Refused me job ..aibu to feel like giving up?

[reddeadalive]

I'm 33 and my job history is mainly customer service.
In the last 11 years my mum had cancer and has passed away in September.
I kept taking breaks in my employment to look after her.
My last job was 2016
I applied for a call centre and got offered the job.
Told them my previous history but couldn't remember exact dates.
They did a Experian employment check and refused the offer.
Saying there were too many gaps in my employment.
I feel really really low.
In a ideal world my mum wouldn't have been ill and I wouldn't have had to keep leaving jobs.
Will I ever get a job again ?

@LaughingStock2021

It depresses me how fucking difficult it is to get a fairly basic job. Jumping to conclusions I'm guessing this call centre pays about £12 an hour which is not a real living wage in the UK today, yet the hoops you have to jump through to be deemed a worthy employee.

It's grim.

All you have to do is be honest and make sure your CV matches your employers records. It's not a difficult thing to do.

Employers of any kind want to make sure their employees are honest and haven't lied about their work history - that's a pretty basic pre-requisite of any job, I think. Lots of people who have been sacked or done something dodgy will fudge the dates in the hopes that they don't get caught.

I don't see why that's grim or counts as jumping through hoops? A basic CV should be honest and should contain the correct dates. If you can't remember, just ring your previous employer and ask.

It just feels like a massive carry on for a minimum wage job just selling broadband

If it makes you feel any better, the various checks are often even more thorough for highly paid positions

Luckily it's really not complicated; just tell the truth, answer any additional questions honestly and you should be fine

@DressingGownofDoom

Oh crikey! I didn't even know employment checks existed! Yes you will. There will be an understanding employer out there, I actually think it's really very callous of the call centre to do that and they're not the kind of employer you want to work for anyway OP

^^ this!!

If you’re serious about getting a job, get yourself organised and write down all jobs, dates started and finished and then an explanation for every gap (maybe it’s the same, in which case once to cover all occasions is enough).

Rehearse going through this at home. The more confident you are about your personal circumstances and reasons behind job gaps, the easier it will be to convince potential employers you are genuine and honest - both qualities they’ll be looking for.

There is a job out there for you. Got get it!!

I had to allow Experian access to 12 months of bank transactions for a tenancy agreement.. now that felt intrusive!!

A fucking disgrace. Who can live on an hourly wage of £8.72 without top up benefits?
Ermm. Many people...

@LaughingStock2021

£8.72? So min wage?

A fucking disgrace. Who can live on an hourly wage of £8.72 without top up benefits?

These companies anger me so much, they are the real benefit scroungers paying shite wages while taking advantage of people making them jump through a million hoops for a pittance.

Why is being honest about your employment history considered "jumping through a million hoops"?

If you were an employer, would you not want to make sure your employees were being honest about where they'd worked and when?

@reddeadalive

What if I never get a job again? I just want to get my life back again and I know I can do customer services based jobs. I'm just feeling really down now

You got a job offer, so the people offering you the job obviously thought you could do it too.

Fixing your CV should be a relatively easy thing to do, so you can be ready for the next time. Come on red, you can do this.

You just have to know where you’ve worked before, tell the truth about your employment history and not have a criminal record. Seems reasonable.

Not reasonable at all for the wage which is £8.72. What happened to a fair day's work for a fair day's pay?

The reason it's depressing is because the company are taking the high moral ground here, demanding that they can protect themselves with their right to do checks - while at the same time refusing to pay a living wage.

It's dishonest and disingenuous. They know perfectly well that their wages are shit. They're happy enough to exploit people while they take advantage of the employment laws in their favour.

But god forbid they accidentally hire a flaky or dishonest person into their precious business and make the mistake of paying a flake £8.72 an hour, eh? That'd never do. And then people like the OP who have been through a difficult time get lumped in with unreliable employees.

[quote PlanDeRaccordement]@PinkTonic
Thank you. But still I am concerned that Experian may not always be accurate. It seems a bit off that any discrepancy between candidates CV or application automatically means Experian is 100% correct and candidate either lied or is incompetent and writing a CV.

There should be some process in place where you apply for job, the employer gets report from Experian and if that report means possible withdrawal of a job offer then the employer must first give you a copy of the Experian report and an opportunity to explain or correct anything showing on there that is causing them to consider withdrawing the job offer. It should be a legal requirement to be able to see the data on which the employer is basing their decision to refuse you the job they’d already offered you.[/quote]
Honestly I’d absolutely expect to be contacted for clarification if there was a discrepancy or concern. We don’t know a great deal about this specific situation, and how closely the CV aligned with verifiable employment records.

@LaughingStock2021

You just have to know where you’ve worked before, tell the truth about your employment history and not have a criminal record. Seems reasonable.

Not reasonable at all for the wage which is £8.72. What happened to a fair day's work for a fair day's pay?

The reason it's depressing is because the company are taking the high moral ground here, demanding that they can protect themselves with their right to do checks - while at the same time refusing to pay a living wage.

It's dishonest and disingenuous. They know perfectly well that their wages are shit. They're happy enough to exploit people while they take advantage of the employment laws in their favour.

But god forbid they accidentally hire a flaky or dishonest person into their precious business and make the mistake of paying a flake £8.72 an hour, eh? That'd never do. And then people like the OP who have been through a difficult time get lumped in with unreliable employees.

If you think minimum wage is too low, that's fine, but it's got nothing to do with the situation at hand.

I don't really understand your argument - you think that because they don't pay enough (and MILLIONS of people, including key workers, earn the minimum wage), they're not entitled to do employment checks on people?

@SchrodingersImmigrant

A fucking disgrace. Who can live on an hourly wage of £8.72 without top up benefits? Ermm. Many people...

How?

How can you live as a single adult person on this wage without being in poverty, unless you also get some top up benefits?

How can you ever plan a family?

I'd like you to share a realistic budget. Except you can't, because it's not possible.

I was told by a friend who worked for agency that if the gaps and times don’t match then the first thing they check is if you were in prison at the time

They are also very interested on how you supported yourself during the gaps. The fact you were on careers allowance should cover both these areas

Millions of adults with no children earn minimum wage and aren't eligible for any help from the government.

@PinkTonic verifiable records ? But surely all they had to do to verify is contact the companies I've worked for?
I still understand what special info they can see about me.

They could probably afford to pay their employees a fair wage if they stopped outsourcing basic checks to previous employers to third party companies like Experian who are raking it in.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm living in a parallel universe, I really do.

[quote reddeadalive]@PinkTonic verifiable records ? But surely all they had to do to verify is contact the companies I've worked for?
I still understand what special info they can see about me.[/quote]
They will have checked.

But if the dates you gave don't match the records your employer have for you, they'll wonder why you gave them false information.

Basically, they'll think you're covering up for something dodgy by giving the wrong dates.

If you think minimum wage is too low, that's fine, but it's got nothing to do with the situation at hand.

Conversations can evolve and context is important, the context here is that a large business take for granted that they can pay shite wages while availing of every business protection for themselves. It is important that we are aware just how fucked over we are.

I don't really understand your argument - you think that because they don't pay enough (and MILLIONS of people, including key workers, earn the minimum wage), they're not entitled to do employment checks on people?

No - as I said above, it's the imbalance in the situation that angers me. Happy to avail of every advantage and protective measure for themselves while shafting the people that work for them and expecting nobody to question it.

Performing checks on people you want to employ is a reasonable request, in and of itself.

@vanillandhoney

Millions of adults with no children earn minimum wage and aren't eligible for any help from the government.

Sure - and many live in poverty. It's pretty shit.

Sorry for your loss @reddeadalive

What I would do is show the breaks and explain that you were caring for your late mother who has since passed. An understanding employer will see this and not hold this against you.

god forbid they accidentally hire a flaky or dishonest person into their precious business and make the mistake of paying a flake £8.72 an hour, eh?

I get where you're coming from, but at least they were upfront about what the pay is and were quite prepared to employ OP until the discrepancies appeared
That's what seems to have done it, and is why most recommend simply getting the CV in order and trying again

However "unfair" the pay, I doubt anything will ever change around employers avoiding those who've been less than frank with them

It is shit - I'm not for one minute saying otherwise.

But the problem OP is having is nothing to do with minimum wage, so I don't think de-railing her thread is particularly helpful.

She needs advice/help with her CV and employment history, not people ranting about how shit the minimum wage is.

@reddeadalive That sounds really rubbish, I am sorry - this is the danger when companies use electronic means to verify things. Experian is also not always correct - it had be hooked up to a wrong debt at one stage and it was a nightmare.

I used to work in a role where I sometimes had to verify dates and status of employments - if there was a mismatch I always called the person first to explain so they had a chance to rectify it with their future employer. My line manager however just use to write to their future employer and state "dishonest information provide".

[quote reddeadalive]@PinkTonic verifiable records ? But surely all they had to do to verify is contact the companies I've worked for?
I still understand what special info they can see about me.[/quote]
They can’t see any special info about you.

You put prior employers and dates on your CV. Those are checked with the employers. If there are discrepancies that raises a red flag with the new employer because they think you’ve lied to hide something dodgy. We on here don’t know how much of a difference there was between your CV and the information that will have been provided by previous employers. You said you weren’t sure of dates. That could mean you can’t remember the day of the month, or you can’t remember the month of the year.

I'm confused by this too... isn't Experian a credit rating company.... does this check affect your Credit Score ?

@vanillandhoney I don't actually consider it a derail. SItuations like the OP's are part of an important wider conversation around the frankly worrying and ever-growing imbalance of power between employers and employees.