A group of techno-activists have devised a way of sending CVs to multiple employers on the government's official jobseekers' site, in protest at poor-quality adverts and "the drudgery of work".
Developed by "a loose collective of people who identify as anarchists and work in the tech industry", the Universal Automation plugin, which was added to the Chrome web store in early December, mimics the action of a real-life jobseeker. After the user searches for a job, with one click, the plugin automatically sends a CV to every position advertised on the first page of the results.
"I'm sure you applied for jobs on the internet before and you know it's the most tedious thing to do," said one of the developers, who has asked to remain anonymous. "Most of time you're just sending the CV to as many places as you can and hoping that you'll get a response.
"With Universal Jobmatch it's even worse," the activist told the Guardian. "The majority of postings on the site are spam. If they are not outright attempts at identity theft, a lot of them (and I mean a lot, I would say up to 90% on some queries) are third-party posts which are automatically reposted on the site and link to their websites.
"Now people who use Universal Jobmatch do so because they are forced to do so and they're also forced to apply to jobs posted directly on it, so that they can be monitored by job centres."
More broadly, however, the collective is aiming to highlight the drudgery of work in general.
"We need to look at structural issues, such as role of unemployment in capitalist economy in general and also the particular condition of British economy at the moment. Basically most of work we do is at best socially useless and at worst actively harmful. Constant banging on about strivers, hard-working families, the squeezed middle and so on is only meant to obscure that," said the activist.
"At the same time people who do important work that makes this world a good place to live are a target of constant attacks as shirkers and scroungers and forced into destitution."
When Iain Duncan Smith announced in December 2012 that the Universal Jobmatch website was to be mandatory for all jobseekers, fears were raised that the site would be flooded with bogus jobs.
At the time, Duncan Smith said that only 6,000 jobs had been blocked as inappropriate, and 27 employers removed.
The site requires jobseekers to explain why they have turned down a job, and are only offered a limited number of reasons. In December, Duncan Smith explained that "if the adviser thinks they are pretty specious reasons, he may call you in and say, 'We think you should be applying for these jobs'."
Against that background, it's easier for jobseekers to just apply for every job going than exercise judgment over whether a particular application is worth their time – hence the creation of the Universal Automation plugin.
"The idea is so obvious it's a surprise no one has done that yet," its developer said. "If anyone can use this extension to get their benefits for few weeks longer, to avoid being forced into workfare at Poundland, or to have a silent satisfaction of sticking a middle finger to Iain Duncan Smith or their job centre adviser, it's a victory."
The Department of Work and Pensions was not available for comment.
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