To think this is unfair and that I wasn’t given a fair chance at my new job.

[Sunnysideup95]

Recently I started a new job at a recruitment agency, for what would have been my first proper job. I was interviewed for an office administration position. A few days later I received a call from them and they said the position has gone to somebody else but there is another department within the same agency who need an administrator and they could take me on.

On my first day I arrived and soon found out it wasn’t an office admin job but was to call up nursing staff and see if they were available to take a job in care home that the agency had on their lists. A lot of the times I was ringing up and they would say they are not available to work that day. I felt pressure as I was just given a list of names and contact numbers and had to ring anybody on the list. I had no training and nobody helped or really told me what I needed to be doing

A few days later I was called in to the office by office manager who said he had been listening to my calls and thinks I’m not right for the job. But I was never told what to say to the nursing staff on their lists and was just trying my best

Aibu to think this isn’t fair

Not only was what happened to you unfair but if you get let go as a result it’s illegal and you would have a strong case for unfair dismissal. Speak to citizens advice.

Exactly, so crappy company with crappy management, not OP's fault or lack of ability.

Sounds like you dodged a bullet. They wouldn't of been good employers & you likely wouldn't of enjoyed it. I suspect what they wanted from you was to harrass, bully, manipulate and intimidate nurses into working a shift that day and because that's not what you done & not how your personality is, they have let you go. They are looking to employ a bully. You are better off away from it.

I had similar happen to me only It was on my first day, i had 10 years of experience and i was told 'change your telephone voice or you won't have a job by the end of the day'. I was then made to practice answering the phone with a smile on my face and pretend I was talking to customers, over & over again - infront of the full office. It was by far the worst job & people I have ever worked for. It was hellish. There was so much bullying. I didn't last long.

Honestly, they have done you a favour. Hope you find something else soon. Wishing you luck 🤞

You're not right for the cold calling job

Few people are good at cold calling ime, so dont feel bad about that

Make sure you see a job spec before you accept a job in future

Put those 3 days behind you and thank your lucky stars that you don't have to do it anymore

Op, next time, make sure you have a formalised job description before you sign a written contract.

don’t go to any job without either.

Funny enough, my son and his girlfriend were talking about this the other day. They and their friends are just out of uni so looking for jobs. The said recruitment companies can’t get people because no one wants to do cold calls. So they advertise a different job then ‘just move you over.’

Don’t worry there are plenty of jobs out there.

On what grounds exactly?

Sorry this has happened to you, it's not a good start to work life but it's not always like this. It doesn't sound entirely fair but they offered you the job and you accepted. If you weren't sure what to say on the calls you could have asked but that takes experience and confidence. I'd put it down to experience and next time you get offered a job ask more questions sooner. Good luck with your job hunt, I'm sure you'll find something better.

Gosh that was my first job back in the 90s!

This housing agency. My first day and I was handed a list of people who were due to move in the following week, but their units weren't ready. I was 21, new to the agency, had no idea why their units weren't ready, when they would be ready whether they'd be refunded for deposits. I was left alone in a room and my boss left the office.

My boss returned the following day and fielded some flow-up calls, and got to be the good guy: "I'm so sorry you didn't get the full information yesterday...of course you'll be refunded..."

But it was a really good lesson on how people preserve their reputations by getting others to do the dirty work.

That’s all well and good but you k own that from experience of working.
mots not innate knowledge that the OP is somehow lacking.

your post comes across as sneery, everyone has to start somewhere and anyone who hires someone into a role and doesn’t provide any training or just expects them to know exactly what’s needed is a shit boss / employer.

Nobody is right for a cold calling job, because 100% of cold calls are unwelcome and f*cking irritating, imvho.

I wouldn't worry about it - sounds like the job you wanted was not available and you were offered to try another and both you and the employer agree you aren't for the job.

If it's a cold calling type job even without training they may have been able to see that the job wasn't suited for you due to telephone manner / confidence so no need to waste your time and their time taking it further. There are a lot of jobs that don't require cold calling and you will build skills as you work so I'd just focus on looking for something that you do want to do.

Cold calling is a miserable job. I worked for one day trying to sell carbon paper ( yes, it was a long time ago, please feel free to google carbon paper if you are under 40) , I was given a page ripped out of a trade phone book and told to start dialling ( feel free to google this reference). It was unfortunate that my page covered company names beginning with Sch….. and it was a Jewish holiday, but even without that hurdle it was clear by lunchtime that it wasn’t the job for me. I lasted until 4.00 pm.

Its just not the right job for you on this occasion . Go back to the agency and say that it's not the kind of role that you are looking for and that you didn't realise that cold calling would be involved.
Having been a manager in the care industry I know how this kind of thing works. Most have a list of staff that they can use to cover sickness and holidays etc. What they should have got you to ask is " can you please tell me your availability for the next 2 weeks. Most work on a 2 week rota and can plan for this.
It certainly wasn't fair of them to just throw you into it without any training and they need to give more feedback. Good luck 😀

I once had a job cold calling to try and set up funeral plans for people. Worse job I’ve ever had! I had to promote each funeral plan and tell people which kind of coffins we had available and all sorts and had to ask if they wanted cremation or burial for themselves. I understand it’s an important thing to have in place for many people but not many of them wanted a phone call out of the blue about it.

I remember the tally on the wall with all our names, documenting how many we had managed to set up each day and regular one to ones with the manager who would play our phone call recordings back to us and tell us what we could have said or done differently. He would publicly shout our name out and tell us to keep up if we didn’t have a score on the board by mid day!

some people are great at this type of thing but it definitely was not for me

Find a better job IMO. I've done a fair bit of cold calling in my youth and funnily enough I was also misled and told it was 'managing engineers calendars' when it was actually calling up and pestering them to book a demo trial.

A lot of companies want you to be pushy but that just pisses people off and makes the job shit. Even as somebody who's been on the other end I still get annoyed by pushy callers.

Had a call from one the other day about
a temporary concrete job. I'd just left my employer that week due to repeated late/wrong payment and already had loads of permanent options but at £1200 a week and close to home I thought it could be a good shout and give me time to consider my options.

So I filled in all the paperwork and explained I was only interested in this opportunity and not general agency work. Heard nothing for a week so accepted a perm position.

Woman then texts me yesterday out the blue and says 'can you work tomorrow?' I explained I'd now accepted a perm job. She then asked if I could work in the meantime and I said I was having a few days off as I've not had a single day off since last Oct aside from xmas.

She was trying her best and I just firmly said no thanks. So today, first weekday in months I've not been up at the crack if dawn, and she tries to call at 7am. I cancel call and roll back over. She immediately calls again and I cancel call again. She then tries again 15 mins later and I pick up phone and say "fuck...off!!!" before putting it down.

No doubt she was just trying to hit her target but she was being a real pushy pain in the arse.

Sounds like a horrible job and I know I would be bad at it so please don’t let it put you off. Not all jobs are like that!

I work in a small niche recruitment firm and our admin support didn't handle the phones until about 6 months in. It sounds like it was an easy task but not for someone who's not used to handling the phones and especially not so early on.

Working in recruitment is a great opportunity to learn those admin skills and generally quite easy jobs to get. But at a guess, is it a large chain firm you went to? They're known for being brutal tbh and I'd avoid at all costs. If you want to have another go, try a smaller more niche agency as you'll get more support.

Had another annoying interaction too when selling my pickup truck. I'd been offered a pretty low price by a dealer - at least a grand less than the going trade rate. They have mechanics too so I knew they'd just spend a day sorting the little niggles and sell it for £2k more.

I declined but then called them back 2.5 weeks later as I was working an hour from home and spending £30 a day on fuel - I figured I'd soon be worse off than just taking the hit and didn't have time to mess about with private sellers as was working evenings for the next month or two.

They then said "oh, but we'll have to knock the price down by a further £500 due to the extra mileage from the last fortnight." I said no you're getting a bargain, don't take the piss. The salesman after trying to bullshit me unsuccessfully then gets shirty and says "look, I can't be arsed to mess around here". I said well you know the asking price and he eventually agreed, albeit somewhat huffily, but on the condition they collect next day.

So I had to cancel my plans and lose the PT session I'd paid for, and when they turned up the driver tried to pay me £500 less and said that was the final price and couldn't negotiate! I'd already expressly warned them that I wouldn't be negotiating further upon collection as they'd priced it with full knowledge of all the defects.

Guy gets all pissy when I refused to lower the price and started moaning that they'd driven the truck over/paid for fuel etc. Eventually drives off without collecting.

The original salesman then calls me back two days later and promises to give me the originally agreed price. I'd actually by a stroke of luck sold it for £800 more to one of the builders at work by that stage - it was still a good deal at that price. Salesman sounded real pissed off and I was loving every moment tbh. Properly fucked himself over by trying to mug me off lol.

This is a very mean reply the lady wasnt trained or given a chance

It's one step up from cold calling - AVOID ! AVOID !

Are you always this nasty?

YABU - it really doesn't sound like there was much training needed. You were given a list of names and numbers and your job was to try to get these people to take the shifts (and earn the company revenue). It's a recruitment agency, surely it's not hard to understand how they make money. Your job was to overcome objections and sign them up.
Persuasive skills can he improved l guess, through experience/trial and error and possible seeing a skilled person in action however generally speaking you've either got it or you haven't. They clearly don't see enough potential to invest any further in you.
Dont feel bad. Not everyone can sell, just like everyone can't manage, organise, de-esculate, present, reassure, create etc. We all have a different skills set. It might be worth seriously considering what your inherent skills/traits are as much as your vocational experience/skills. It's a shame you didn't approach them once you realised you weren't delivering....we're you actually aware you weren't?

If there's not much training needed then why do good companies(big and small) offer it? You know, explaining the system, giving scripts,offering the opportunity to listen some calls etc?

This is such bullshit, covering employer incompetence by making it sound that the employee is somehow lacking.

Disagree and I've done cold calling, face to face business development, and led large bids for a top 3 fm provider. Some people have the gift of the gab but others benefit massively from a script.

My first boss explained to me how you start with open neutral questions and then funnel down. Also what they used to call 'the hamburger approach' - it's all about the meat but it's not appetising without the bun either side.

You need to make it difficult for the prospect to just fob you off with a simple "no". So you don't say "have you got any projects lined up?" Instead you ask "what projects have you got lined up?" The latter encourages them to stop and actually think.

Basic stuff but that's just scratching the surface.