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 ?

Also Big companies wouldn't even have you on their records if 10 years ago surely , I can understand if recently
But if someone is going on experian and checking my financial info I want to have to of given them permission

I probably would have been better off lying and saying I previously worked for a company that had closed

I really wouldn't OP; company records are even easier to find, so that one could be blown out of the water instantly

@donewithitalltodayandxmas

Also Big companies wouldn't even have you on their records if 10 years ago surely , I can understand if recently But if someone is going on experian and checking my financial info I want to have to of given them permission

You'd be surprised - many will have employment records going back decades.

@donewithitalltodayandxmas

How does experian know what jobs I have had or not ? Nothing on any credit report I have had showing my jobs ? Even income and surely you have to give permission for someone to check your file ?

They don’t. They also run a pre employment screening service which has been linked at least twice on this thread.

So when I was 18 I worked at joplings (it was a department store in the north east ) I didn't put this on my cv as it was only a weekend job and it's closed .
Should I have put it on?
It would have bulked my cv out but it was literally over 15 years ago now.

@vanillandhoney Doesn't data protection act stop you holding into info for years now tbough

@PinkTonic what does the pre employment screening entail ?
Contacting previous companies I've worked for ?
So they don't have access to my wages or specific dates online ?
They've just contacted say Barclays and asked if I worked there between 09-12 ?

I'm sorry for asking these questions but till today I didn't have a clue.
It's always been names /phone numbers etc then the company rang them

@reddeadalive sorry you're feeling disheartened by this.

The good thing is they felt you were good for the job. Where you fell down was your CV not matching your references.

Use this as a learning experience and go away and get your dates clear in your head. Usually month and year is all you need but these need to match what you're ex employers know. You can contact them and ask if you can't remember.

@LaughingStock2021 do you know how much it costs to hire someone? Even a min wage job? Cost per hire is a metric every recruiter keeps an eye on. The one thing they don't want to do is put someone through expensive pre employment checks and that to throw anything up, it means going back to the start of the process.

Exactly the smae way me and many of my friends did when we were starting up. Living within our means (so nicer sharehouse rather than 1 bed flat, thinking about shopping etc) and working towards promotions when possible.

Yeah this is fine when starting out, I agree with you and have done plenty of (fun, sociable) house sharing myself. But living in crumbling dilapidated houseshares, often with people you don't know or wouldn't choose to live with, in your forties and fifties is now seen as a norm because so many people cannot afford anything else. That isn't reasonable, and is not a marker of a decent society.

It is a marker of widespread poverty, or financial insecurity.

I loved pretty well on fiver an hour. Room, food, weekend parties in clubs, travel. It's bit different matter in London but claims that adults on minimum wage simply must be in poverty are hysterical and wrong.

I disagree. You cannot live a sustainable adult live on minimum wage. You are describing a student lifestyle or that of a young adult with no real financial responsibilities.

On min wage, you cannot meet all financial needs and every reasonable expense of living in a modern society, eg replacing a washing machine or broken bed fairly quickly, in addition to paying all the normal bills.

Also, nice use of the misogynistic 'hysterical' btw

[quote donewithitalltodayandxmas]@vanillandhoney Doesn't data protection act stop you holding into info for years now tbough[/quote]
They can keep them for "as long as they're useful" but there's no specific limit I can find.

www.hronline.co.uk/blog/how-long-should-employee-records-be-kept/

I suppose it's up to the employer to decide how long "useful" is.

[quote reddeadalive]@PinkTonic what does the pre employment screening entail ?
Contacting previous companies I've worked for ?
So they don't have access to my wages or specific dates online ?
They've just contacted say Barclays and asked if I worked there between 09-12 ?[/quote]
I was a recruiter for years.

Basically include all relevant work experience. For me, I don't include my uni retail jobs on my CV, they were a long time ago abs irrelevant to what I'm applying for now.

If I was to apply for a retail position, I would include them as they are relevant.

When we do pre employment checks, we ask for your permission to contact previous employers. Some will have changed, gone bust and that's ok. Those that are around will usually just confirm dates, position and sometimes if there were any serious disciplinary issues. This is usually in regulated roles though. So for example if you applied for a finance role and you were sack for fraud, they need to know.

Depending on the role there will be criminal record and financial checks, but again these are usual for roles where this is relevant (care work, working with children, working in finance etc)

I probably would have been better off lying and saying I previously worked for a company that had closed.

No, definitely not. You did the right thing OP I am sorry it's gone wrong.

Hi op
So sorry about your mum.
I haven’t read all replies but just want to say you will get another job. Don’t give up.
Contact HMRC and get all your date accurate.
Put down the gaps as carer and yes use the skills you gained as carer on your CV.
Also expand your search to other jobs. You obviously come across well at interview as you wouldn’t have been offered the job. A better job is around the corner for you.

I'm not, I'm trying to help the OP and I just don't think your irrelevant rants are helping the situation

It isn't my fault that you're so blinkered you can't see any relevance.

@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.

Completely agree and was just thinking the same thing. I've been self-employed for the best part of three decades so I'm totally out of touch with the modern workplace and jobs market, and well bloody out of it if even a quarter of what I read on here is true.

[quote reddeadalive]@PinkTonic what does the pre employment screening entail ?
Contacting previous companies I've worked for ?
So they don't have access to my wages or specific dates online ?
They've just contacted say Barclays and asked if I worked there between 09-12 ?[/quote]
No they don’t have access to anything online. What a screening check covers will depend on the role and the type of information you will have access to. The minimum will be right to work checks and employment history, so you will have provided proof of identity and details of previous employers and employment dates which will be checked by contacting those employers. These are standard checks that will be taken up by any potential employer so it’s worth making sure the dates on your CV are accurate.

Completely agree and was just thinking the same thing. I've been self-employed for the best part of three decades so I'm totally out of touch with the modern workplace and jobs market, and well bloody out of it if even a quarter of what I read on here is true.

I’m pretty sure that even three decades ago prospective employers took up references and verified employment dates.

Wll @LaughingStock2021 nothing will obviously change your mind including the fact that many people live in (not dilapidated) sharehouses with people they don't know quite happily for the time beeing and are meeting up "all financial needs and every reasonable expense of living in a modern society".
It's called living within your means and surprisingly all immigrants I know managed it. And no. I wasn't in a poverty. Nor were my mates🙄

It does not matter what the job pays. The fact is anyone you let into a company, be it an intern or CEO, are likely to have some form of access to the company's information and systems. Even the ability just to send emails from the company domain allows the employee to impersonate. Being physically in the building gives access to papers sitting on someone's desk or company letterheads.

Pre-employment checks are vital and even mandatory in certain industries that deal with confidential information like financial services.

OP is going to work in a call centre for tv and broadband. She will have access to customer contact and personal details.

Some posters are complaining about pre-employment checks being an invasion of privacy. Is it not an invasion of privacy for a company to do no employment checks on min wage call centre staff and the staff then go on to sell personal details of customers or worse?

I work in a regulated industry and its standard to have an employment screening and credit check. You are asked to agree to the checks or your offer of employment is automatically removed. They too outsource their checks to a third party company.

I would go back over your CV, contact previous employers if necessary and make sure all the dates tally up. Then add a couple of sentences in about gaps due to caring. This should cover you off in future.

My criminal record is clear,my credit isn't perfect but it's in the 700s
I'm honest ,trustworthy

[quote reddeadalive]@PinkTonic what does the pre employment screening entail ?
Contacting previous companies I've worked for ?
So they don't have access to my wages or specific dates online ?
They've just contacted say Barclays and asked if I worked there between 09-12 ?[/quote]
They can contact all your previous employers and ask for specific dates - so they'll ask for months and days, not just the year. From an employers viewpoint, there's a big difference between leaving in January 2009 and December 2009.

If you've said you left Barclays in January 09 and you actually left 9-10 months later, that's going to raise questions for them as to why you lied.

I’m pretty sure that even three decades ago prospective employers took up references and verified employment dates.

Not for a minimum wage call centre job, no, no way, that would have been a casual job that people would have done in between other jobs, while travelling, fitted around acting auditions etc. LaughingStock is spot on with all her observations. I agree totally and it makes me very angry too but I somehow haven't got the energy to get into rant mode about it. It's just very depressing, and doubly depressing that so many people don't seem to be appalled by the exploitativeness of modern employment practices but just accept it as normal. Reflect for a moment on the difference between 'personnel' and 'human resources' as ideological concepts and perhaps that will adequately express my disgust for it all.

I am sorry for the loss of your mother, OP, and that this employer is adding insult to injury. Good luck in your job search. I hope something much better than the job you missed out on is in your near future.

@reddeadalive

My criminal record is clear,my credit isn't perfect but it's in the 700s I'm honest ,trustworthy

Which is great. This boils down to a mistake with your dates and it's a lesson to learn.

Get things in order and apply to other roles. You will get a job.