Fás needs to work on its jobseeker site

IT is high time the Government took a look at the drastic shortage of resources available to the recently unemployed. Bitterly disappointed wouldn’t even begin to describe my reaction to the resources made available to jobseekers who log on to the Fás website. The initial home page of the site appears to be reasonably well laid out – but don’t be fooled.

To the trained eye of someone who uses similar portals on a daily basis, the “jobseekers” section of the website is incredibly confusing and difficult to navigate – a muddle of chaotic and disorganised links and logos.

To an individual who may not use such a portal on a daily basis, this section would scare the living daylights out of you all the way the nearest dole office.

Jobseekers are offered a “step-by-step guide on how to upload your CV to the Fás website” in a PowerPoint presentation format.

I’m not certain but I think it might be safe to say that if you can download and navigate a PowerPoint presentation, you can probably upload your CV to a website. The presentation, by the way, is dated March 2006 and completely out of sync with the sexy 2009 website “useful stuff”.

Once I finally worked out how to upload a CV 2009-style, I completed the necessary fields and after what felt like the duration of the Celtic Tiger, I finally reached the bottom of the page to submit my shiny new CV.

After a few attempts to submit it I was greeted with the following friendly message:

“Welcome to Fás Jobs Ireland – ERROR/PROBLEM – There has been an unforeseen error while handling your last request. Please try again. Thank you for your understanding.”

The useful message above was delivered with the proud stamp of the EU and NDP logos smiling back at me.

If you compare the Fás effort to provide an online resource to jobseekers to a site like Irishjobs.ie, the former starts to look suspiciously like a bad school project.

I don’t think it is fair to expect jobseekers to “understand” the lack of resources in our current (and declining) situation. Surely it makes sense to ensure we at least have adequate resources in place to give the unemployed every opportunity possible to get back to work. Even if it does mean that Fás officials and government ministers will have to bear the cost of a wash-and- blowdry in Florida instead of charging it to the state agency.

Eileen Mullins

Scrahan

Coolea

Macroom

Co Cork