A recruiter who has been inundated with fraudulent resumes from welfare fraudsters claims that Centrelink’s ‘broken system’ might be fixed by having agents keep track of the positions that applicants are looking for.
The owner of the companies Superior People Recruitment in Australia and New Zealand, Graham Wynn, recently explained how he gets inundated with phony job applications from people wanting to maintain their benefits.
Employers are inundated with frequently absurd resumes as a result of the present Centrelink system, which mandates that job seekers apply for 20 positions every month in order to maintain their welfare benefits.
The applications must be thoroughly checked and not just automatically added to monthly totals, according to Mr. Wynn, if the flawed system is to be corrected.
He thinks that when someone under their supervision seeks for a job, an agent ought to be informed. According to him, doing so would enable the agency to determine whether the position was suitable for the applicant’s level of experience.
‘We think back to the old days prior to technology,’ Mr Wynn told Sunrise. ‘You used to sit down with your Job Network people and they would talk you and recommend what jobs to go for.
‘I think what we need to do [now] with the automation system is every person who is registered with Centrelink has an active job provider. So what should happen is when they apply for a job, their Job Active provider should automatically be notified, this is the job they have applied for.
‘That way they can help them and say, “that is not appropriate, you don’t have the experience for that job”, and they can work with them directly. At the moment that does not happen and we have had people apply for 20 different jobs advertised, none they are suited to.’
A jobseeker who acknowledged owning a business but stated, “I need to be on Centerlink,” is one of the prior examples of fake resumes uncovered by Daily Mail Australia. A different CV went into great detail about a candidate’s medical background, which included a recent hernia.
The present system will be replaced starting on July 1 by Labor’s new Points Based Activation System (PBAS). It will permit JobSeeker clients to get money if they accrue 100 points each month rather than requiring them to apply for 20 different jobs.
The new approach will have minimal effect in stopping welfare fraud, according to Mr. Wynn, whose company processes hundreds of applications every day.
Additionally, he disclosed that only about 5% of the applications he receives are from candidates who are truly qualified for the positions they are looking for.
It won’t have much of an impact, according to Mr. Wynn. A person receives five points for each job application, and if they apply for 20 jobs, they receive 100 points—the same as under the present system.
Additionally, an unnamed recruitment agency provided examples of some of the fraudulent applications it had received.
One application was for a position as a car sales advisor, although the applicant’s CV only listed experience in plumbing.
Another application came from a remorseful job applicant who claimed that while they owned their own firm, they were “forced” to apply for employment in order to receive benefits.
A third person’s resume was empty and just listed their name and address with contact information for references.
Self-reporting is the main concern, according to Mr. Wynn, who was speaking about the issues with Centrelink. In the past, you had to personally meet with a representative of Centrelink to verify that the applications you were submitting were valid.
There are no longer in-person meetings since the administration was able to save money during the pandemic by using the online approach. There is no mistake. In one day, I had one applicant apply for 20 jobs, none of which he qualified for.
“Nothing will change with the new scoring system.” The issues with self-reporting and inadequate oversight are not addressed.
In accordance with PBAS, an applicant is eligible to receive five points for each job application they submit, 20 points for a successful interview, and variable points for additional employment-related actions.
If someone earns more than 100 points in a single month, the remaining points will be carried over under the new approach, which will allow certain recipients to have their monthly targets decreased due to personal circumstances.
A total of 592,000 participants will be directed to a new face-to-face employment service provider, while about 169,000 participants will switch to an online site to manage their job searches.
The shift follows prior revelations that benefit fraudsters are intentionally submitting six-worded applications and anti-vaxxer ranting on their CV in order to evade employment.
One résumé that a hiring company received simply stated, “I don’t have a resume at the moment.”
Another applicant stated in their application that they were applying for the position in order to meet their requirements as a jobseeker.
He claimed to have “made it through 10th grade” on another fictitious CV and to have “absolutely no skills whatsoever.”
In order to follow Centrelink’s regulations, a welfare claimant revealed in May how he applied for 15 jobs in just three minutes.
‘Mumfighter,’ a music producer from Sydney, posted a video to his social media sites last month demonstrating how he satisfies the standards set forth by the government for the JobSeeker payment.
Mumfighter recorded a video in which he set a goal for himself of sending 15 job applications in eight minutes. He claims that he actually completed the task in three minutes and 22 seconds.
The film was made for entertainment purposes, according to the former professional rollerblader and rollerblade coach, who enjoys “pretending to accomplish things faster than the ordinary human” and usually takes the task much more seriously.
At the time, Mumfighter told Daily Mail Australia, “In actuality, applying for jobs typically takes me anywhere from 1-3 hours depending on whether I need to slightly revise my résumé and how much my ADHD is holding me back.”