This whole experience just made me want to flip tables, so I'll share it with you.

 

So as you know from my previous post, I finished my bachelor last May, but since I had been writing like a crazy person on those pages I hadn't managed to find a job yet. That meant I had to go back to the Job Center, which I hadn't visited since I graduated three years ago and back then only attended one meeting before I got accepted to my bachelor. It had also been a basic meeting like, what are your experiences (and I was like, eh, 1 summer job at a miniature golf court and like, voluenteering at events...does that count?) and then a meeting on how to search for employment.

 

This time, I had a bachelor degree, education all in english, I had engaged in several projects and merit-based activites, I had more basic work experience, had been abroad on exchange twice, had gotten more confident, had taken CV courses and the equilvalent: briefly said, I knew I only went there to a) see if they had any nice jobs in case I wouldn't get accepted to my master and b) have a financial insurence if I couldn't get a job. More or less.

 

So I arrive and wait in line on a monday for about two hours, and when I reach the counter it goes like this:
-Hi, I'd like to re-activate my status an unemployed (still hurts to think about.).
- Sure! When was the last time you were registered?
- Three years ago.
- Three years? Then you're out of the system.

- Okey?
- Go back home and fill in the online application with all your merits and similar, and come back tomorrow.

 

And of course I do that, which basically is copy-pasting my CV onto their webpage, with everything I mentioned above, and it takes no more than 30 minutes. And the next day I'm back again, waiting for two hours, and then being called. I meet a female worker a few years older than me, and she seems nice, especially compared to the oddball of a lady I had to deal with three years ago... The talk starts with me spending 25 minutes re-telling her my entire CV, which I had uploaded to their webpage, on their demand, yesterday. It was very, very obvious that she hadn't read any of it. This was more or less the conversation:

- So what have you done before signing up?
- I finished my bachelor in business administration.

- Oh what does that mean?
- Well, as I wrote on the webpage, it's generally a mixture of economics, project leading, management, HR, some statistics..a well-grounded thing. All in english, the program is called International Management.

- Oh, so you speak english then?

- ...Well, yes, since I passed the degree, and I also spent that exchange semester in England as I wrote on the-
- So, would you say that english isn't a problem?
At this point I think she's got to be pulling my leg, but no. Apparently spending 5 months in England and having a three year all-english university degree doesn't prove that I can speak english. Sigh. So this continues in a similar manner, and this is the conclusion she reaches:

- I can match you as a janitor assistant or cashier. 

 

Excuse me? I did a degree in economics and business, and you can only match me with JANITOR ASSISTANT due to a summer job I did four years ago? Which planet are you on honey? She also sends me to a meeting - which will be proven to be EXACTLY THE SAME DARN MEETING I HAD THREE YEARS AGO. And this, my friends, is when I lost all faith in the offical Swedish Job Center. Three weeks later I got my acceptance to the master program. Please excuse me while I fix my carrier on my own.