I had a full time job after graduating in May (this job had nothing to do with my field of work) with a criminal justice degree. I applied for alternate route in the police academy.
I will be graduating this week. I have sent out approx. 40 applications so far but have not heard anything. Will I be able to collect unemployment until I am able to get a
job as a police officer since I voluntarily left my full time job?
Moved to GQ.
This will be dependent on the local laws in whatever jurisdiction you live in.
Usually you can only get unemployment if you were laid off, not if you quit.
Always apply for unemployment. Sometimes companies are so busy they don’t contest the claim. But don’t put down that you voluntarily quit. You don’t want to lie but you don’t want to come out and say it like that.
The worst they can do is say “no.”
No, they can do worse. They can start paying you, then confirm you are not eligible, and then require you to pay back the amount they have paid you.
Help me with the timing here - you graduated college in May, quit your full time job then to enter police academy, and now are graduating that 2 months later? Now you want to file unemployment against the previous job?
You can talk to an agency in your area, but I suspect you are not qualified to file.
As others have said local laws apply, but those laws include fraud if you slip in a tiny lie.
It also sounds like you would not be able to draw UNC.
Usually when you go through the police academy you have a job at the end of it – with the police. Why not you?
You say you had a full time job upon graduation. Sounds like you never actually worked there, but turned it down to go to the police academy. If you never actually worked there, you definitely cannot collect unemployment. But even if you did work there, I’m pretty sure that in most states, you cannot collect unemployment if you quit. You have to get fired or laid off.
To further refine/nitpick this part: in Oklahoma, you may quit and get benefits of unemployment if you show ‘good cause/reason’ to have quit. Things like harmful work environment or being required to do something not in job description that could cause problems (made-up examples here). There’s a bit of leeway in the ~‘quit for a bad thing I had to do/endure’ aspect. No idea about other States’ use of this angle. Just saying ‘quitting a job’ is not always an absolute no-other-excuse-needed reason to deny a claim. Personal experience with helping another person for their ‘hearing’ is how I know this about OK, fwiw. I deleted all my bookmarked ‘cites’ on this awhile back, unfortunately (all OK related). Leaving a job for no ‘harmful’ reason seems in the ‘denial’ realm, solidly, imho.
And its not like the unemployment payment-accounts have much cash in them nowadays, too, so there might be considerable tightening of rules/interpretations for eligibility. YMMV Oh, almost forgot the requisite letters…IANAL 