Can they not give you the job if they have made a formal offer?

[kaballie]

In short. Husband offered a job last October. The have faffed around saying they havent got references etc and are now calling him in as if they are pissed off with him as they still don't hae references and the woman in charge is saying she hasn't recieved any of his emails even though she sent it from the address he has stored for her in his email account! Can they go back on a formal job offer before a contract has been signed??
Cheers
x

Yes absolutely. Most offers are conditional on receipt of satisfactory references anyway.

If the offer was made in October and they still don't have them it sounds fairly reasonable of them to want to call it a day really.

Thanks.That's made me feel alot better.

you asked a question, did you not want honest answers?

Sorry if I sounded pissed off. He's been in and out of hospital with cancer and has not had the time to chase all of this up. I'm exhausted as a result and have to go back to work in 4 weeks to keep us afloat. I guess I really just wanted some empathy, not a blunt answer . But you couldn't have known that from my original post. So I'm sorry, please don't be mean to me. It could well be the past straw for me at the moment!

Or even the last straw.

kaballie, sorry to hear about your dh. In the circs, sounds like a good idea that he goes in to see what's going on. Do they know about his illness? What was the delay with the refs do you know?

Could you get onto his referees and explain the problem? This often does the trick. Obviously they'll need to send the reference directly to his future employer. It has taken a while though, which sector/industry is it?

God, it's all so confusing I can't even begin to go into it! We're waiting for major test results this week which makes all of this even more horrible. The things which would normally be little things are made so much bigger. To make it worse the woman has emaile to say she will be away til the end of the month. I think he's going to go in and see her boss and explain it all tomorrow. I'm on the red wine now so should all feel a bit better in a bit. Thanks for being nice. Sometimes Mumsnet is great.
x

Have one for St Patrick and try not to worry. Best of luck to you both!

Sorry you're having a rough time kaballie. I don't think anyone was mean though.

It sounded as though you thought the employer was being unreasonable and just wanted to know whether they were technically doing anything illegal, and I felt it was important to say that in my professional opinion waiting 5 months without withdrawing an offer is actually more than reasonable, that's a very long time.

I do think your DH's illness is relevant to the question actually, do his potential employers know about it? Has he chased his references, are they away or is there any reason they haven't responded that you know about?

I think you need to write them a letter and explain what is going on in. They may then write back and say their position - they may need to get someone doing the job asap

its horrid for you, really horrid to be in this situation