Why are UK jobs so hard to apply to

[Arianasande]

I'm from the UK originally, but I've lived in other European countries for many years.

I work in education, but I'm not a teacher. I work in student services.

I've worked in many international schools and boarding schools.

I recently decided to come back to the UK. I applied for and I was offered a job in student services in the UK.

But omg the amount of checks! They did a DBS check on me. That came back fine.

Then they did a load of other checks on me. Which were their own company checks. These seemed to go on forever.

Then there were so many checks to make sure I had the right to work in the UK. I supplied my UK birth certificate at the start of the process. Which wasn't enough.

I provided two references which came back successfully. Then they asked me for another reference. Then they asked me for a fourth reference. At this stage I said no. And I said "normally two references are sufficient. "
The hiring man then said "well it's just that we like to do very thorough checks".

I was then talking to a teacher here in my international school. Shs is from the UK. And she said the same thing. She said that she was thinking about moving back to the UK, but that the amount of checks and the amount of hassle put her off. She applied for a job, and They also told her that one of her references was not good enough. So she decided to stay in her international school outside of the uk.

Its like they treat you like your are a criminal! I was wondering why it's like this.

It literally says it’s guidance in the document.

it obviously contains legal obligations, but it is clear that these are separately identified in the document.

and it still- whether law of guidance- doesn’t specify 5 years of references

Great news! Congratulations!

I was asked for references from my last FIVE employers for my job in higher education. Not even student facing or interacting with young or vulnerable people. My last five employments cover the last 20 years! The two earliest no longer held employment records going back that far so couldn’t even confirm I had worked there. For those I had to search out my old line managers, who understandably had left the companies, on LinkedIn and ask them for a personal reference. One had retired years before. Thankfully he wasn’t dead!

The university were absolutely insistent that this was their policy on references and they couldn’t deviate from it. Nuts!

It'd be easier not to work in education wouldn't it. I do feel like we get an extra interrogation.