If your head office is in the arse end of nowhere that’s not my problem

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I’m based in London, do a highly specialised job. I’ve been contacted by a recruiter about a new job, and it seems absolutely amazing. There aren’t many people working in this sector yet and I have been at it for 15 years.

The company want someone in the office 2 days a week, but their office is in the arse end of nowhere in Norfolk.

Now I’m happy to go into the office as a when needed. But if you are going to go for presenteeism and require people to be in regardless, AND want to start recruiting for specialised technical roles, having a head office in a small town 30 miles from Norwich and 100 miles from London is a bit fucking stupid.

The recruiter has phoned me twice asking me to reconsider the offer. But they won’t budge on the 2 days a week, and I am not up for uprooting the family.

It’s a shame as I really like the team and the job. But they just seem unrealistic. They can’t find anyone else apparently….but with that office location I am not surprised.

But then they need to stop calling the OP and keep searching for someone who feels the same as they do about that.

I agree, I guess maybe they think they can change her mind without changing theirs. But if they want OP that badly but won’t change their mind about office working then there must be a reason for it. Maybe they’re big Farage fans.

Biggest problem is the lack of realism from recruiters who blindly push on with candidates for roles when they know it isn’t going to work. I get approached reasonably frequently by recruiters and it’s always the same conversations around money and location/onsite days - I know from what the recruiter is saying it’s not feasible but I’m always encouraged to “stay in the process” because there is “wriggle room for the right candidate”. All bollocks of course, the recruiter just needs to keep people in the running so they can be seen to be doing their job.

You just have different expectations.

The founders clearly prefer the clean air, lower costs and better housing of a rural town. You prefer London.

I had the reverse, tech space, recruited during covid, wholly remote, but then the CEO moves to Notting hill and decides we all have to go in to Blackfriars 4 days a week. . Offers us relocation. Err, no thanks. No desire to live in a shoe box in a crime ridden dump. I like my green space and bird song. Bye.

Just Different expectations. 🤗

I'd just keep repeating that it's not possible for you to be in their office that often, but you're open to 'fill in the blank with whatever would work for you'.

They're just lazy and thinking of their commission, no thought for the candidate.

Yes but the OP's issue is that the recruiter clearly feels that if she pesters the OP enough, she might give in! There obviously aren't loads of people throwing their hat in the ring for this particular role. The company will just have to accept someone who's probably not that good, but who can do the in-office days they want, if that's their main, overarching criteria for the position.

More likely OP hasn't been firm and direct with working in the office being absolutely non negotiable. She's been pretty clear on calling the job absolutely amazing and liking the team etc. Clearly the recruiters have picked up on this and she's left the impression she can be persuaded.

I suspect if she was firm about not going in 2 days and week and 'only call me back if you agree with my proposal' then she wouldn't have to worry anymore about the phone ringing.

I was going to say this. Could you negotiate the hotel stay as part of the package?

if you want the job that is.

a small town 30 miles from Norwich and 100 miles from London

That’s where she’s described this job as being. And they are trying to recruit for a highly specialised tech role, and requiring that said person attend the office twice a week. Everything in my original comment stands, and the fact that employers exist in the area is wholly irrelevant to that.

I bet it is not Thetford, because that's really not that hard to get to from London. I think it's North Norfolk.

I find your description of anywhere that is not London as ‘the arse end of nowhere’ quite offensive.

Yabu expecting the world to revolve around you.

I don’t think the presence of jobs is the only reason people would choose to live in London (or New York, or Lagos, or similar) as opposed to a small town. One of the reasons, certainly, but there are many others. As such, the talent pool is never going to be the same.

As this is a highly specialised tech role with a limited number of people who can fill it, I don’t think it’s at all guaranteed that one of those people would be willing to move to a small town in Norfolk.

Here's the problem: anything outside of London is considered to be the "arse end of nowhere". It's an attitude problem. As they say, you can choose your attitude...

She really isn't.
She stated that she lives in London.
She stated that the office for the new job is in the arse end of nowhere - 30 miles away from Norwich.

Describing some of the remote towns 30 miles from Norwich are very likely described as the AEON by the residents themselves (tongue in cheek).

See my post just below your one.

People are twisting what OP said.

I thought all these specialists were jumping on homeworking to take the opportunity to move out of London to the arse end of nowhere 😂

You don't want the job, that's fine. If you really wanted the job you would find a way to make it work, for example stay overnight in a Travel Lodge one night a week. But I don't understand why you're posting here about it? What are you hoping to get out of this?

Employers who don’t locate their office near good public transport (which doesn’t have to be London)
Quite right. Good public transport does not have to be in London. But it is, because of decades worth of London-centric investment in public transport.

She's not describing anywhere that's not London as the arse end of nowhere, but a small town 30 miles from Norfolk. Most would agree that's the arse end of nowhere. And I say that as someone who grew up in the depths of rural Devon.

This isn't for the BTO in Thetford by any chance? Nature/animal charities are renowned for middle of nowhere head offices - though they usually pay poverty wages for highly skilled jobs. They do rely on young staff without families (or their partner also gets a job there!) who can easily move about and really care for the cause.

Looking at you RSPB, Plantlife, Butterfly Conservation, Cats Protection, Woodland Trust - and to a lesser degree, WWF and National Trust (Swindon & Woking, at least they're a short walk from a mainline train station).

That's not true either. Most wouldn't describe, say, Bristol, Birmingham or Manchester as the arse end of nowhere. They would describe a town in the depths of rural Norfolk as that, though.

Small town life is better than London life in almost every respect, in my opinion!

Well that's up to them really isn't it - they are located in a place that works for them, outside of London which would make sense for a lot of reasons. They want you to work there so it's up to them if it's worth it if you are never going to be in the office. If it's not, then this isn't a good fit. If they are flexible about it they would have said by now.