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Would you pay £112 train fare for a job interview

36 replies

Innat · 12/05/2008 15:30

They won't reimburse me! the policy is only to reimburse for a 2nd interview.

the job will be based at home. but interview is at HQ 5 hours away from where i live. it's on friday.

job looks really interesting but don't know how much of a chance i have of getting it...

what would you do?

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Innat · 12/05/2008 16:42

Oh thanks Millie

I will have a look and see if I can do that. Good idea.

Somersetmum - i think that might well be the case after reading the posts here.

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Eve34 · 12/05/2008 17:21

Just a word to the wise. I work for a very small charity who along side other smaller charities are findign this current financial climate very difficult. I would say go for it if you can afford it.

Innat · 12/05/2008 17:36

Thanks Eve.

Millie I managed to find £16 off by "splitting my ticket" so thanks for that advice too

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flowerybeanbag · 12/05/2008 22:39

Joash I am assuming from your comment that you don't have much experience working for charities! There is nothing 'odd' about a charity not spending other people's money on interview expenses and it doesn't mean they are not being 'managed properly' either!

Very common, I have worked for a couple of charities including one very big one and it was not routine to pay interview expenses at all. It would not have gone down too well with the people who stand on corners collecting and who run marathons to raise every penny if thousands of pounds every year was forked out on train tickets for candidates to come to first interviews.

We used to consider requests for interview expenses on an individual basis so if someone was having to pay huge amounts to get to the interview, we would probably have reimbursed them.

Joash · 13/05/2008 12:11

flowerybeanbag actually I have extensive experience of working for charities - large and small (including setting them up, management, fundraising, recruitment, training, etc). It is not about 'spending other peoples money on interview expenses' it is about effective financial management which means recognising a need to develop efficient financial projection and planning skills. Funders recognise that recruitment costs should figure in grant applications and I know of some charities have actually been turned down when it is glaringly obvious that they have not taken into account every potential cost (this is often taken as a demonstration that they need to develop their skills on the financial side and have actually underestimated how much money they will need to deliver their service properly).

If they are recruiting a replacement, then they should have the money that they are 'saving' on wages by not having anyone in post at that time. If they are recruiting for a new post - they should have included potential interview expences in any funding bid. It is very odd, in todays climate for a charity to not recognise that many job hunters, particularly in the vol/com sector cannot afford travel costs for interviews.

flowerybeanbag · 13/05/2008 19:41

Well yes if it's a charity which involves making bids for funding from elsewhere to run specific projects, then it would be reasonable to include things like that.

If it's a charity or a part of a charity which raises all its own money and gets no grants or similar, relying completely on public donations, it may be slightly different. I think saying it's 'odd' of a charity to not reimburse travel expenses is generalising a bit though, and managing a charity well doesn't necessarily mean not having to limit spending in all budget areas, including recruitment and particularly in this climate.

Twinklemegan · 13/05/2008 19:48

If you really want the job, why wouldn't you? I spent nearly over £200 getting to the interview for my job and staying overnight. I could have claimed it back but I never did - duh. I was just so grateful to get the job and the chance to start a new life it seemed like a relatively small price to pay.

Twinklemegan · 13/05/2008 19:48

lol, that would be over £200

hattyyellow · 14/05/2008 09:45

Surely there are many roles within a charity that would not be covered by specific funding bids - administration, finance, fundraising, marketing, policy - all the "office-based" roles.

A charity would draw funds for these salaries from its general funds. No big charity would expect to get a grant that covered every single aspect of its running costs, including every single staff post within an organisation.

I know very few charities who would use the money saved during a recruitment gap for travel expenses or put money aside for interview expenses as part of the recruitment process. I've worked on the "office" side and I've never had my travel paid as part of the interview process in the charity sector. I can see that some of the extremely wealthy charities with stacks of reserves could afford to do this but I've never been drawn to apply to them.

flowerybeanbag · 14/05/2008 13:34

Agree with hattyyellow, plus some other points

Would be very difficult and very unusual to be able to pinch money from the salaries budget to cover overspend on recruitment budget, it just doesn't work like that, particularly in a big charity which I think this is. Budgets are very tightly managed and planned and you can't just move money about as and when.

Recruitment budgeting is extremely difficult for obvious reasons. You can do a certain amount of forecasting with historical turnover figures, forward knowledge of any 'events' in the coming year which may affect recruitment needs, any restructurings, research about advertising and agency costs, (together with intense negotiation of these) and can even pinpoint significant and expensive posts which you hvae an inkling might become vacant. But the bottom line is you can never know how much recruitment you will need to do.

I have to say I would never authorise payment of first interview expenses on a routine basis as an appropriate or necessary spend of a recruitment budget. Recruiting for charities in my fairly extensive experience involves a careful balance between spending enough on advertising/agency fees/other recruitment methods to ensure the right candidates are reached, but not spending more than is strictly necessary to do this. Charities very often do not compare favourably with either private or public sector organisations in terms of salaries and benefits, but to a greater or lesser degree, a lot of them are fortunate enough to be able to recruit good people in spite of this, there often being a vocational element to people's decision to opt for the voluntary sector.

The same principle applies to things like interview expenses - it's just not necessary to pay them to get good candidates, so doing it as a matter of routine I would consider extravagant (leaving aside the specific example of bidding for government/lottery/other funds for an individual project). I would be more inclined to consider such a request on an individual basis. If a post was proving difficult to recruit to, or candidates were having to spend excessively for one reason or another, I would certainly try to authorise it with the long term view that it might save on further recruitment costs. But I've never had the luxury of a generous enough recruitment budget that this kind of expense could be paid as a matter of routine.

In addition to that, if you think about how much money that actually is. Say, 10 candidates to first interview at £100 each, then 5 candidates to second interview at £100 each, that's £1,500 on interview expenses alone for each post recruited. There would certainly be a strong argument in an organisation running tight on salaries that that money would be better spent on the salary of the person employed.

However we digress into a more general discussion about charity funding, which, although interesting, doesn't help the OP who is going to her interview regardless!

Best of luck

Innat · 22/05/2008 15:09

Hi there

Just wanted to let you all know that i went for the interview last week. Unfortunately they called today to say i didn't get the job

I'm obviously disappointed as i think the job would have been really good. However i will chalk it up as "interview experience". They gave me some really positive feedback which was good as i felt i hadn't done that well. I felt really tired on the day and felt i didn't answer a lot of the questions as well as i could have if i'd felt fresher (dd has been waking ridiculously early for the last few weeks).

Wanted to thank you for your comments and thought the discussion about charities and funding was really interesting!

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