Husband failed interview for own job, panicking!

[UpsetAtInterview]

Name changed for this one. My husband has been on fixed term contracts for 4 years and interviews came up for permanent positions. He placed high in last years interviews and just missed out on a job, but the wait list ran out so there was a new round in interviews. He was in a pissy mood leading up to it, annoyed at having to re-interview again. He just found out he failed the interview. We're now facing a cliff edge financially as we can't get by on just my wage and his contract finishes in 6 weeks.

I'm so angry at him. I was the breadwinner until our first child turned two. Then he got this job and it was great, he doubled his salary just as the cost of living increase hit so we were okay. I worked so hard for years, I even did interviews heavily pregnant to get us in a good position financially and he's just thrown it all away because he couldn't get out of his own way and actually apply himself for a few days. He didn't take the prep seriously and was blindsided in the interview.

He's devastated, doesn't want to go back to work for last few weeks of his contract, doesn't want to complete his remaining projects. I am trying to comfort him and can see he's emotionally fragile but I just want to scream at him 'Why did you let us down? Why didn't you do the work to make sure your family is looked after?'. I wouldn't mind if he tried his best and it didn't work out, but he didn't. Am I unreasonable to be so angry? Should I tell him? Should I just try and help him get a new job first?

@Mrsttcno1 Are you an employment lawyer specialising in public sector employment? If not then you dont know what you are talking about. A lawyer has commented that he may have a case for unfair dismissal, although if the other person who is being given his job also has 4 years on contracts that may be more difficult to prove.

He needs specialist legal advice and if not in a union should be checking if he has legal cover on any insurance, commonly offered on house insurance policies. But I'd start with ACAS as their advice is free and likely to be better quality than the free legal advice that comes with insurance policies.

I think it would be useful for your husband and you to read the link below - Hes considered in law to be a permenant employee after four years on fixed term continuous employment

https://www.cipd.org/globalassets/media/knowledge/knowledge-hub/guides/fixed-term-contracts-guide-web_tcm18-70389.pdf

The law is that, if you are continuously employed on fixed term contracts for 4 years, you automatically become a permanent employee unless there are objective grounds for justifying your continued employment on fixed term contracts.

After two years you can sue for unfair dismissal if your contract is not renewed and the employer does not have a fair reason for dismissing you.

Thank you for replying. (I’m retired now but just interested.)

I would be angry with an employer who uses an interview process instead of simply observing their staff. They know their employees and the work they can do. An interview is for people you don’t know or staff that will be transitioning to very different roles.

I feel sorry for both the OP and her DH here. He must be feeling angry, embarrassed, guilty, sick to the stomach. Maybe he was a bit complacent having done it before. Maybe he's pissed off with having to keep jumping through the hoops.

Interviews are such a shitty way of recruiting but nobody has yet come up with a better one. You can do a really good interview, but if someone else does a really, really good interview then you will miss out. If your manager doesn't like you, even if you are very good at your job, then she will find a way of edging you out.

I think when someone is already in a role there should be some credit for performance to date but that's just cast aside.

I feel for you OP as you're faced with financial worry now and you're rightfully angry and frustrated as you don't feel he put in the effort he should have. I'd want to knock his block off too.

But now is not the time. You need to support and coach him in finding another job. Work as a team. You're both in this together, and he must be feeling pretty low right now.

I can understand that he can't face finishing out the contract but he must. It's never a good idea to piss someone off who you might run into again later on!

He can get whatever legal advice he wants to get, they will tell him that if the employer has objective justification he does not get any automatic rights. There are two obvious points even from the bare bones info we have here which can satisfy that objective justification- project work & maternity leave cover. Both perfectly acceptable and legal reasons to use fixed term contracts.

@Mrsttcno1 is correct. An employer can avoid an employee on fixed term contracts becoming permanent if they can show that there is an objective justification for using fixed term contracts. In this case, it appears that there are two potential sources of justification - that OP's husband was providing maternity cover and he was employed for specific projects.

She has not commented on the unfair dismissal aspect, which is separate. Regardless of who has been given the job, the employer needs to show that there is a fair reason for dismissing OP's husband. As he has been with them for more than 2 years, he can claim for unfair dismissal if they don't have a fair reason.

i would stop blaming him for not prepping properly for the interview. After 4 years of working there they would know whether he was being offered the perm job before the interview even started

AFAIK the free legal advice provided by insurance policies will be an employment law specialist. I'm pretty sure it was when DH took a successful constructive dismissal case years back.

If the OP's DH is in a union (likely in the civil service), they will also provide access to legal advice.

ACAS can be a bit basic but probably ok for something like this.

Also, is there any possibility of redeployment? I suppose that will depend on whether he can establish permanency? (which we don't know because we don't know if the employer can provide justification).

If he’s done the job for years and without issue on a contract basis then he had every right to think that an interview to go perm was just a formality. He shouldn’t have to prepare for it. It’s a piss take that they’re happy to employ him on a contract basis, presumably competently, without the protections and benefits of a permanent employee, only to be told he doesn’t meet the job requirements. YABU for being unsympathetic.

I've been in your husband's position re interviewing for permanent jobs in the CS. I failed the first time around despite having done the job on secondment for 4 years. I was devastated.

When another perm job came around I pulled out ALL the stops to make my application and interview as good as it could be - worked on my examples many times over, got senior leaders to review my examples, had dummy interviews, received feedback on the dummy interviews. In the event I just made it over the line and am now perm.

This is what your husband needed to do, so I don't blame you for being angry.

However, it's a shit system so my sympathies are with him too!

@prh47bridge you say @Mrsttcno1 is right - but the maternity leave cover was the initial contract, not subsequent contracts and the "project work" needs to be demonstrated when it appears that the work is continuing.

@mainecooncatonahottinroof my experience of advice from my legal insurer is that the initial call seems to be answered by law students. Sensible ones will seek advice from a specialist and call you back/ refer it on. I've not needed to go to court but the initial advice has sometimes been pretty rubbish.

It means you’re not good enough at the skills required for the job on offer though (or they have assessed that to be the case). If you’re applying for a job on the restoration era you will be judged on your knowledge and skills in that area.

It’s not that you’re just as good as everyone else but there just aren’t enough jobs (as you originally said). You were judged to be not good enough for the job on offer or at least not as good as the other candidates.

You probably have more experience, as I'd only that one with my DH and my recollection is that someone took details and then someone with expertise called him back but it's probably 20 years ago/

OP said, "He has been on an extended fixed term contract for 4 years in the same team covering a number of maternity leaves. It was initially a 12 month maternity leave fixed term but he's been kept on to cover other gaps in the team." The first sentence reads to me like it was all, or almost all, maternity cover.

Yes, the employer needs to show that there was an objective justification for keeping him on fixed term contracts, but there is a decent chance they would be able to do so given the information posted by OP.

Yeah, the fact that he didn't actually take the interview seriously and just assumed he'd be handed the job and now is having a tantrum because he didn't get to skip the process that other people engaged properly in, that says he's behaving like a brat and you are right to be angry. I also wonder how much of that entitled attitude he's been throwing around and work and maybe they are glad to be shot of him.

It sounds like a tough process, but very transparent and designed to be very "fair". The kind of really rigid recruitment processes that the civil service use are a skill that you have to learn. If he spent 4 years working there and instead of practicing the right technique for the interviews just went in with the attitude that he's better than the process, then he's an idiot and he didn't deserve to get the job.

You don't fail an interview like you might fail an exam; there are not usually specific right or wrong answers and it's more a matter of whether the people in charge want somebody new or not. And in the case of internal candidates, it's usually also not something that you can revise or prepare for (external ones do need to learn as much as they can about the organization, but internal ones already know about it),

Fixed term contracts are often used by organizations to provide a 'revolving door' whereby a new person is appointed every few years, for just a short term; and are then replaced by someone newer, not needing salary increments, and less likely to become more difficult to replace later on. Up to 2 years, and they don't even need a reason to let you go (though this is now changing). By 4 years, it's necessary to specify it as a FTC and often to re-interview. And while sometimes an interview is rigged in favour of someone's pet internal candidate, I think nowadays they are more often biased in favour of getting someone new- who can then in turn be let go in a few years' time..

Obviously, I don't know what happened here; but I think that you are U to blame him and to assume that he must have done something wrong or not prepared sufficiently. And I think you were both U not to foresee that this might happen and think of alternative plans if this didn't work out. - though, as they say, hindsight is 20-20. I do hope he can find an alternative job soon.

This, great advice here.

The civil service is very prescriptive in their recruitment - DC3 has just been through the application process, and it's all set out under various themes, and they're heavily reliant on STAR. They seem to provide a fair bit of information to candidates on what it is they're looking for. It's either pass if you get above a certain score, fail if you don't. Then they offer the posts in order of highest score down, and if you don't get a post, you go on a waitlist for a year.

Does he have a skillset that would lend itself to independent contracting, even as a stopgap?

Given that you believe your DH is unlikely to achieve his current salary in another job, it would make more sense for you to look at how you can increase your earning potential and take on the role of 'breadwinner'. Yes, he needs to find another job but you have a joint responsibility to provide for your family.

It's really crap having to interview for your own job, twice. I feel for him.

As others have said, he has the right to be made permanent if he has been there for four years on a fixed term contract. It has to be four years though, not a day less. It's the law so him being in the civil service or whatever 'arm' of it you are speaking about - it's the same. I'm a union rep in the public sector and I have dealt with this many times.

Which is probably why he ‘failed’ his interview

https://www.gov.uk/fixed-term-contracts/renewing-or-ending-a-fixedterm-contract