There's no indication of the level at which she worked but how would being forced to stack shelves and wash floors at Poundland improve her CV better than voluntarily working in a museum, in whatever capacity?
Given that she wants to eventually land a job in a museum, you could look at her voluntary work in a museum as a sort of minor-internship.
It would certainly look better on her CV for that kind of job than washing Poundland's floor would.

More to the point, how exactly did Poundland get in to this scheme?

I could understand it if they were genuinely offering some sort of "work experience" coupled with genuine supervision and training, for people that a reasonable assessment had been made might benefit and increase their chances of a fulltime job, if this is on the basis that Poundland both has no actual vacancies, AND that there is a significant cost implication for Poundland if they participate.

ANY other type of job, then at least minimum wage should apply.

I know nothing of Poundland's involvement, but clearly in this lady the posting was asinine, to put it at its best; given what she was already doing, and given the direction she wanted to take, there does not seem to have been anything, at all, to be gained by this forced labour. Unless her labour was in fact of cash benefit to Poundland if she did work which otherwise normally paid staff would have had to do.

Good post.

I don't disagree regarding the work programme, where I do disagree is your notion that you need a degree to work in a museum - that is simply not true.

No one is being asked to work for nothing - those on the work programme are still drawing JSA

This tells us absolutely nothing because you lumped people doing PhD's with people who are unemployed. I couldn't find the survey you mentioned, but in other years more than 3/4s of those not in full time work are in further education.

That is simply not true, either you or the person who told you the 'fact' misunderstood the data. The fact that you re-regurgitated it without realising that it is clearly no-where near the truth shows that you don't really know what you're talking about.

My cousin is a zoologist at the Natural History Museum in London. He has a doctorate in zoology which is the requirement to being a zoologist at the museum. It also qualifies him to be an expert on such programmes such as Inside Natures Giants. Without his Cambridge degree and Doctorate he couldn't work at the museum in his chosen field.

I recently graduated from university, and to be completely honest, with a masters degree in maths/physics from a top university I felt that I was above menial work. I don't think it makes me a snob (I worked for 6 years at ASDA whilst at college/uni), I just don't see why I should sell myself short and accept a job I am clearly capable of doing better than. I didn't want to lower my chances of getting a graduate level job because of a rubbish minimum wage job.

The graduate job applications are an absolute nightmare, It was pretty much a full time job, and I genuinely don't think I would've been able to give myself the best chance of getting a job if I were working.

I don't think older people have any idea how time consuming graduate job hunting is. To give you a rough idea, for each job I applied to I probably spent a full day initially researching the company, then another full day filling out the application form, and answering all the motivation/competency questions (the average was probably 5 questions, 300 word limit for each) Then there's the online tests (one of the big 4 made me do 5 separate tests). When I passed these stages I spent maybe 3 or 4 full days researching the company/preparing for the interview. Then another day or two revising everything before my assessment day/second interview. I did about 20 graduate applications, and got to the interview stage of most.

Also, I think there are a lot of snobby recruiters out there, and I think that a lot of the prestigious companies would be put off from hiring someone who graduated from uni then went to work at Starbucks or Morrisons. Yes being unemployed looks worse, but if you do some charity work/travelling like I did, and sell it as a gap year it looks a lot better.

Before I get any abuse, In my time unemployed I'm not claiming JSA or any benefits - I'm doing a bit of maths tutoring, and I'm lucky that my parents can help me out a bit.

If I did a subject with limited opportunity for tutoring and my parents couldn't help me out, then I would've claimed JSA whilst I was job hunting, and the forced employment would've lowered my chances of getting a top graduate job compared with those not forced to claim JSA.

Yes there are loads of people with a 2.2 in media studies from a poor uni who probably need to get used to menial work, but not at the expense of punishing talented, poor graduates by forcing them to work at poundland when they should be doing job applications.

As it happens I spent New Years Eve at a museum and yes my food and drink was possibly served by people without a university education - I didn't ask. I assume that if you want work in a museum full time then it's most likely that this ambition will have to be matched by a university education if you want to progress from serving food and drink.

I don't think anyone is fond of the work programme on here which is a good

Nice fishing rod, wrong bait though.