To be really really annoyed at River Island's treatment of my daughter at interview

[BadHairDyeDay]

DD17 applied for a job with RI - 8 hour contract evenings and Saturdays and would fit around school no problem. On Thursday she an email asking her to attend a "recruitment event" yesterday morning at 9.30 and to bring "proof of eligibility to work in the UK". Excellent so far.
So yesterday morning DD gets her National insurance number letter and I drop her off for the interview. As I'm walking back to the car I get a phone call from DD to say she needs either her birth certificate or her passport. I ask her what for. She says she was supposed to bring either one. I said no it was proof of eligibility to work in the UK, I.e. National insurance number. Birth certificate = proof of identity. Passport = eligibility to travel outside your own country. That was problem no 1 . Anyway RI had said she could come back at 10.30 with said documents and have interview then. So I made the half hour round trip home to fetch BC.
All fine then. But no. Problem no.2. At the end of the interview DD is asked when she can work (which she had set out in detail in her application form and was the same as the advertised position). So she tells them again and they say "Oh so you can't work XX?". DD says no. They say not at all? DD says sorry no it was in my application form and I didn't think I had to! End of interview!

So AIBU to be raging that they didn't ask for the documents they actually wanted at interview and also that we completely wasted a whole morning due to the fact that they didn't read my DD's application form properly and changed the criteria at the last minute anyway!!!!!
I have a good mind to complain to head office because that's is just plain incompetence - and in their eyes my DD looks like she is in the wrong!!!

P.S Sorry this is so long!!!

I didn't feel I "was above the job". I just love how so many posters on here know exactly what someone else thinks

Then why do you feel you shouldn't have to go through the same process as everyone else?

Fair enough you don't like the interview process - plenty of people don't like job interviews - but they see them as something to endure in order to get a necessary job. Shelf-stacking at ASDA isn't, as you said, a difficult job. So the employers don't care about your past experience - they want people who will do the job and "fit in" with the company to an extent.

You didn't even give the process a chance - just decided it was stupid and gave up at the first hurdle. I've been through the ASDA interview process and while yes, it's a bit cringeworthy, what interview process isn't? For me, it was worth it because I got the job which allowed me to move out of home and pay the bills.

As I said, if retail employers are almost all using these group tasks, role play etc then why is the level of customer service not higher?

Is it? I very rarely, if ever, experience poor customer service. Most shops I go into have pleasant, kind and helpful staff. Same with cafes, restaurants and bars.

However, I do experience lots of rude customers who appear to think that retail staff are uneducated, stupid and just plain annoying. I have had people tell my staff to fuck off. They've had hands shoved up in their faces, they've been flat out ignored, they've been sworn at, belittled and screamed at.

mydogisthebest all of your posts just scream that you’re too good for the world of retail. The distain in your posts calling them no better than “trained monkeys” is appalling.

Constantly referring to the ‘girl’ (nice) at the cafe who couldn’t do such an apparently simple task - maybe she was new, maybe she wasn’t trained in food prep yet, maybe she was alone and couldn’t leave the counter to go out back and get anything?

Hint - if you seem to be consistently getting poor customer service maybe it’s because you’re a nightmare customer that they want to avoid or just do the bare minimum for to get you out the door?

And your absolute certainty that of course you’d have got a glowing reference - how many employers actually give personalised references nowadays? Usually it’s “we can confirm that Brenda worked for us between X and Y dates”

And as for your years of experience - well, I know people with supposedly 20+ years of “experience” that still manage to be pretty damn useless.

Arranging interviews is a ballache. Why would a company spend days organising 1:1 interviews with dozens of candidates when they can just set aside half a day, get them all in at once, and have the bonus of seeing how they interact with their potential future colleagues?

@gamerwidow 'Ps I don’t think their are any easy jobs. Employers in all sectors expect so much from their employees these days.'

Totally agree. The whole job hunting journey is horrendously stressful (for me anyway). Everything, from the run up to the interview to the decision. I guess thats just the way it is.

I think to be honest because so many people have degrees now they run these activities rather than assume from qualifications someone has the ability to do a job well. And then other people get jobs simply because of connections.

It really is a roulette.

Is it? I very rarely, if ever, experience poor customer service. Most shops I go into have pleasant, kind and helpful staff. Same with cafes, restaurants and bars.

Me neither. Once in a while you get someone who clearly can't be bothered but the vast majority of the time I find staff in shops, cafes and restaurants to be very helpful and pleasant. I see a huge difference now compared with how things were 20 years ago.

Yes I took as an insult because for anyone of my age and experience it is an insult. I did not think the job was beneath me and if you bothered to read my post I did shelf filling for a number of years.

You said you working a book shop and M&S, these are completely different styles of work to ASDA. They both push customer service above all else, ASDA is about working quickly and to volume.

I worked for the Co-op for over 20 years and started working for Home Bargains, I had to unlearn some of the things I learned in my previous job as it was completely different in HB. Even down to the different way the tills worked.

You keep saying "shelf filling" but retail is much more than that now - shelf filling, working on tills, counting stock, light cleaning, rejigging entire shelf plans, checking prices, date checking entire sections, knowing where customers can find stock etc.

You also wouldn't have got a good reference. Your reference would have stated "mydogisthebest worked here from X date to X date" and maybe something about having no disciplinaries.