All I ever got from a Jobcentre was a lecture on how I must look for work and not sit back and enjoy the luxury of unemployment benefit. As I had just been made redundant from a £35K job and was paying my ex more than the weekly benefit out of my redundancy money I didn't exactly find that helpful.

The first thing that I learned was that you will only be considered for a permanent job if you are currently in employment. Answer: get a temp job paying the national minimum then bullshit a lot to potential employers about doing contract work. Luckily I was still a stripling in my early 40s at the time so it only took 18 months to get back into a real job and another 4 years before I was back on my previous salary, with my redundancy payout long gone and praying for a couple of good bonuses to clear my credit cards.