Question
The VP made me a same-day offer contingent on a background check, a physical and a drug test. He gave me a tour of the business, showed me where I’d be sitting, and then took me into his office to discuss pay. I signed permission for the background check and I did the drug test and physical within an hour of the offer. HR assigned me a hire date that was five days later.
On my first day, HR began my orientation online and pressed me to complete it within two days. I got it done in one and called HR to inform her. She told me there was a discrepancy with the pay that I was offered. The VP offered me an hourly wage plus overtime as needed. HR said the position was salary, no overtime included, and I would often be required to work 10 to 12 hour shifts.
When I asked what the salary was in comparison to the hourly offer, she said that she’d have to get back to me. Then she said that my request to compare the hourly rate to the salary raised a concern with her: if a better offer was made to me by another employer, would I take it?
I replied that I didn’t think it was a fair question because pay isn’t the only factor when considering an offer. I asked her, if she were offered an increase of $20,000 a year from an alternate employer, would she consider it? Her response was that she understood where I was coming from and thanked me for my transparency. The next day I received an e-mail stating that they decided to give the job to an alternate candidate.
I can’t help but feel violated by what transpired. Do you have any advice?
Nick’s Reply
HR people play some dangerous games that hurt job applicants (and new hires). I’m sorry you’re a victim, while the VP and HR person walked away unscathed.
When I followed up with you, you explained that this employer did not give you the job offer in writing signed by a manager, and that this happened in California, where employment is “at will.”
The “job offer” HR people play like a carrot on a stick
We’ve discussed this before: Never accept a job offer or quit your old job without a written job offer from the new employer. Without it, you have little to go on legally, while you reach for an offer that’s only a carrot on a stick. A verbal offer can be legally binding, but that’s up to a lawyer to argue – and I’m not a lawyer. (For more about how to avoid trouble when changing jobs, please see Parting Company: How to leave your job.)
The point about “employment at will” (which is the law in CA) is that if you don’t have an employment contract in place to protect you, they can fire you any time for any reason or no reason, including day #1. So you see where this is going. It truly is stacked against the new hire because you never know whether you’ve really got that carrot.
Explore the law
However, it’s not so cut and dry, even in “at will” states and even without a promise in writing. Please check employment attorney Larry Barty’s advice in Job offer rescinded after I quit my old job. It’s worth exploring the law. Here’s part of what Larry said:
“A person who reasonably acts in reliance upon a promise and then suffers detrimentally because the promise is broken has a cause of action called Promissory Estoppel. The Promiser is ‘estopped’ from rescinding the promise if the Promiser knew or had reason to know that the Promisee would rely upon the promise to the Promisee’s detriment… The Promisee in such a case, once the proof has been accepted, is entitled to be made whole. For example, if A quits his job and then is left without work for a period until he finds comparable employment, A is entitled to Reliance Damages in an amount equal to the lost wages and benefits.”
This article by another attorney is wishful thinking because employers won’t do contracts for anything but exec jobs, but it reveals the underlying problem: the law favors employers. (Nothing here is intended as legal advice nor should you rely on it for your specific situation. Consult a qualified employment lawyer.)
It’s not just about HR people
I’m really sorry to hear about your problem – the employer was wrong on many levels, including ethics. The VP made the offer and HR changed it unilaterally. When you asked reasonable questions apparently after you started the job, HR played a nasty game and essentially fired you because you dared to discuss pay.
It’s not just the HR people. I’d say this company stinks from top to bottom.
You could report them to your state’s labor and employment office. You’d be surprised how complaints add up, and sometimes they trigger investigations or new legislation. You might even contact your state legislator’s office: “Employers complain about the talent shortage – yet look what this one just did.”
They keep getting away with it
I’m not encouraging you to go legal, but it may be worth investing a few bucks in an initial consultation with a good employment lawyer so you can find out whether you have a case. Sometimes all it takes to get a settlement is a nasty-gram from the lawyer.
It drives me nuts when employers walk away unscathed after their HR people and other managers do things like this. It’s become disturbingly common — and dangerous. A woman wrote me that her husband accepted a job across the country. He moved out there to attend orientation — much the same way you started your new employment. She cancelled their lease, loaded the car, put her two young kids in it, and started the drive cross-country. Half-way, she gets a call – the offer was rescinded. She said said the stress was so great she had to see a doctor.
When will seemingly “administrative” or “legal” but clearly unethical actions by HR people that prove dangerous to employees be recognized for what they are: cavalier abuses of job applicants?
What’s the worst abuse HR people (and their bosses) have leveled at you and what was the outcome? What could this job seeker (or, actually, new employee) have done? Are there enough legal protections for job seekers? What would you propose?
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This is why I do not stop searching and interviewing until my butt touches the chair on my first day.
A paid employee is completely different from a candidate.
I would be a box of doughnuts the refrain “there is a talent shortage” echos through the halls.
They wouldn’t have to fire me, I’d have walked out.
I don’t see where he went to the manager and talked to him about it.
And what kind of organization does HR get to override a VP?
I’m surprised that some suspicious HR person would be allowed to fire a new employee on his or her own authority, considering that it was a VP who made the offer. My first thought would have been to contact the VP, asking what was up, and he had approved the salary change. But, as you say, it seems like this bait-and-switch is part of the company’s way of doing business. I would file a complaint with the state labor board. I also wonder if there’s a consumer complaint basis, in that he was promised on thing and given another, in a way that’s not much different from paying for a Cadillac and having Yugo delivered.
Finally, I hope the letter writer will go on Linked In, Indeed, social media and other sites to out this company. They’d have no recourse to sue for libel, since truth is an ultimate defense.
The consumer complaint aspect might or might not apply here. Most states – including California – have wide-ranging “unfair and deceptive practices” statutes on their books designed to protect consumers from unscrupulous businesses. Whether a job seeker qualifies as a consumer is a murkier issue. This is why Nick’s advice to consult a qualified attorney is wise.
Yes it sucks for OP, but here’s another example of my set-in-stone rule of “Could you put that in writing please?” I could be wrong but it sounds like everything was verbal and HR’s out was that “an offer was never made officially.” Yet, it sounds from the letter that OP had already started the job, and THEN got interrogated by HR, to their dissatisfaction and was FIRED. There was no “job offered to someone else” scenario.
I absolutely would indeed file a formal complaint to the labor board in that state, naming and shaming, and consider legal retaliation precisely due to the promissory estoppel doctrine – clearly OP quit their old job before starting a new one?
The only missing fact is was there EVER a written offer in place somewhere? If not, then it is on OP not to have that in place before giving notice.
How can companies that behave badly stay in business? If they treat a new hire this way, how do they treat customers/clients?
@Anna: Consider how a sales VP would come down on a sales person that treated a prospective customer this way? Yet C-suite execs tolerate HR’s horrible treatment of their other most important constituency, the professional community they recruit from. What a disconnect and failure of management!
I worked for a company that treated the employees ABSOLUTELY terrible. The local federal labor board had more complaints from this company that from any where else in WI. Employees put up with it because of a very strong union and above average pay. When the old timers retired and a new younger generation took over, they didn’t care, quality hit a new low and there was an employee revolving door. Corporate had enough and moved to Mexico and blamed the hourly employees for the shutdown. Of course Mexico wasn’t any better and eventually they closed.
Thanks for this, Nick. A regular reminder that when any company faces a reduction in workforce, the HR department should always go first. They are not just the most replaceable cost centers, but they shall be replaced by AI sooner than we think.
“A woman wrote me that her husband accepted a job across the country…” I remember this story. Heartbreaking and enraging.
@Lawrence: HR as a department could work, but only if top management pays more attention to the reputation HR creates for the company.
This one hits really close to home. In 2015, I found myself looking for a job and was fortunate enough at one point to have interviews with 3 companies within the span of a couple weeks. One of the companies was a mail-prescription provider and a really good fit for me role-wise. I got along very well with the IT director who I would be reporting to during the interview and we really meshed on goals. They were quick to give me a written offer with salary, PTO details and a start date contingent on passing a drug screening and background check. I passed the checks and the week before my start, I called HR to ask if there was anything else they needed and they said they would be sending the W-4 form to me to fill out. After not receiving anything, I called them to follow up and also called the Director to tell him how forward I was looking to starting the following week and to ask if I should wait in the lobby or just come upstairs to check in with him directly on my first day. The W-4 was never sent and on Monday, I got a call from HR before 8am telling me to hang tight and they would call me before noon. I asked if there were any issues with the background check and they said no, they just had a development and would give me an update before noon. The call came around noon and it wasn’t good news. The company had been purchased by OptumRX and my offer had been rescinded. The director called me immediately afterwards and apologized saying he had no idea and he had to call 2 other people to give them the same news. I consulted an attorney and was informed I was in a bit of a grey area. The company had made a bona-fide offer, but the company no longer existed and I hadn’t officially started yet so I wasn’t part of the OptumRX purchase. I turned down 2 other offers during the time I was waiting to start and had to start the job search all over again.
I am job searching now. I’d like to give my employer 2 weeks notice once I accept an offer, but after last time and being the sole breadwinner for the household right now, I don’t think I can absorb that level of risk.
This literally occurred to me when I was interviewing for a position at a pharmaceutical company and the VP came in to the interview 20 minutes late and informed me that the company had succumbed to a hostile takeover from a Big Pharma player.
BUT, they told me that due to their contract all hires made THAT DAY would be honored under the takeover agreement.
I declined the offer due to the Big Pharma reputation, but still, what were the odds?
An editor I know was running a small daily newspaper. While on hold for a call to the corporate offices on a Friday afternoon, the administrative assistant mentioned that she was mailing notices of hiring freezes at the end of the day. (Snail mail, not email.) My friend was very picky about hiring and, as a result, had 9 openings, a substantial portion of his staff.
He and the managing editor got on the phone with any remotely qualified candidate in the state who had sent them a resume, telling them, “If you can pass a drug test and come into the office by 5 pm Sunday, we’ll hire you.” It was indiscriminate — writers hired for copy editing jobs, designers assigned to the school beat, cats and dogs living together.
It worked. When the freeze notice arrived the following Tuesday, he had a full staff. Over the course of the next few months, he learned the strengths of the various new hires and reassigned them through several job swaps.
@Brian: That’s one of the coolest stories I’ve ever heard! That’s the sign of a good manager – confident about being able to teach and organize his staff! Thanks for sharing that!
Not all of the rush hires were great performers, and I’m sure a few wound up leaving. But at the time, it was much, much better than being stuck with a raft of open roles. This was back in the time of swashbuckling pirates in the editor’s chair.
“This is why I do not stop searching and interviewing until my butt touches the chair on my first day.‘
On your second day, restart the process of expanding your search for your next job, 3-5 years from now, asking people at other companies “ What’s it like to work there?”
@VP Sales: Rock-solid, smack-your-head-and-say-WOW! advice that everyone should follow all the time. And it even includes a “How to Say It!”