Car dealers must think their punters are stupid...

Indeed seems to be a kind of Google for jobs, turns up all sorts of stuff that isn't on the main sites, buried in obscure recruitment agents sites etc.

Ah but is there something that is? If all else fails you could look into some kind of businessy thing. Got any ideas? Anything you can bootstrap to get off the ground? You seem technically adept and good with your hands, given some of the projects you've posted about. Possibilities abound for people who can blend those skills with the ability to flog them/the fruits thereof. Get down the library and read some business books for inspiration. I recommend Rich Dad Poor Dad, Four Hour Work Week plus some autobiogs of business doods like Branson and the Dragons Den mob have mostly written fairly useful books.

Will do, sounds interesting.

Just had a look, only two positions are trained time served engineer positions at Halewood. All the rest at at Gaydon and Coventry.

Try 300 applications and 3 interviews over a 6 month period (Jan 09 to July 09) then 3 months work (finished cos my skill set didn't match their needs). After that another 80+ applications followed by a bit of driving and 5 months at a £1+ min wage working in a clean room. Now I'm working full time but on shifts for not quite enough to meet my financial commitments. The future? Looks very gloomy next year unless I can add 50% to 75% to my wage. That's the fact of life in Britain for old gits like me. Dave

Excuses I've had: "Skill set is not relevant" - QA/QC job, funny thing is I've been doing that for 30+ years.

"experience is not recent enough" laptop repairs - done it for years and had replaced a screen that week FFS!

"form not filled in correctly" - there were 290 odd applications for that job. The application form was an online jobie and they were unable to clarify what the problem was. Oh, and no one was offered an interview, we all failed the initial selection. The vacancy is still open but that particular government department now has a total recruitment freeze. This is not likely to change in our new ConDem Britain.

The real problem I think is my age. Many potential employers think that someone 55+ has no knowledge of IT, can't solder surface mount parts and can only dodder about looking confused.

In article , Kellerman

In article , Kellerman

The Halewood jobs are mostly in manufacturing (i.e. assembly line work), and they're all agency positions being handled through Manpower at the moment.

Thats typical, have a recruitment part of the website, then don't use it fully.

Right then, off to Manpower and see why they haven't been doing their jobs like every other agency and bothering their registered candidates with positions that would normally be inappropriate.

Following info may be of use:

To apply for Jaguar Land Rover engineer and supervisor vacancies, which will offer an average salary of =A335,000 per annum, go to

Applications for the production operator vacancies only are being handled by Manpower, a world leader in innovative workforce and outsourcing solutions. For more information about the vacancies, call Manpower's National Recruitment Centre on 0191 221 1440.

Yeah that was were I found that they only want 2 time served engineer positions at Halewood. I've contacted Manpower about the general assembly jobs, just waiting for a reply.