[Closed] Well this was a kick in the nuts....

Rule one of job hunting, you don't have a job until there is a signed contract.

Sounds like an agency rather than direct employment.

Interested to see that they couldn't even be bothered to write to you personally - that screams "mail merge" to me, right down to the fact that they've addressed you with a lower case "j".

Had an almost identical experience with the Royal Mail nearly 10 years ago.

Sounds like an agency rather than direct employment.

Nope, Civil Service. I already work for the same department. This would've been a promotion from band 3 to 4 but with a 4K paycut (shift allowances etc)

Ah bad luck. Just like the fishing, new worm, cast again. The fish won't be able to resist in the long run.

Muppets, it's no different in the private sector in my experience....
Or worse. Much worse.

This may be stretching it - but would anyone else read that second email as formalising the conditional offer by indicating pre-employment checks were complete and offering a start date?

conditional offer of employment, subject to your successful completion of pre-employment checks... ...Once pre-employment checks have been completed we will contact you again.

We have now sent your documents to the vacancy contact for you for a start date to be negotiated. We will be in touch again when we receive that start date.

edit - in fact, i suspect that making it subject to pre-employment checks, that providing you passed them then a contract was formed, it was no longer open for them to withdraw the post. solicitor time.

It must be some consolation that they

appreciate this will be disappointing for you

The 'we have sent your documents to the vacancy contact' would suggest an agency to me, in house agency maybe.

It ain't over until the fat lady sends you a contract to sign.

It's the civil service.

A hoop jumping exercise for a role that had a candidate as a shoe in but they had to go through the box filling procedure

Your a casualty of the system unfortunately.... But still employed I guess ?

Good point Ninfan! I don't expect them to turn round & say 'sorry, we screwed up cos wer'e crap & here's your job back' but it's not the 1st time It's happened at our place. Last year I applied for a similar position (as did a fair few others), got an interview date but only to be told later that the interviews were cancelled cos they'd just given the job to a guy who was 'surplus'!
I mean, why advertise a job & go through the whole rigmarole & time/expense of sifting/wasting candidates time & building up any expectations etc when the job isn't actually there in the 1st place?
Wasting taxpayers money in this time of 'austerity' by dipsticks.

The 'we have sent your documents to the vacancy contact' would suggest an agency to me, in house agency maybe

No! Advertised on the civil service jobs website & at my workplace by HR.

when the job [s]isn't actually there in the 1st place?[/s]

I suspect its at least worth challenging since it had clearly moved on from the conditional offer (and theres no suggestion that you failed the pre-employment check)

I mean, why advertise a job & go through the whole rigmarole & time/expense of sifting/wasting candidates time & building up any expectations etc when the job isn't actually there in the 1st place?
Wasting taxpayers money in this time of 'austerity' by dipsticks.

As I said.
It's the civil service, they have to do this but it's not exclusive to them, though they do make an art form of it.

when the job isn't actually there in the 1st place?
has been quietly offered to someone internal instead

Again, no. The position isn't being filled, much to the naffed offness of the guy who would've been my boss (who I've known for years)
He needed another staff member to re-introduce both re-cycling on a commercial level & deliver NVQ's to prisoners. The former bringing in revenue to the establishment for re-cycled waste & the second to give serving prisoners a qualification in waste recycling. At the moment the vast majority of the prisons waste is now simply compacted & landfilled but with another member of staff/instructor (me) more recycling wouldv'e been done & sold on. (lots of metal/paper/cardboard etc)

Plus you couldn't get more 'internal' than me, I've been there for 12 years!

Private world is like this all the time. No one guarantees you a job and even after contracts signed and you turn up, you can be out the door a few weeks later when the company or project goes tits up.

I learnt a very long time ago that jobs are just jobs, don't depend on them and just move on. Ended up contracting as it's as (un)stable, but I have more control over what's going on and far less politics.

I wouldn't be so quick to put it on incompetence, as far as I'm aware all recruitments been frozen (1 month ago they were interviewing dozens of roles) all non essential travels been cancelled and I heard any Temps/fixed terms will be gone in the new year...direct result of the government's austerity policies. Who'd you vote for?

I wouldn't be so quick to put it on incompetence,

Really? Lets put it another way then.
I'm currently on 29K. Say I leave for a new job which pays 25K. The prison service HAVE to replace me (cos theyv'e already 'screwed' up & now they know theyr'e short staffed) New staff are on 21-22K. There's a lot of money to be made in recycling the tons of waste a prison produces each week.
Now I'm no financial advisor but....

Meh, i've had both.
Job offer withdrawn due to "financial constraints" i.e. someone mucked up the production volumes for the year, laid off 300 agency guys on the shop floor (a month before christmas), which automatically triggers a hiring freeze.

And a surplus guy taking a job i'd already been offered (but not agreed on). Irony is that he quit 3 months later and they had to start the recruitment process all over again, and i didn't get offered the role second time round. The person who did get the job (someone on a job reallocation program, they get prioritised) The poor bugger actually got moved sideways after a year or so as they were useless. So they had to recruit, again. 3rd time in less than 18 months. (No, i didn't apply a 3rd time, AFAIK the role is still vacant.)

The only hope I've got is that the boss is keeping it open for me for 12 months. You never know, things might change as they often do.

Yours Sincerely,
HR Recruitment Team

Having worked for two of the largest employers in the UK, the Royal Mail and the Civil Service, and then having gone into a small company of never more than six people but running conferences for 5 years for the CIPD, the professional body of the HR world I have come to the conclusion that I never want to work in any organisation that has an HR department.

thought i had clicked the Syrian or Russian thread.

hth

Aitumn Spending Review coming up, innit, NOMS part of DOJ , so how much do they have to save 1/2 a £bn?
I'd say not getting promoted was the least of your worries, if expect a lot more civil servants will be getting p45s for Xmas

The prison service HAVE to replace me

Even in your line of work don't bet on that.

My only advice is to move on - trying to understand institutional thinking is a fruitless task.

alarms bells started ringing for me as soon as I saw the lower case J, then rung loudly every time they repeated the error.

Would you really want to work for an organisation with such poor attention to grammar?

I'd imagine they were waiting for the results of the spending review...biggest cuts in history as George Obsbourne wants a surplus for the next election, when a) hopes he is leader and b) that his housing bubble economy hasn't burst.

We're all in this together.

I have come to the conclusion that I never want to work in any organisation that has an HR department.

We got rid of ours last year, or rather she left for another job. No one really noticed as she didn't actually do anything.

Having worked for two of the largest employers in the UK, the Royal Mail and the Civil Service, and then having gone into a small company of never more than six people but running conferences for 5 years for the CIPD, the professional body of the HR world I have come to the conclusion that I never want to work in any organisation that has an HR department.

IME it's very much down to the HR leadership - if it's purely a risk management exercise for the organisaiton, then I agree it doesn;t fit in with the overall ethos of "doing the right thing".

But, if it's about creating the right culture, recruiting the right people and providing development (both hard and soft skills) for the workforce, then I;d say an HR dept was essential.

I've worked in organisaitons with the former and now work in one with the latter.

Funny thing is, i used to work in a UK owned company, a pretty iconic one, that had been owned for a few years by the Germans, then sold to the Americans (2 months before i started) and the change in the 5 years i was there from a European/UK/German style HR function where they existed to train, support and look after the staff, and occasionally protect the company, to a US style asset management/cost reduction function was quite noticeable. They've since been sold again (to a non-US co) and recovered marvelously from the 7 years of US mismanagement, actually one of the more profitable companies in it's sector now, rather than propping up the bottom of the table.

The company i'm in now (also owned by a US corporation for 20 years) seem to have pretty much ignored every single diktat from our US overlords. So it's not a bad place to work, HR seem to be on everyones side.

I just got turned down for a job after (I thought) breezing through the 2nd interview. Get a email from the agency - "<Company> are keen to hear your feedback after your 2nd interview."
ooh, sounds good.
I type out a great email saying how much I could bring to the company and how I'm keen.
As I click 'send' another email arrives. It's forwarded from the HR dept -
"unfortunately... etc" and actually says "a nice guy, but.. " WTF!? I don't give a shit if I came across as a "nice guy" (I'm not, it was a front)! I went for a job not a personality assessment. Tossers.
Obviously not as close to the job as the OP, but still a kick in the goolies.

The trick I find is don't take it personally. It probably isn't.

Sometimes it is.

Well I've been unemployed for longer than I care and cannot even get junior positions in my industry.

I'm deffinately taking that personally these days 😡

I would consider retraining but what? As everyone seems to be saying the same thing. I should have stayed in my 'temp' bike shop mechanic role at least that was fun most of the time!

Ah, balls. Sorry essel, really.

You seemed jazzed on this, I was jazzed too. :-/

Onto the next!

😀

Cheers Ned.
When others who've commented have worked 43 years since leaving school (with more downs than ups) then had their final 4 or 5 working years of what may have been an ok job screwed by some incompetant Nobwit(s)!!

Onto the next!

Next what? I'm fifty sodding nine!

That's an @rse Essel. Perils of the job market etc. Good luck with the next one. My lot have just instigated a recruitment freeze, even safety critical posts seem to be being affected (though allegedly they are exempt).