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!!!

@Skittlenommer, no everyone and their dog does not know you need to show a passport and/or birth certificate to get a job. I am pretty sure many older people don't.

As I have said, twice now, I didn't know until I went for an interview in 2016 and I was very surprised. I didn't expect as I was born here that I would have to prove I could work here.

Another poster said the rules came in in 2008. Well strange then that I went for interviews after that date and took the jobs and yet didn't have to prove I can work here. They were for big companies too - M&S, Waterstones were two of them

I went for an interview at B&Q last year. 8 of us sat in a room for what they called 'team building'. At that point they clarified the position and the hours - full time. We'd been on there an hour by then.
I was the first to raise my hand and say 'no, actually I applied for a 16 hour part time position'. Slowly every one else in the room agreed. All 8 of us applied for part time, yet here we were in a full time interview.
Recruitment guy asked what we wanted to do and as none of us wanted the full time work all of us left.

Complete waste of everyones time. I'm sure half these companies just bring people in for interview without actually reading the hours they are available to work.

Lessins you can take from this:
1)Always take Passport/birth certificate to an interview even of they dont ask for it.
2)Retail will always expect you to be flexible and finding a job that only asks you to work the limited availability you put on your application form is very rare.
3) Your daughter is 17 let her fight her own battles/learn from her experiences.

Yanbu

I've been to several interviews only to discover there was no actual job. What they were advertising and what they wanted were 2 entirely different things, or that the interview was somewhere never mentioned despite all communication being from the address you applied to, complete with headed paper from the same place and signed by manager of said place.

Then if you are somehow lucky enough to get the job they rota you on for hours you cant do and two or 3 times as many as you are contracted for which conveniently for them.neans whenever you take holiday they only have to pay you for a third of what you actually do.

One big piss take

Disagree that it's perfectly acceptable for companies to expect candidates to research what id to bring. Unless that's a specific test.

Having people turn up with the wrong ID wastes everyone's time. And therefore also money. Its a massive pita.

Also could be argued presents a barrier to non UK applicants who may be less familiar with British docs, employment law etc etc which for a big company is the sort of thing they look to avoid.

Every job interview I have had in last 19 years has specified what docs to bring to interview.

I am really surprised along with others in the thread that a company as big as River Island hasn't got this in a standard format for all prospective candidates.

NI letters can't be right to work as you can get them while here on a visa, and the letters don't expire but visas do. I got mine as a student here years ago and use the same number now that I'm on a spouse visa. My proof of right to work is my residence permit card.

19 years that should say 10!

"It's perfectly reasonable of an employer to expect applicants to demonstrate the common sense required to find basic, publicly available, information for themselves."

How smug you are
I consider myself as a reasonable intelligent, inquisitive person, but taking a passport to an interview would simply not have occurred to me, until last year when DD was applying for jobs, unless it was specified in the letter/phone call. And it wouldn't occur to me to google it either. But then I have been in continuous employment for the same company for many years.

I don't understand how people don't know how to prove, and that they have to prove, their eligibility to work in the UK😮 I always thought it's a basic thing, like paying taxes😮

Why are you so involved? Why is everyone on here so involved with their adult/ nearly adult children's lives?

When I was 16 I interviewed for a Xmas temp job in Debenhams. I got the bus there and back, sorted my own documents etc. No way we're my parents involved and the embarrassment of having Mummy call up and complain is just too much to bear.

Honestly OP, take a step back. It was a job interview, a learning experience and your DD will learn from it.

@TapasForTwo Surely though if the invitation to interview said that you needed to bring proof of your right to work in the UK you would find out what that was?
I would expect anyone getting that invitation to be able to either ask the company exactly what they needed or to research it themselves.
I think it says a lot about a candidate if they can't manage to figure out a simple thing like that. I say that as someone who recruits dozens of people every year and do find that the majority, if they do not know what is needed they have enough common sense to ask.
I certainly would not engage with a parent regarding a job application or interview.

"@TapasForTwo Surely though if the invitation to interview said that you needed to bring proof of your right to work in the UK you would find out what that was?"

Yes I would, but without googling it wouldn't have occurred to me that I would need my passport. As I have repeatedly stated I have been employed by the same employer for many years and have never been asked for my passport.

I agree RI should have said "bring XXX passport or birth certificate or specific whatever" before OP's DD attended for interview. I don't think it was wrong of them to ask if she could work more hours. I hope DD is still in with a chance of getting a job there. I wouldn't complain about anything, though, OP.

I didn't expect as I was born here that I would have to prove I could work here

But the law is such that employers have to ask everyone. Imagine the outcry if only the people with "foreign sounding" names were asked to prove their right to work? Or non-white people? You ask everyone. Everyone brings a passport. Easy.

Every interview I've attended for the last ten years has stipulated passport &/or driving licence - I actually missed out on one job since the hostile environment started because one old boss didn't have a website acceptable to them, as his company name was his name, rather than an arbitrary Whatever Company, director boss, format.

It's crap for poorer applicants who might not have the money for those documents - and as the job centre/council insists upon the documents as well, it's even harder to claim benefits without them. But it's not River Island being incompetent, it's what the Tories decided is essential to be recognised as a person to appeal to the anti immigration lobby.

"I actually missed out on one job since the hostile environment started because one old boss didn't have a website acceptable to them, as his company name was his name, rather than an arbitrary Whatever Company, director boss, format."

I have read that five times now and still don't understand it.

But it's not River Island being incompetent, it's what the Tories decided is essential to be recognised as a person to appeal to the anti immigration lobby.

In every country you have to prove you are eligible to work there

Complete over reaction. Having an NI number does NOT prove you have right to work in the uk. Anyone can apply for one E.g. if you have a valid work visa for say two years you can apply for an NI number and that is yours for life however your cure to work visa only last for two years.

Yes they could have clarified what a valid right to work document was but you also could have googled this quite easily.

Did the advert not state what hours were expected of the job? I read many applications as part of my job and it is easy to miss a small bit or miss read it. Also it might be they have already appointed enough people to with the specific hours your daughter can work and are now only looking for other hours.

It's not their fault your daughter wasn't adequately prepared for her interview and you had to spend time driving around up get what she needs.

@TapasForTwo yes I understand that you have been with the same employer for along time so this would not have come up for you. I myself worked for the same employer for a long time and it has only been in my most recent role that this has come up.
The point I was making really is that the OP's daughter did receive an email stating she needed to bring proof of her right to work in the UK.
Surely it is not unreasonable to expect that a candidate looking at that may stop and think to themselves that it may be an idea to clarify either by contacting the employer or by using google to find out. exactly what is needed.
The OP seems hell bent on being right about this and does not seem to be able to understand that the NI number is not enough.

Someone I know recently had to supply a reference for their gaps in employment! I've never heard of anything like that in my life. The same place also wouldn't accept the reference of someone who was no longer at the company..

Basically, a friend worked for a company which has since been bought out by another company. Some staff left. Some staff was given another role in the new company. The building they worked in isn't even owned by the new company. They sold it.

Anyway, new company says to old employees regarding references that they'd only be able to reliably confirm the dates that they worked and their line manager/service manager at the time. But for a detailed reference, ex employees should contact their line/service manager directly who may or may not be in the new company.

However, this wasn't good enough for the new job they applied for who rejected this as an acceptable reference because the line manager concerned was no longer employed at that place of business (which doesn't exist any more).

'Everyone brings a passport. Easy.'

Well it's not that easy for everyone which is why generally there is a list of items that will count as proof to work in uk.

'Someone I know recently had to supply a reference for their gaps in employment! I've never heard of anything like that in my life. The same place also wouldn't accept the reference of someone who was no longer at the company..'

That's utterly ludicrous.

Who comes up with these policies.

Luckily the he places I've worked have been fairly sensible.

Bringing a passport is standard - I recruit and it's a case of no passport no interview, it's a waste of our time to interview only to then find out they cannot work in the U.K. a birth certificate is not sufficient (that just says you were born here, your right to work is based on your parents status.) the only time an applicant didn't have a passport we had to do lots of additional checks including their parents British passport number, place of birth of parents etc - bit of a nightmare. The fines are horrific if we mess up and employ an illegal worker. As to the hours, it depends on the job ad, and how many they were recruiting, they may have found sufficient for those hours by the time your dd interviewed

*Kewlwifee that's difficult. DD worked as a Christmas temp for a company that shut down in March this year, so she wouldn't be able to get a reference either if she needed one.

Eligibility means passport as well as NINo.

Almost no employer advertises specific hours, they are almost always minimum hours (in your daughter's case 8), but they are flexible across the week.