Universal Jobmatch

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Universal Jobmatch was a British website for finding job vacancies. The site was developed in a collaboration between the Department for Work and Pensions and Monster.^[1]

The website replaced the JobCentre Plus' Job Search Tool and Employer Services Direct, which were part of the Directgov online system set up in the UK's New Deal employment system. The service has been introduced as part of a Government campaign to assist the DWP to monitor client's jobsearch activities directly, and as part of the "Digital By Default" agenda to migrate more British citizens to subscribe to an online process when claiming both unemployed and in-work benefits.^[2] The service was switched prematurely live through an AlphaTesting System in November 2012, was commended as being a perfect system by Secretary of State for Work and Pensions George Iain Duncan Smith in November 2012,^{[citation needed]} but remains a work in progress. Whereas, in parallel to the switching of Universal Jobmatch, the DWP closed its existing processes supporting Job Search and Employer Services Direct, migrating its customers to the new system, and reported that 460,000 employers posting jobs and the site receiving over 6 million searches per day. By February 2013 there were some 2 million registered users.^[3]

Early controversy has arisen due to people having registered with Universal Jobmatch and then finding that they are targeted by dubious organisations and individuals in financial scams.^[4] Channel 4 news ran a feature, in December 2012, which explained how this new government service was being used to obtain personal details of jobseekers.^[5] Instead of resolving this issue, the Monster Corporation which operates the system on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) require all users, when creating an account, to accept a number of terms and conditions of use,^[6] including the clause that they "don't accept liability for loss or damage incurred by users of the website.

The Universal Jobmatch states regularly as of January 2013 that users must "Never ever give out things like scanned passports, national insurance numbers or bank account details until a job offer has officially been made." on their relevant web pages.^{[7][8][9][10]} The site was also made a lot more user-friendly and less verbose in mid 2013.^[4]

On 12 February 2014, it was revealed in a Freedom of Information Act request ^[11] that Monster didn't win the Universal Jobmatch Tender falling into last place on value and second to last place on evaluation scoring;^[12] until the service was put back out to tender.^[13]

The Government paid Methods Consulting Limited and Jobsite UK (Worldwide) Limited £950,000 compensation,^[14] who should have won both tenders, when the new contract was awarded.

Concerns are raised how Monsters "satisfactory" evaluation score and high bid in the first tender, resulted in a near-perfect evaluation score in the second tender and a bid of under half the original which in turn made them competitive. Allegations of insider dealing and corruption has been made because of this.^[12]

According to a report in The Guardian in March 2014, leaked documents from the DWP indicate that the government had formulated plans to scrap Universal Jobmatch when the contract for the site was up for renewal in 2016, due to the numbers of fake and repeat job adverts posted to the site and because of cost concerns.^[15]

On 26 April 2018 a message was placed on the home page saying the service would be replaced by 'Find a job' on 14 May 2018.^[16] Users were advised to save their information by 17 June 2018 as logins would not be moved to the new system.^[17][16]

It was not a requirement to register, and anonymous searches could be made by people looking for jobs and applications made directly to companies that had posted their contact details. However, as of 1 March 2013 JobCentre Plus advisers could, if giving a good reason, require Jobseeker's Allowance claimants to use the site through a JobSeeker Direction. If they refused to comply, they could be recommended for a benefit sanction. A decision-maker took the final decision over whether benefit should be removed, which as a consequence of the UK Governments Welfare Reform Bill of 2012, may have led to a loss in State Benefits for up to 3 years.^[8][18][19]

Registered users had the option to allow the DWP to have access to their account to allow the department to monitor their activity. Whilst this was not mandatory, claimants were threatened with a sanction for not doing so.^[20]

Additionally, hacktivists have created an plug-in addition for the Chrome Browser which will allow the automatic distribution of CVs to any recruiters through Universal Jobmatch.^[21]

1. https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance
2. https://www.gov.uk/jobsearch
3. https://jobsearch.direct.gov.uk/Home.aspx