Being lied to during a job application.
This stretching of the truth, however, is not a one-way street. Many new employees have told us that they felt they were misled in interviews about either the responsibilities of the position or the culture of the company. Small untruths on working hours, flexibility, dress code, or employee numbers can even translate into big slights for a gung-ho new hire who feels he’s been deceived.
Thirty-two years ago, I decided that it was time to move on. I’d got as far as I could with the relatively small company I was working for as a credit controller and decided that I should seek something that stretched me a little. I applied for a job as a credit controller with a wholesale carpet supplier in Bristol. The role was similar – credit controller – but carried more responsibility and a higher salary. At least, that was what was promised. When I started, I discovered that “more responsibility” meant doing the stuff the company accountant couldn’t be bothered to do while he was swanning off on three-hour business lunches and the “more salary” simply did not materialise. They lied.
I stuck it a couple of months before walking away without another role to go to. About a year later when applying for a temporary job, I was offered a credit control job by an agency. Upon realising where it was, I refused somewhat forcibly. The agency was interested to hear why, as the employer had managed to get through a number of credit controllers in that brief period. Understandably, the agency wanted to know what the problem was with keeping people in this post. So I told them.
So, yeah, lying to prospective candidates is not a good idea.
It does have a habit of catching up eventually.
“Flexibility” is the one that pisses me off.
What they mean is, you can be “asked” to do a double shift, ten minutes before the first one ends, and they expect you to drop everything and get into work after telephoning you at 3 on a Sunday morning, for a shift that starts at 5, 40 or 50 miles away.
OR, the real BEUT, 2 Sunday afternoon, sitting in the house just South of Liverpool. Get a phone call, “We want you to start a 7 O’clock evening/night shift….in Carlisle, just for one night. (Bare in mind, after tax, I was geting a WHOLE pound per hour for that job, AND had to pay my own train fare!)
And, err, people wonder why the nasty greedy “socialist” workers want to join trades unions?
Oh dear.
Sometimes it isn’t the applicant or hiree who is lying, but the employment agency. You trawl their site and find just the job you can do and apply for it, tailoring your CV to fit the disclosed parameters. You receive an acknowledgement and confirmation your details will be forwarded – usually from someone describing themself as a recruitment champion, or king, or expert, or something. You wait, and …….nothing. The recruitment champion is always out of the office when you phone but is there when you pop in (without an appointment). You then learn the job doesn’t exist or was filled a week or so ago, before you submitted your CV. No apologies for your wasted time. However, they then bombard your email address with hundreds of jobs they consider suitable, despite never ever having training in being a seamstress, or electrical contractor (must have own screwdriver), or printing press operator. The only revenge I can think of is to win a fortune, start up a mythical company, and bombard the bastards with requests for non-jobs (light bulb filament replacement engineer). Anyone have a couple of million going spare? 😈