there it is at last, a link for 'Advertise a job with Universal Jobmatch'. Phew.

Spoke too soon! By this time I'm trying to do this at home in the evening, so I don't have my Government Gateway login details to hand as they are saved on my laptop which is back in the office, and the printed details are in my desk. Looks like I'll need to register again, so I entered my home email address and waited for the confirmation email to arrive. And waited. And waited some more. The evening was wearing on, so I left it till the morning to continue.

Next day, still no email, so I tried to register again. No luck, 'this email address is already registered'! Aaagh! Never mind, let's start the whole process again, but using my mobile email account. Took another five minutes to remember where I found the registration page on the Government website. Filled in the registration and got the confirmation email immediately on my phone. Now we're making progress. Filled in all my details and applied for a Government Gateway ID from my mobile, no problem, here's the Gateway account details - except my phone is only displaying 8 of the 12 characters of the login ID and I can't work out how to scroll across.

Let's see if we can log in and get them sent again. Try the "Forgotten your User ID (you loser)?" link. A reminder has been sent ... and 12 hours later I still haven't received it.

First thing in the morning I'm placing that newspaper advert. Sorry Job Centre (Plus), life's too short for this nonsense!