Jobs with Glasgow City Council

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Jobs with Glasgow City Council

Postby glasgowken » Wed Oct 26, 2005 12:48 am

I've heard many times that you have to 'know' someone to have any chance of getting a job with the council, can anyone here shed some light on that rumour ?

Certainly in my own experience i've applied for various GCC jobs over the years (mostly connected with the museums, & leisure side), and never even got an interview.
If these rumours are true it shows them up to be a real bunch of hypocritical, bent, gobshites.

I suppose I kind of knew that already :wink:
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Postby AlanM » Wed Oct 26, 2005 8:00 am

It used to be that what school you went to had a bearing on the outcome of any job application (It's aledgedly not a coincidence that the corporation colours were green and gold)
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Postby thecatsmother » Wed Oct 26, 2005 8:07 am

I got a letter last week telling me I didn't get an interview for a job at the transport museum I applied for yonks ago. That's it... they MUST be bent!! How could they not want ME!?

Just as well, really, cos I would have had to turn it down.
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Postby Mori » Wed Oct 26, 2005 12:14 pm

well its debateble... i got an interview for the PR team for the New Transport Museum @ Glasgow Harbour earler this year, mind you the interview came several months after the original application, and then there was to be a second selection a few weeks later, needless to say i didnt get the position, their selction process is deplorable i must say and like you say its not what you know its who you know. :?
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Postby Dexter St. Clair » Wed Oct 26, 2005 4:33 pm

Mori wrote:well its debateble... i got an interview for the PR team for the New Transport Museum @ Glasgow Harbour earler this year, mind you the interview came several months after the original application, and then there was to be a second selection a few weeks later, needless to say i didnt get the position, their selction process is deplorable i must say and like you say its not what you know its who you know. :?


I hate to be cruel Mori but I do hope you spell checked your application form. Because of the recent settlement on the claim for equal pay for work of equal value a freeze has been placed on filling vacancies. It's not a complete freeze as some jobs are funded externally but certain jobs which have been advertised will not be filled.
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It's Glasgow not Monklands

Postby Dexter St. Clair » Wed Oct 26, 2005 4:53 pm

I've heard many times that you have to 'know' someone to have any chance of getting a job with the council, can anyone here shed some light on that rumour ?


As the council has a predominately white workforce there is obviously some problems with its recruitment procedures.

It used to be that posts above a certain grade had to be internally advertised and if not filled it went external and into the press. All posts are now externally advertised and anyone can apply.

Certain posts can be exempted from normal employment law in terms of sex, ethnicity and occassionally disability. Some times disbled candidates are guaranteed an interview. However the last annual survey of the workforce showed that although numbers had increased the percentage of the workforce classed as coming from a minority ethnic background and the disabled have gone down.

It must be said that certain departments follow the council's recruitment procedures closer than others. Other departments which have been reviewed or are under review have staff on temporary contracts. If a vacancy comes up it has to be advertised as above but someone who has being doing the job on a temporary basis can be thought to be better placed to get the job on a permanent basis.

There are a lot of people who do want to work for the council. As it is a mostly unionised workforce pay tends to be slightly better, conditions are OK and the pension scheme is pretty good.

Sex discrimination still exist within certain departments particularly at the higher level. Although these days it's not always wome who are discriminated against. In the manual sector it's about 97% white which needs some explanation. Not that the so called professional staff make up is that much more multi cultural but required qualifications provide some protection against discrimination.

You can ask for a debriefing as to why you were not appointed but trying to get a response might be harder than trying for a job.
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Postby Mori » Wed Oct 26, 2005 5:04 pm

Dexter St. Clair wrote:I hate to be cruel Mori but I do hope you spell checked your application form. Because of the recent settlement on the claim for equal pay for work of equal value a freeze has been placed on filling vacancies. It's not a complete freeze as some jobs are funded externally but certain jobs which have been advertised will not be filled.


Thanks for the spelling tip Dexter, :D I'm usualy multi tasking while am applying online ( Bad excuse ) and besides it keeps the recruiters on their toes to make out words that have letters missing. why advertise jobs that will never be filled?

can i ask if you are a GCC recruiter Dexter ?
Last edited by Mori on Wed Oct 26, 2005 7:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby glasgowken » Wed Oct 26, 2005 5:54 pm

thecatsmother wrote:I got a letter last week telling me I didn't get an interview for a job at the transport museum I applied for yonks ago. That's it... they MUST be bent!! How could they not want ME!?

Just as well, really, cos I would have had to turn it down.


Wonder if it was the same job I applied for :wink:
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I'm just a DJ

Postby Dexter St. Clair » Wed Oct 26, 2005 7:48 pm

can i ask if you are a GCC recruiter Dexter ?



No.
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Postby Schiehallion » Wed Oct 26, 2005 8:05 pm

Jobs for the boys, always has been, always will be. They can have all the fancy dan recruitment policies they want. If yer Da's pally with the cooncillor's brother then yer in.

As AlanM correctly hints at, once they actually fill a job the white smoke pours out over the Square!
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Postby escotregen » Wed Oct 26, 2005 8:19 pm

Dexter, a commendable set of frank observations on the GCC from someone who seems to have an 'insider's' viewpoint. I suggest that the core factor is that we have a local authority that has been one-party dominated for the best part of at least a half-century; always a bad thing in any political system anywhere. There is an endemic culture of self-serving cliques in the Glasgow administration. Equally there are those who are striving to counter this culture. For those who do not want to look deeper at such matters... switch now to another thread.

In Glasgow, in addition to the one-party political domination, we have the added dimension that the one-party domination originated in the city's real-politic agreement in the early 20th century. The city had a peculiar (unique?) understanding between the emergent progressive left-wing political party (the Labour Party) and a sizeable and discriminated-against religion/cultural grouping (the Irish Catholic interest). Their understanding was that in return for favours they would both co-operate to deliver the working class vote.

This was, over time, hugely successfull and made possible most of the subsequent 75 years of progressive politics in Glasgow. However, the very success of this understanding carried with it the seeds of decay and corruption. Eventually, not only political allegiance, but also religion and family and wider cliques, became ever-stronger entrenched power bases.

The result over the most recent quarter century has been a city that has been governed in a progressively erratic (?) way... the very least of which is that well-qualified and eminently suitable people don't even get on the short list for Council jobs (and from what I've heard, many individual applicants have been dismayed to see the calibre of applicant who eventually got the job).
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Postby Socceroo » Wed Oct 26, 2005 8:55 pm

I agree entirely with Escotregen's comments above.

It is easy to say that Glasgow City Council is corrupt, perhaps 25 years ago, yes i understand from my older colleagues in the Construction Industry that corruption was more widespread.

Today, i think there are too many counter measures, monitors etc in place to allow corruption to exist on too wide a scale.

Although saying that, i have had first hand experience of witnessing Council Staff making suggestions that "cash would smooth things out".

However, i would say that the calibre of Council Staff in key positions when compared to their opposite numbers in the private sector is well below par.

Often before they make a key decision or put policy strategy in front of Councillors, they have to engage an external consultant. Nothing wrong with that, but in a lot of cases the external consultant is basically employed to do the work for them.

Sometimes inept, often erratic and generally frustratingly slow in the decision making process is how i would describe Glasgow City Council across the board.

In other instances with certain departments and with elected "unpaid" Councillors i could cite more specific complaints from first hand experience.
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Postby Bonz » Thu Oct 27, 2005 12:32 am

..... I've got a kinda different perspective on the whole thing, I started working for GCC at the start of the year.

I had two interviews to get the position, the first with the Manager of the Department I work in, and the second with the Head of Department (who reports directly into the Deputy Directors/Director).

The interviews were professional and all paperwork/contracts etc were processed extremely quickly.

The people I work with work hard in their jobs and have offered nothing but support. Indeed, the support from my Line Manager upwards has been absolutely superb, the best i've experienced in any organisation.

The Senior Managers in my Department are true professionals, and (in my eyes) are very good at what they do.

And no, I do not have any relatives who work in the Council, or know anybody who worked in GCC prior to my application for employment!!!

I know that GCC has had a hell of a reputation in the past for nepotism and so on, but from my experience the Council (or at least the area I work in) is far removed from the descriptions in the previous posts, with staff easily on a par with anything I have ever experienced in the private sector.
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Postby escotregen » Thu Oct 27, 2005 10:54 am

Bonz I accept entirely what you say, and I would want to repeat that I recognise that there are people in the GCC who are competant, progressive and who do seek to counter the old culture. There is always a danger that postings like mine above, can actually demoralise such progressive people and tar-them-with-the-same-brush.

But I also suggest that it's important to honestly face these issues in Glasgow. For all the good people there are, the old culture still persists - and most importantly, just look at the political culture to which the employees must pay heed.

For example, I've just read that Charlie Gordon, an old-time Labour hack, recently got elected as MSP for Cathcart with the support of fewer than 6,000 out of the 48,309 people living in Cathcart. The turn-out of 31.97% was the record lowest for any Scottish Parliament election (and the previous record was held by another Glasgow constituency!). So this is the best in popular support that the guy who was the Leader of the Council can get?

I'm aware of several private companies in my line of work who will tell you they simply do not tender for Council work because of what they allege to be the blatant malpractices and incompetances they have experienced. I have seen some of the Councillors 'in action' and it's not an edifying sight. For example at the recent Masterclass on the New Gorbals I heard how the hideous two big white tower blocks (Tracobas) in the Gorbals redevelopment were retained at the unblinking insistance of the local Council Mutter "who said he was speaking on behalf of the community". To this day they stand there as ugly blights that are totally out of place in the human scale of the surrounding developments - a fitting monument to the old-style Council culture.

Many pieces of evidence like this show a city where the general electorate, not being stupid, have simply stopped participating in the 'old-cronies-and-networks' culture in the city's governance.
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Postby thecatsmother » Thu Oct 27, 2005 11:41 am

glasgowken wrote:
thecatsmother wrote:I got a letter last week telling me I didn't get an interview for a job at the transport museum I applied for yonks ago. That's it... they MUST be bent!! How could they not want ME!?

Just as well, really, cos I would have had to turn it down.


Wonder if it was the same job I applied for :wink:


Photographer of the archive?
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