The Dunce is Back

Employed & Self Employed Auto/Micro-Entrepreneurs
#1

Hello you all,

I hope everyone is well.
As usual, life leads me far away from online chat most of the time and it is nice to have a brief opportunity to return.

I have to close my business, it has been shattered by the Covid and confinement and I waited and hoped things would change.
However, and I know some of you have families who work for Pole Emploi etc, I have found Pole Emploi very difficult indeed, they have cost me interviews by not making arrangements, and other very bad failures. I am waiting for AAH and further support and that takes ages, and as you can imagine, I need to be working.
My French is coming along, I live in an all-French world with French housemates, and so that won’t be too much of a problem, but the question is, are there any alternatives to Pole Emploi for finding work? Viable alternatives, not nutty job companies? Anyone had any experience?

#2

Have you set up job alerts with the pole emploi online job search? Doyou use indeed.fr? If yiu kerp trawling those two sites you will pick up most new ads. Then deoending what sector you are looking at tgere may be specialst sites. Good luck.

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#3

The employment agency ‘Manpower’ seem to be in most sizeable towns. Don’t think they only deal with men ( though this is France so you never know!). Have you tried asking at your Mairie whether they have any commune jobs going? This is how a friend got her job supervising school kids during their lunch breaks and in the after hours school club. Good luck.

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#4

What a good idea, I will look into that!

#5

Is France that much different from other countries? So yes, Pole Emploi but depending on your skills and experience and what you are looking for then agencies like Adecco, Randstad, Hays, and Synergie as well as Manpower. There are more specialist ones too if you are focussing on one particular area. Also making direct contract with employers that you feel are a match to your CV, keeping an eye on their website, facebook and linkedIn pages to see if anything’s on offer. And also I think portals such as Monster operate in France which have job offers. Also don’t forget local ads! I noticed two places today with notices up for short term posts.

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#6

LinkedIn seem to do quite well in sending me job offers related to my area of activity - granted most of them not in France, but I take the opinion that were I in such need, I’d move to where the work was without hesitation, Brexit be damned.
I already know that my local Pôle Emploi is useless, having experienced it first hand when I had to sign on while I setup my independent activity. Not only did they classify me wrongly from the off, it was clear after my first interview with them that there weren’t any jobs in the area, even in the tickbox that they had tried to squeeze me into (which I already pretty much knew anyway). That is one of the huge problems with Pôle Emploi, if you don’t fit in the box they think you should go in, you may as well forget them even ever offering you a job posting. To be fair, my “handler” (or whatever it is they are called, as “Conseiller” seemed to lack any substance in fact), was the first to admit that finding me a suitable job post would be challenging :rofl:

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#7

Yeah, Pole Emploi has staffing troubles I think,. they are a bit lacklustre.

#8

Perhaps they should offer jobs with Pole Emploi and kill two birds with one stone?

#9

Like all govt departments there have been cutbacks so less staff are available.
Much of the staff are quite lowly paid compared to other similar professions.

#10

My answer was intentionally flippant, not a serious examination of Pole Emploi’s resources or their suitability as an employer.

#11

To be fair I do not think you should expect pole emploi to find you a job. They deal with chomage claimants, they help candidates improve their job seeking skills, they liaise with companies looking to recruit, they advertise vacancies. They should support job seekers but it is up to the job seeker to find vacancies and apply.
There not enough jobs to go round.

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#12

I fear that my experience with P.E. has scarred me for life. I didn’t expect P.E. to find me a job, I knew full well they would be unable to, given my highly specialised field of work. What I did expect them to do was be efficient with processing my application for ACCRE, and the associated allocation of unemployment benefit, whilst setting up the business. They couldn’t even do that for 7 months. After having contributed to the system for nearly 25 years, and claiming for the first time, clearly my expectations were somewhat higher than what reality could offer. I don’t hold it against them, but I do understand the frustration that people must feel with the system, if it is like that for everyone.

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#13

It’s a bit like social services in the UK, needs an overhaul but no one knows how.