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!!!

@Fraggling

I had to explain my gaps in employment. I've actually written it into my cv now. It's a perfectly valid question - career break, travelling, stay at home parent, carer ... and add any voluntary work you did then.

Has your daughter received the outcome of the interview. If she hasn’t secured the post it would be better to consider what she needs to work on in terms of prep for next time: ie papers to bring, her future responses on questions about flexibility and any learning from her responses to the interview questions. Your over reaction may make her dwell on this as a negative experience rather than the learning going forward

Hmm I must say a lot of job interviews I’ve attended have advertised part-time job as being evening or weekends or whatever but it then becomes clear they want you to be really flexible and available. I’m not sure how successful they are in actually finding those people because surely people who want PART-TIME 10 hours or so a week are students/parents or taking it on as a second job around main employment

@BadHairDyeDay Omg OP obviously your son's passport and birth certificate prove he is NOT eligible to work in the UK which is what an employer would say if he rocked up to an interview. But he would still need to take those documents! It proves his nationality and citizenship.

Meh, they asked for proof of eligibility to work in the UK and you misunderstood what that meant. Now both you and your daughter know that it's either a birth certificate or a passport. You've both learned something here.

FWIW I have never attended an interview which didn't require me bringing my birth certificate or passport. It's pretty standard IME.

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.

I'm not being smug. It's a legal requirement and the information is vey easy to find. I'm afraid I wouldn't think someone who had difficulties with basic admin like this was particularly intelligent or inquisitive, and I expect employers feel the same.

It's a sort of privilege too. My immigrant friends assume they'll need to prove their eligibility to be here at anything remotely official.

sweetmelodies when i recruited for a retailer we were surprisingly successful in finding people who were willing to work say 15 hour contracts but be flexible over the week.

Our contracts stipulated 'overtime where reasonably practicable' so if they had a good excuse not to overtime eg childcare, we wouldn't insist but if there was no good reason (in the manager's eyes) they'd be accused of breach of contract! (not my rules by the way)

I’m not sure how successful they are in actually finding those people because surely people who want PART-TIME 10 hours or so a week are students/parents or taking it on as a second job around main employment

Exactly.

Flexibility used to mean if u could cover someone.phoning in.sick.occasionally or needing to swap their Thursday for hour Monday for a birthday.

Now it means be available 24/7/365 or dismissed for being not being able to work whilst only being paid for contracted hours during holidays

Somehow yet they coped without you whilst they underwent multiple recruitment events, group interviews, training days, free trials and taking 6 weeks to sort the pay details out properly..

NI number is not proof of eligibility to work. Somebody with a visa can apply for one when they are eligible to work and still have the evidence even once their visa expires. Whilst we do provide a list of suitable documents, it would not be hard to find out what is needed.

By the way, employment gaps and the need to explain what you were doing during these is definitely a thing in social care and education- part of the recommendations after the Soham case and part of Safer Recruitment.

Proof of eligibility to work in the UK means passport or birth certificate if you are a UK resident. You didn't know that and are misdirecting your anger at RI rather than acknowledging your own ignorance. No biggie, lesson learned. Chill out

This with bells on

@bananasandwicheseveryday I’m not sure about the UK but in other jurisdictions you can get one. The identity verification process is the same as getting a drivers license or passport only you just get an ID card (not a permit or travel document). It wouldn’t really be of any more use when you think about it. The only reason I have known people to get one is to buy drinks etc when they don’t have a drivers license.

@bananasandwicheseveryday also I’m not sure whether they show proof of right to work/nationality or not.

She is 17.
She does not need her mum complaining on her behalf.
Let her do it herself if she wants to.
These are all good life lessons.

stucknoue

So you reject people for not having a passport, even when the job doesn't require international travel? I don't suppose that breaks any laws...

"I need to prove my eligibility to work in the uk every so often - even though I have been with the same employer for years. Everyone does."

Me too. Been with employer since 2001 and periodically I get a letter asking me to supply proof of right to work in UK.

@BogglesGoggles standardly national ID card shows that you are a citizen. There is only 4 in Eu who don't issue them afaik. It's also a travel document in EU.

@householdplantmurderer that’s interesting. I don’t think they’re used for anything other than proving name/age where I come from.

@BogglesGoggles as I said before for example where I am from it's used as identity and address proof. Without having it, you can't enter a contract basically too. No one needs to carry birth certificate (which is anyway not accepted anywhere as it's extremely easy to forge), household bills, you don't need an expensive passport or drivers licence. You show it in shops, to police when needed...

It's actually quite practical.
I don't get why people didn't want it here tbh. Imho it would greatly help with the number of identity fraud cases (recently had that issue). Even after a decade here I am still at proving myself with a household bill. These IDs are not easy to forge or get hands on. Unlike a bill from your post. Afaik some payday loans don't even do credit search.
I could literally go, get a bank statement out of someone's mailbox and apply for bunch of payday loans here🤷 Even if I wouldn't get it, it would wreck victim's credit score.
But if ID card had to be presented... That would be a different game.

I take you have to pay for a national ID card? And pay for it updating, when you move?

There very few things that you only need a letter to prove.

You need photo ID as well.

Mot sure why people didnt want it here. I assume it's because of cost.

Cost of passport to travel
Cost of Drivers licence
Then cost of ID card on top.

My drivers licence has my name, address, dob etc on it already. I would be annoyed at having to purchase another card with the same information on.

@HouseholdPlantMurderer why would or should everyone know you have to prove the right to work here?

It certainly never used to be the case so never was a "basic thing like paying taxes". I was surprised and amazed in 2016 when I was told I had to prove I could work here.

@mydogisthebest so was it just automatically assumed you have a right to work here because you told them so?
Because I had to prove my right to work here for well over decade. Is it because of my foreign name that I was asked to always bring ID to show it even before my nationality was mentioned?😮

Tbf we don't pay for ID as long as we don't ruin it or lose it, since it's mandatory. I don't know how it is in other countries though.

*Cost of passport to travel
Cost of Drivers licence
Then cost of ID card on top.

My drivers licence has my name, address, dob etc on it already. I would be annoyed at having to purchase another card with the same information on.*

That's the thing though. Many don't have a passport or DL.

@HouseholdPlantMurderer I am in my 60's and when I was younger there wasn't all this having to have the right to work here.

The first I knew of it was in 2016 when I was asked to prove my right to work here when going for an interview. A poster says it came into force in 2008 but I don't know how true that is because I went for interviews with known retailers after that date and didn't get asked for any proof.

Almost everything was simpler years ago. I was a legal secretary and most interviews I went for just involved a chat. I was told a couple of times that they felt it would be an insult to test my typing as I had already done the job for a few years!

Now you have to do tests, role play etc even for jobs like shelf filling. I turned down an interview for shelf filling at Asda when I found out it was a whole day interview with role playing, group tests etc. I thought it was ridiculous and told them so.