I don’t know where they’re all coming from: bogus job offers extended by employers, then withdrawn after the job applicant has relied on the offer and quit their old job. In the January 19, 2016 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a reader is smart enough to ask how to avoid being left without a job at all.

Question

I’m on contract at a job through a staffing firm. I have found a better position somewhere else. The new company offered the job and I accepted. I’m trying to do this right and to protect myself, so I have two questions:

First, to whom should I direct my resignation letter? To my recruiter at the staffing firm, or to the manager of the department where I’m actually working (at my recruiter’s client)?

bombSecond, I’m scared of telling whoever I’m supposed to tell, and later receiving a letter from my future employer saying that they decided to close the position for internal reasons or something like that. I don’t want to be left without any job at all.

Help ASAP please.

Nick’s Reply

How you quit your job matters as much as what new job you take. Let’s take your questions one at a time.

How to quit

If you’re working on contract through a staffing firm, your employer is the staffing firm. You need to tell them. Of course, the right thing to do is to also tell your manager — but I think it’s best to notify your actual employer first. They should have a chance to limit their exposure by offering a replacement worker to your manager, and your manager should hear it from them.

Here’s a tip from Parting Company: How to leave your job about what to say in a resignation letter, from the section, “Resign Yourself To Resigning Right,” p. 46:

The letter should be just one sentence because — sorry to be the cynic, but careers and lives might hinge on this — it can come back and bite you legally if it says anything more.

“I, John Jones, hereby resign my position with Acme Corporation.”

I won’t get into all the things that might go wrong if you say more, but I detail the risks in the book.

Submitting your resignation is the easy part. The recruiter at your staffing firm isn’t going to be happy that you’re quitting. What will you do when the recruiter, your boss, or your co-workers press you for details? Here’s another tip from the book (p. 47):

Keep your future to yourself. It’s nice to share your new address with your buddies. But if someone thinks your new employer is a competitor, suddenly that comfortable two-week notice can turn into an immediate departure. Or worse.

How to Say It
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to disclose my new employer until I’m actually working there.”

That’s right: Disclosing where you’re going is very risky. Don’t do it.

How to avoid job offers that blow up in your face

As for being scared that the future employer may rescind — or never finalize — the offer, that can always happen. It’s a risk you take when you accept any job, because — especially in a jurisdiction where employment is “at will” — an employer can fire you at any time for any reason or no reason. But you can minimize the risk when you accept a job:

1. Make sure you have the new offer in writing. An oral offer is not good enough to risk your old job.

2. Beware of staffing firms. Is the offer from another staffing firm or an actual company where you’d be working? If it’s a staffing firm, I think your risk is bigger because recruiters will sometimes drop you if they turn up a better applicant for the client — right in the middle of the hiring process, and even after commitments are made. Likewise, the client can suddenly change its mind, and you wind up on the street. Because hiring through a staffing firm is at arm’s length, employers seem to think they have no obligation to consider the consequences for the new hire.

3. Meet the new HR manager before quitting your old job, but after they’ve promised an offer. This is a technique of personal politics. They’re not likely to meet with you if they’re not certain they’re hiring you. Insist on a face-to-face meeting with HR before you resign your old job. It’s a simple fact of social psychology: People are less likely to hurt you once they’ve met you face to face.

4. Meet your new boss. Before you quit your old job, insist on a meeting with your new boss to discuss your job responsibilities, on-boarding process, what tools you’ll be using, and so on. This forces the manager to put some skin in the game and makes it emotionally harder for them to back out — but even this is no guarantee.

5. Here’s my secret weapon. This is something I want an employer to do after it has given my candidate a job offer, but before the candidate accepts the job (or quits the old job, of course). Ask to meet some of the team members you’ll be working with. The sooner the better. This will reveal how serious they are about really filling this job and having you there. If the company balks at this, I’d never quit my old job until I’ve got some other hard evidence that the new job is for real. (For more about this, see How can I find the truth about a company?)

Limiting your risk when quitting one job and accepting another is more about personal politics than anything else. An employer (or staffing firm) can rescind an offer any time. You’d need a lawyer to fight back. I think the better strategy is to get close to the new boss and team — and to take measures to force the staffing firm to show you that the offer and the job are real. Then there’s less chance that this will go south.

Be tough

Many employers — especially staffing firms — will balk at what I’m suggesting. They want to hire as effortlessly as possible. Their attitude is, “We’ve got other applicants like you waiting — we’re not going to waste our time making you feel all warm and fuzzy about taking this job.”

Well, that’s tough. Would you accept an offer of marriage from someone who won’t spend enough time with you to really make you feel loved? Don’t be in such a hurry to tie the knot before you can judge whether your suitor is for real. If an employer isn’t willing to invest time to assure you that a job offer is real, then it’s probably not worth risking your old job.

In the end, you must use your best judgment and decide whether to make the leap. If your gut tells you something is wrong, listen to your gut.

While my objective here is to help you land a great new job, my first concern is that you should not get hurt in the process. You must learn how to recognize a risky job offer before it blows up in your face.

Lately I’m getting a surprising number of questions from readers about job offers that explode — after the candidate relies on them to make career and financial decisions. I think employers, HR departments, and staffing firms have crossed a critical line that’s telling us they’re either stupid and inept, or that they’re callous and lack integrity. When the employer “takes back” a job offer for any reason, the applicant usually cannot “take back” a resignation. In one case, a reader cancelled her lease, moved her family, and wound up homeless because a personnel jockey instructed her husband to quit his job and move to a new city — then the jockey reneged on the promise of the new job.

I’m collecting stories about exploding job offers because I’m worried this is a dangerous new trend. I think we should chronicle and discuss it, to help you avoid having job offers blow up in your face.

Got a story about exploding job offers — or do you know someone who does? Please post it. Has an employer ever instructed you to quit your old job before giving you a written offer, or has an offer ever been rescinded? What did you do? How would you advise the reader in this week’s Q&A?

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52 Comments
  1. Great advice, as usual, Nick!

    Sharing a horror story relevant to your article which, thankfully, wasn’t mine:

    I worked in a large lawfirm several years ago. An aging senior partner, notorious for his grumpy ways and temper tantrums, had finally found an exceptional assistant that he felt he could put up with him. But, as was his way with all non-attorney employees, treated her quite badly.

    After several years, she could no longer take the stress of his belittling negativity. She spent several weeks searching in a down market and finally found a position with another large firm.

    The partner was livid when she gave notice.

    During the last days of her two-week notice period, she made the mistake of sharing the name of her new firm with a trusted co-worker … and “somehow” the information found its way to the partner.

    The partner called the assistant’s pending employer and falsely claimed a conflict of interest regarding a case. And, with that claim, the new employer withdrew the offer.

    The partner then promptly fired his long-time assistant for insubordination (we’re in an at will state), leaving her jobless and unable to receive unemployment.

    We all felt terrible for her.

    I believe she brought a suit against the partner/firm but I did not keep up with any outcome … but I DID learn a valuable lesson: keep your mouth shut – the walls have ears!

  2. Nick

    Your advise on not sharing your new worker has benefits but why you say it will backfire. Not telling an employer where you are going because they might let you go if it is a competitor almost guarantees they will make your notice immediate if you won’t tell them why.

    Anytime you resign, you should expect that moment to be your last with the company

    • This depends entirely on your industry and organization. It’s quite standard for my colleagues to do as Nick suggests; it’s in fact unusual for someone to give an indication of their future plans any sooner than their farewell happy hour.

  3. I hear this casual term “You’d need a lawyer to fight back”. When you actually in a situation to need this service how would it be done? Look in the yellow pages? For closing on a house, sometimes go to a bank and ask who practices in the area, but for employment litigation how do you go about it? e

  4. Thanks for the timely advice, Nick, as I handed in my resignation this morning after being about a month short of 13 years at my current employer.

  5. @Eddie Network & cross reference. Reach into your network for someone whose opinion your trust, who has a lawyer they highly regard. Lawyers specialize like doctors. Ask your friend to talk to his attorney and see if he/she can come up with the name(s) of good lawyers who specialize in labor law. Then research them. There’s no risk free cold call/connection, but this works much better than the yellow pages.

  6. I don’t have a good example of someone who got hosed. But more the opposite. I worked for an computer manufacturer for a # of years, mostly as a hiring manager.
    Generally they were a “by the #’s” hardball player, a company who you might expect would rescind offers in a heartbeat to save a buck.
    But they never did. Even in the worst of times when the #’s sucked, the rule was if an offer letter went out…it was cast in concrete.
    In our world of vaporous hiring budgets, you can bet prospective employees never had to ask for an offer letter. Managers made sure HR got them out ASAP. Because the next day your req may be shot. And the manager was the 1st person to advise the candidate not to do anything stupid until they had that letter in hand.
    Because…it may have been drafted, ready to go, but if the word got passed to freeze hiring, the door shut instantly. And the letter would vaporize.

  7. One other thing the person should do, if not done already, try to find former employees who will be willing to brief you, about the company, and ideally about the manager and team you’re considering joining. You may have to put a BS filter on to filter out sour grapes and axes to grind, but you can pick up valuable insights.

    When I entered the recruiting field, I got this kind of info from someone who just parted. He gave me profiles on the partners, the working environment, their process etc. That was before i met them and had my interviews. I think you can see his was very helpful. I did end up with an offer and took it, so it worked out for me.

  8. I was contacted by a recruiter about a permanent manager position at an international pet food company. All the details were finalized, and the contract had been emailed to me. Within 24 minutes of receiving the contract, the recruiter called to cancel and tell me not to sign the contract. If I hadn’t had to go to the pharmacy, the contract would have already been signed. That was December 23, 2014. Merry Christmas to me.

  9. Totally agree w/Nick: Trust, but verify. Too many smarmy operators out there. Good luck!

  10. This is the reason why I RECORD and DOCUMENT everything. The job market sucks; we all know that. But because no one is holding these personnel folks/employers responsible for offering a job then rescinding, there is not a legal course of action. I even record Skype and phone interviews and request all job offers come either in the form of an official email or in writing.

    I’ve been thrown under the bus so many times, I have developed the motto: To Thine Own Ass Be True.

    So far, so good!

  11. Regarding exploding job offers, I had this happen to a friend recently:

    She accepting a PT marketing position with a local retailer and put in her notice at the other PT job she was working. Then, the retailer kept pushing back her start date. It was a family run business that ran into some personal issues. Ultimately, the rescinded the job offer and my friend was left without a job.

    In my opinion, she should have made attempts to hang on to the current PT position the moment they started pushing back her start date. Unfortunately, we live in a Right to Work state, so even if she had something in writing, it wouldn’t do much good.

  12. I had a guy do the exploding job offer thing to me about 10 yrs ago. He talked a lot about how much integrity he had and how successful he is. (I now know those are HUGE red flags. People who have integrity don’t have to talk about it. They show it.) He told me I was hired and would start in about 3 weeks. I did not get it in writing. In the 3 weeks since, he found someone else he liked better. He did not even bother to apologize or recognize his lack of integrity in this situation. He should have simply said he was considering me, but not ready for a firm decision. Taking his word for it set my job search back 3 weeks. Never again! Fortunately, I found something better quickly.

    Lessons learned: 1. Always get it in writing. 2. Never trust anyone who talks at length about their integrity. 3. Watch out for egos on 2 legs. 4. Keep looking for something better yourself, just like they are doing. 5. Loyalty is dead among employers.

  13. @ eddie: Also, the employment attys want a large retainer/deeeeep pockets as they want a case that is relatively easy w/limited effort.

  14. Great article and comments. Even if you have a good lawyer, it takes time and money (per Marilyn) with no guarantee of winning. Meanwhile you are out of work perhaps with no reference for the many years worked.
    CYA and Pray

  15. Here’s a story that happened to a guy I worked with.

    He interviewed with a company for what seemed like a great job. The new hiring manager told him he was exactly what he was looking for, and the job paid very well. Much more than what my employer could have paid him.

    They made him an offer, and he accepted and turned in his resignation. Then he found out there was a problem with a licensing requirement. He didn’t have a particular license but the offering company said he had to have it to be able to work there. The hiring manager at this place was not even aware of the licensing requirement. This information was not disclosed ahead of time and didn’t come to light until the whole drug screen/physical/paperwork verification phase. He wasn’t able to get the license, and the offer was pulled.

    My employer already started things in motion to replace him, and he’d obviously already basically told us he wanted to work elsewhere. Thus, he was not kept on.

    The moral of the lesson: Make sure that *all* job requirements are disclosed and met before you resign from your current position. That’s everything: drug tests, verification of professional degrees/certifications/licenses, etc. This all happened because some HR jockey failed to put a single line in a job posting.

  16. @Cynthia: Thanks for sharing that story. I pound this point home in Parting Company: How to leave your job. Never, ever disclose where you’re going. I once moved a vice president from Florida to San Jose. His ego prevented him from bragging about where he was going. Then the CEO of the new company received an anonymous call trashing the VP. I had to do some fast sleuthing to find out who made the call. All worked out, but the VP did some serious sweating, as he was committed to moving his entire family 3,000 miles. NEVER CHANCE IT. My reminder to people: No matter how small the chances are that disclosing where you’re going will hurt you, the massive potential adverse consequences dictate that you should NOT take the chance.

    @Martin P: Yes, you should indeed expect that when you resign your employer may walk you straight to the door. I’ve discussed that elsewhere. In Parting Company I discuss in loads of detail how to prepare for your exit before your employer surprises you with a reaction you did not expect.

    @Eddie: Good question. How do you quickly find a good employment attorney? Please don’t just call your local bar association to get a referral. Check with friends and with other employers you respect. Who do they use? There’s nothing wrong with using an attorney who specializes on the employer side. In fact, that’s smart. If you search, you’ll find some very smart blogs by employment attorneys – judge them by how well they explain the issues. But what you’re pointing out is applicable in any situation: You always need to have an idea about where you’d go for help in an emergency. Don’t wait til it’s too late.

    @Dave: If my advice helped in any way as you tendered your resignation, I’m glad. I wish you the best!

    @Don: “Even in the worst of times when the #’s sucked, the rule was if an offer letter went out…it was cast in concrete.” Thanks for sharing a counter-example. Please see these two short articles:
    http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs41managersjob1.htm
    http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs43handwalk.htm
    Kudos to that company for acting with integrity. It’s interesting how that happens, when the managers take a very personal interest in making sure hires are done properly.

    @Jennifer Nash: You take the prize. 24 minutes from job offer to “we changed our mind.”

    @All: As I read through the stories you’ve posted, I just keep shaking my head. WTF???

    @EEDR: Your story supports my contention that a lot of these rescinded offers are the result of hiring managers and HR people unschooled in good business practices. They just don’t know what they’re doing, and don’t care. Maybe it’s time to create a registry of Scummy Employers. (NOTE: This is not an endorsement of GlassDoor. Don’t get me started on that. http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/7453/can-i-trust-glassdoor-reviews) There is no sure thing: http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs26nosurething.htm and Get it in writing http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/crocs23getitinwriting.htm

    @Chris: Thanks for sharing that story. The lesson I’d add is, don’t disclose where you’re going, and if you resign, just resign. Don’t say anything more. I wonder if your friend might have been kept on if he hadn’t shot off his mouth about how he wanted to work elsewhere. When the stakes are high, it’s smart to hedge any bet when possible.

  17. In my experience, there are two things behind exploding job offers. I’ve experienced both.

    1. Personal power plays by sociopaths.
    2. Mickey Mouse Operators.

    Some people are sociopaths, that is, they get high from messing over people. As a consultant, I have on occasion reached a stalemate in interviews where the hiring manager demands that I drop all of my consulting clients to show the company that I am serious about working for them. I counter with we haven’t decided if we want to work together yet. Hiring manager says “I want to make you an offer but…”. I counter with if you are serious, make me an offer, make it contingent upon whatever conditions you need to be true and then we can go from there. Typically, the deal dies here. This method avoids the situation of the non-existing job offer.

    As a social experiment, I played it out by capitulating in situations (not really) just to see what would happen and not surprisingly, ended up empty handed. This is what happens to people when they are not careful.

    I am also aware of bad actors where the hiring managers have people jumping through all kinds of hoops only to fire them after one or two days on the job. There is no such thing as a “sure thing” any more.

    Mickey Mouse Operators:

    When third party recruiters are involved beware, there is a pretty well known story and legal case see: Machado v TEKsystems.

    Some companies are horribly disorganized and chaotic so that a comedy of errors occurs including job offers being sent out for positions that are actively being eliminated by upper management. Lack of internal communications.

    Be careful it is rough out there.

  18. I’m very interested in employers like the one Don mentioned — “Even in the worst of times when the #’s sucked, the rule was if an offer letter went out…it was cast in concrete.”

    Does anyone know of employers like this? Feel free to e-mail me if you’d rather not mention them here. nick at asktheheadhunter dot com.

    Thanks!

  19. RE: finding an employment lawyer, ask around–ask family, ask friends, ask your hairdresser, your doctor, the postman….as colleagues. I just recommended an employment attorney to a colleague. I know the attorney (he’s honest, fair, and doesn’t charge for the initial consultation). My colleague doesn’t have an employment law issue, but her husband does….and once it has gotten to the point where people are talking to lawyers, it is pretty bad.

  20. My experiences would be too lengthy to write here other than in some staccato approach. I’m writing about Australia, who’s Governments are influenced for the worst by American values and behaviour and Asian money for which Governments are prepared to sell us out.

    The last 30 years has seen a relentless deterioration in education, management, empathy and truth. Children, particularly if raised in day care centres live fantasies and lies. Students lie and create classroom problems on a new scale…watching porno for example even during exams.

    Cheating on a highly organised scale is commonplace and amongst several of the ‘multi-cultures’ we have been required to accept.

    People lie in tenders and contracts and about SWMS.

    Politicians have rationalised their lies as ‘oh that was at that precise moment…things have changed’ and they have implemented culture destruction in which they think we are going to employ just anyone so long as they have achieved the mediocrity of ‘competent’ in some privatised VET course.

    This helps to sustain their ’employment figure lies to say within 10-15% of the facts. Then came the humbug of advertisers refusing to discuss work conditions or packages or even minimal salary until you have applied, been interviewed and ‘been successful’…

    I have personally interviewed hundreds of people, first over telephone and then face to face for those I thought strongly potential and anyone I didn’t ask I told over the phone why and gave advice to help them in their next application. I am not the least interested in political correctness. I look for learning, experience, respect, acceptable (to me) dress. appearance use of drugs and smoking for example. I give a short technical test. If you have references I call them.

    If I say you are employed then you are. I am employing YOU but not your religion or your culture and so if your beard or hair is a problem you have a choice…don’t be employed or meet my standards which may mean shaving and cutting hair.

    I’m paying you and every expense you incur not the contemporary lot of taxpayer funded powerbroker respondent politicians calling them selves “Australia’ nor the sanctimonious hypocrites and power-seekers in one or another ‘peak body’. I am however consistent and fair and have good reasons for my requirements.

    The alternative to that if you are a profitable prospect is that you will never be allowed to do any work requiring PPE which can be overcome by your ‘religious’ idiosyncracy or other choices you have made and I make no religious distinctions.

    That said if you come for an interview in rags and worn-out shoes because that’s the best you have then I respect that and if employed you will be outfitted and helped. You might even be helped if not employed.

    In general I’m employing you as a certainty of helping in company success and if that happens, you are included in benefits and my concept that all workers should be given the aspiration, opportunity and means to be better at your job than I am. If you are not safe and suitable to my workplace or other workers or ‘stakeholders’ you don’t get the job. The same goes for other,non construction staff.

    Getting onto the other areas…as an employer I also have numerous responsibilities, unfashionable as it may be to fulfil them or even acknowledge them.

    If I employ you I must call your referees, including the writers of a written reference.

    I am very much scornful and suspicious of employers who will not give complete written references, ..not just ‘joe-blow worked here from X to Y we wish him well’.

    As an employer if I employ someone and realise I was deficient in enquiries or misjudged the person and I can’t fix it I’ll do all I can to have them employed elsewhere on an ‘upfront’ basis and on the only time it happened and I realised I should have trade tested the lad who had school ‘carpentry’ qualifications but hadn’t a clue how to use even the most basic tools.

    He was trying the wrong trade I paid him a month extra to help him whilst he found another employer….$1000 extra back when a tradesman base rate was $650. I didn’t make that mistake again.

    You speak of the people ringing to destroy people’s new jobs. Unless you are a fraud and have damaged them and are likely to do the same to the next employer the employer form which the person is departing should await a ‘phone call for a reference or confirmation of a reference. If a new employer has not checked referees then he takes a risk and should also take responsibility for it.

    Some companies may have good intentions about the employment they offer…then suddenly someone better turns up or the person who resigned wants to come back or they’ve broken some rule about advertising the position and have to re-do it. I’d wait a few days always before giving notice ‘just in case’ and then call them and say “I have given notice and conform I will be commencing with you on (date)at (time)and follow that with a letter/email

    Company ethics may not include morality and honour. They may momentarily feel sorry for you but quickly recover ‘that’s business Sol’

    I have a tale to tell which I may later about the lowest of the low in one of my experiences however for the moment I offer some suggestions:

    a)) Always send your recent photo with application… if the employer has requirements and you are not meeting them already best to be told early. Dress as well as you can and appropriate to the work. When uncertain and the job is construction I have asked ‘will casual dress be acceptable, would it be best if I wear work-clothes and boots. A decent employer should see this as a sensible question.

    b) If you are chosen for interview and the job is interstate ask if a local interview can be done. Try not to get involved in expensive travel on a mere possibility. It is not uncommon that companies are only ‘going through the motions’ and have no intentions of replacing a Company person with an outsider. I will not attend interstate interviews unless they will pay at least my airfares. If I’m a choice even though interstate then that choice should include responsibility to my costs. Ask them to book the tickets as you may layer find you don’t get refunded. If you are a risk taker or frightened to be sensible, ….so be it.

    c)Research the company, exhaustively, at least on Internet. It may be terrific or it may be a dog. It may be ‘on the skids’…check its shares and comments if a public company.

    d) Don’t b/s be honest and checkable even if it’s a real estate or used car salesman job. Make sure also they are not lying to you.

    e) If you can find where the employees have a beer after work maybe you can drift in, find one or more and just get around to casually asking about the company and in a way that doesn’t rebound on you (or them) if you become a workmate or their boss. Be honourable at all times and don’t discuss or put-down your present employer, rather build them up.

    You can always ask their competition what they are like…If some respectfully you might even end up with an alternative offer

    f) Ask for your appointment and all conditions and the package in writing. Don’t act on verbal employment and make sure the employment states all the conditions agreed-to.

    g)Never tell anyone even family that you are resigning and going to a certain company’. Most places ask you ‘how much notice do you have to give before you start’. Don’t say a word until you have been with the new company through any ‘review’ period, often 3 months. At that stage it is unlikely an sneaky phone calls will have any effect.

    h)Where possible get a minimum employment period written into your contract… if three months make sure you are entitled to three months pay if they decide to get rid of you.

    I was placed by one great head-hunter (initials PK…good bloke) whom I met before he went on to become massive…Peter was renting a Sydney office, unfurnished, cutting up adverts whilst sitting on the floor. He’d grown considerably when I applied for a job through his company 4 years later…but he remembered me.

    Since then I have found little to commend on other personnel companies. One HSE company I have left 7 messages with over 3 months… never replied. Your C.V. and ‘resume’ is an asset to them. You are no more than a possibly saleable commodity. If I call them and they will not discuss a job but rather ask for your cv ‘say I just am looking for the basis before specially preparing a CV/Resume…can you please give me some basis’ if not…you may as well flick them…there’ll be several others offering the same job.

    When well established in a new job I think that if the job you left for it was ok then maybe 6 month later, BUT not saying where you are now employed you might write a thank-you to the Chairman or CEO simply saying “thank you for what I learned when in your employment, I just wanted to let you know that” and sign it. Don’t put it in the company post where it might be stamped.. send it from some nearby of other suburb.

    Others may disagree with me and I am not at all put out if they are…Employers have great power, we should be human to go with it.

    • Is it not illegal in Australia to inquire as to religion in interviews? Similarly, is it not illegal to require grooming in contrary to one’s religion (shaving if an Orthodox Jew for example)?
      Is it not illegal to require a photo with a resume unless the work is specifically for modeling, acting or the like?
      Just curious as to the HR laws there as some of the things you mentioned are in flagrant violation of US law.

  21. Interesting post; I never really thought about something like this happening. It has never happened to me.

    It seems kind of sleazy, but prospective employees do it. I actually know someone who took a position and then resigned 2-4 weeks later after getting a better offer elsewhere.

  22. It’s not all one sided that’s right. Years ago I answered an ad for an electrical inspector out West… Walgett and Narrabri involved. I was the only ‘distant’ person asked for interview. They were it seemed pretty impressed.

    I agreed if they paid my costs, fuel, lodging etc. They agreed. I went over it with them on the telephone 3 times. Yes, all agreed. I drove up stayed overnight was interviewed by a committee.

    All seemed to go well and at the end they suggested after interview that I drive to Walgett for a look at where I’d be working. I did so. Long way not much fun when I arrived.(LOL!!)

    On the way back I stopped into an old school friend ex inspector down past Boggabri …very knowledgeable I told him the story….He said “you’ll never get that job mate’…’why?’….’because what’s happened is the current bloke wants to take the 4wd home on weekends and the Council said no. He protested. They said ‘ok we’ll advertise your position”…and did so with no intention other than to put the wind up him. A bloke with qualifications from far away answered (you)and the so and so’s went ahead as they had to do….but all they intend to do now is to warn him they have a candidate and then agree to him taking the vehicle home’….Great!!…So far I was out some $900!…I demanded the money when I returned home….;what promise?…we don’t remember any promise’.

    For a long time in Australia you could generally take a bloke’s word. You didn’t look always for the advantage or loopholes. More times than not people had an accessible conscience. People came from the country to the city bringing you a half a side of lamb for example.the Rabbito, the clothesprop man and milk and bread were delivered by Horse and cart even on the Nth Shore.

    Now Australia’s just a sort of live-in tourist resort for the wealthier opportunists and one has to get agreements in writing unless you are a part of the widespread criminal networks where the agreement might end in a drive-by shooting. They don’t bother with IOU’s and the like.

    So…my advice is get agreements in writing and signed by an officer of the company or don’t take the risk. A person who gets hoity about making genuine promises and agreements in clear writing is likely to be unreliable. It’s your choice of course but it’s also one of the reasons that work choices was such a con….that said, some of the industrial situations are even worse under what replaced work choices!!

    Can we trust any of them…maybe Nick Xeno…generally they are no more than taxpayer-paid servants of the globalising New Order. Count your fingers after shaking hands with any of them…..LOL!!

  23. A very timely article. I had an offer at Cadence to start in late October 2015. I gave two weeks notice at my volunteer job at the library. Then I bought new glasses, a new phone, new suits and shoes, got a dental exam so I could be “on” for extended periods of travel, damn, I even came close to buying a new car for the commute. Then I got the call, the start date is delayed a week. Then another week. Another, another, another, then came Christmas, so no starting then. FInally, a start date in January. And then the explosion. The job moved from Portland to San Jose. It’s yours if you want to live down there, and oh, you can get a room in a nice house for about $1000 a month or pay $2500 a month for a one bedroom apartment. No thank you! Oh, and they filled my vacancy at the library so I’ve got nothing!

  24. After several interviews and an extensive salary discussion, I had a recruiting firm send me an offer letter for a temp to perm position. The letter did not contain any reference to conversion salary, only the starting hourly. I accepted, but just two days later, the firm called me claiming the Vice President wanted to “have a meeting” with me. I was still interviewing for the job, and as time went on, it became clear there were two jobs.

    In the meantime, I had turned down another job offer. Fortunately for me, when I resumed contact with the second company, they extended me an offer. If that job had been filled, I would’ve been toast. nother job offer had come through.

    I was very fortunate. My gut was nagging me the entire time I worked with the first recruiting company. If it feels to good to be true, it probably is.

    There are reputable recruiting firms or there, but watch out. They know you’re unlikely to hire a lawyer in the middle of a job search.

  25. A company that rescinds an offer after the candidate has changed his/her position in reliance on the offer gives rise to a promissory estoppel cause of action. If the plaintiff has proof that an offer was made and that the plaintiff changed position (e.g., giving up a current job or moving to the offered new position) in reliance on the offer, then the employer who made the offer breached the promise and the plaintiff should receive compensation at least for the monies spent to move or the problems consequent to losing the other job. Great legal theory, but not a practical situation, unfortunately.

    Here’s the reality of hiring an employment attorney: most do not take on these cases on a contingency basis unless there is a significant amount of money that could be awarded to the plaintiff. In other words, most plaintiffs will have to pay a retainer fee and then be billed for hourly attorney fees and expenses.

    Why don’t most attorneys do these cases on contingency? Risk. MOST states have statutory and case law that support the employer, not the employee or potential employee. An attorney taking on an employment case on contingency risks spending $100,000 (significantly more or somewhat less) to obtain an award for the plaintiff. If we are talking about a possible plaintiff’s award of $75,000 (job offer value or expenses) and 30% attorney’s fee, then few (if any) attorneys will risk this. If we are talking about a possible plaintiff’s award over $300,000, then there is a greater likelihood that the attorney would take such a case on contingency.

    The bottom line is that finding an attorney to take your promissory estoppel case on contingency has a slim chance and paying an attorney $50,000 up to file and or settle a promissory estoppel case may not be worth the expense even if you are in the right and the employer who rescinded the offer is an unethical corporation.

  26. @Pamela–exactly, which employers know, so there is no risk to them for rescinding offers–even when or after the employee starts. Written offers, start dates, emails–forget it. Let’s face it, there is absolutely no moral or ethical restraint anymore when it comes to employment.

    Nick’s steps 1-5, as he warns, are no guarantee that the offer will be sound.

    Example: I negotiated and received a VP Marketing position reporting to the CEO. A recruiter was involved in the search but bowed out during the negotiation, not the first sign that something was amiss. The CEO was a little hands off through the entire process, deferring to the CFO, another red flag as the latter was wired (as I found out) to the foreign owners. The offer was received after meeting all the key executives and some second level managers of this small company, the foreign parent’s CEO and an overseas member of their advisory board (via phone on a Sunday). HR was handled by their CFO. So after the verbal offer and during negotiation, I was onboarding with conference calls and email setup.

    After settling a few issues in the offer letter (which was an obvious template contract) directly with the CFO who proferred it, I signed the offer. Within 2 hours, I was notified by email by the CEO that they ‘decided to go in a different direction’. (His buddy the recruiter was completely unhelpful.) My emails to all involved were met with dead silence. I had a conference call that afternoon with one of the executives and she didn’t know that it had happened! (nor was she upset)

    Companies like this will show signs right from the start. Here, for multiple reasons, my gut was WAILING and I half-welcomed the fact it fell apart–aside from the fact that I was not employed and my consulting was at a low ebb. Add to that resentful of the treatment and the time/effort I’ll never get back. (I landed eventually, converting consulting to a full time position.)

    Cold satisfaction: the CEO was fired less than a year later, the CFO became the COO, their US business is nonexistent and the Cypriots run the company.

  27. @Dee:

    I had a situation with a company where my gut was telling me “no” and I declined the offer.

    8 months later, the filed Chapter 11

  28. Pamela and Dee make good points which it doesn’t take me to make obvious. I’d make some observations though. In my view our era is devolving and all the techno advances made are not stopping it. All the Kings Horses Men and Mr Turnbull are not going to be able to fix Humpty unless ecology, environment and caring for others achieves a priority. Unemployment overpopulation and globalisation affect all our lives.

    The emphasis throughout is on wealth and power whether in a tiny impoverished village where your two cows and 5 surviving sons and 4 daughters are your future. That people will enrich others to vast sums for creating such distractions as ‘social media’ or producing a ‘boy band/girl band’or a soccer team or cricket team raises its own set of questions about the deteriorating human prioritisation continuing to support events even if corruption is exposed.

    The sense of morality we had has narrowed as a sense of desperation and survival spreads. It no surprise to see the pop-out managers flaunting MBA’s or some other ‘management’ education whether real or created on line in which ‘competent or a ‘pass’ sees them let loose on us with their peculiar ethics of striped-suit thuggery.

    In a frenzy of robotics and drones I have tried to engage my world-wide membership engineering fraternity in sustainability ethics and some morality in even refusing to create more WMD electronics and to more actively and partake in WHSE and safe design. I don’t get even an acknowledgement.

    I was promised however by one US member associated with the election of the committee last year that (as no candidate gave any indication) I would be guaranteed timely answers from the candidates to my question. None came. Liars abound.

    What’s my point?…it’s that the assimilation of ‘no one gives a toss about YOUR problem…go find someone who cares’ has become a soul-disintegrating disease and in the discussion here it shows itself as a disease which damages people very badly.

    Pamela drew attention to the costs of litigation and Dee to the value of gut feeling. That may actually be a form of ‘situational awareness’ more highly developed in some than others but….how does one handle the feeling of risk?.

    I don’t agree with Dee on this, “Written offers, start dates, emails–forget it”….I understand they may or may not advance one’s cause but they do assist if there is litigation, they do demonstrate your due diligence to a genuine offer and they do give the applicant an extra indicator in deciding what to do.

    Therein lies their contribution also to Dee’s ‘gut feeling’….that premonition espoused in “Shadowlands” (after CS Lewis and so well spoken by John Bell many years ago at the Sydney Opera House) ) ‘they say that all is well…but all is not well’.

    One of the great advantages/strokes of luck is to be able to talk with employees of a company and more so the person who has just left the position you are hoping to fill, if not a new position’. I’ll go so far as to say that a company worth its salt would enable finally-listed candidates to talk alone with the person leaving the position and judge the reality of the position and company, expectation, limitations, realities and potential for themselves.

    Dee wrote….prior to her converting to consultancy (in which she has the drive, I hope, to treat people well and resist not treating them as commodities) …”Add to that resentful of the treatment and the time/effort I’ll never get back.”…that’s the part that can not only ‘sour’ a person at the time but tragically can turn them into the kind of people who initiated the sourness in them’.

    The era of ‘natural management’ is passing largely owing to corporate fears of insurance liability requiring Cert. iv/diploma/degree/postgrad qualified managers in which good natural management is not highly regarded and the questions asked to ‘pass’ are interested in dwelling on the academic.

    Whatever good they may have in them has to resist ‘market forces’ and the ‘norms’ of contemporary business practices. That’s one reason it’s so hard to even get a written reference, they have escape routes.

    Dee also mentions ‘dead silence’. This infuriating frustration I have met sometimes in business or for example in trying to get paid for say car damage, I meet at university in my present course…. On a worksite when questions go unanswered it’s considered ‘bullying’.

    At University it’s an unfulfilled accountability of theirs for which the student takes the punishment and all you likely do, on my experience, is harm yourself in trying to require answers to course- related questions.

    The process then, to try to resolve the situation hardly involves them and requires the student to make a forensic presentation which can be dismissed as ‘didn’t fulfil requirements’ before it even gets open minded attention. Similarly in business and these days in the public service frustrating people to the extent they just go away seems commonplace.

    Modern Management, psychopaths, sociopaths, pathology and morals…and old time approaches …. I recall some decades ago being employed at (now defunct Clyde Westeels) as a sales engineer.

    I sat alongside the senior sales engineer in front in an office . A week later I was asked to design my business card (put my name on one)…I titled myself ‘sales engineer’ The Office manager said no, you are the Senior Sales Engineer…I said ”eh??…I’m sitting alongside the senior sales engineer. “Oh he’s going” he said. Two months later he was still there and still offering no assistance. He refused to handle any telex requests from interstate…”the never do anything for us!!”…littered with expletives however later I realised there were more ‘sinister’ reasons.

    Each afternoon when he left I would take the screwed-up telexes from the bin and in my own time do what he hadn’t…sometimes back as late as 7:30 pm. I’d organise despatch of spare parts and information and follow up other enquiries. I was ‘staggered’ that this person had the position he had held for some years and wondered how much damage he’d done.

    By now I’d been asked to say what kind of company car I wanted…I said ‘red Mitsubishi station waggon with cloth trim’. I got a mustard coloured Corona sedan.. second hand.

    I was not happy and less so when it broke down.

    Later when I could not longer put-off my visit to the Melbourne management (an engineering designer there was manager and he’d been at my interview…good bloke). He told me of his recent change of company car….he’d been given a red Mitsubishi station waggon with cloth trim. Had I been Mick Jagger I could say ‘I was so pleased about this that I ran 20 red lights in his honour’ On that trip I was told I was to be the next NSW manager.

    On return I wrote an incisive report of my visit,(still in my files LOL!!) Some weeks later I came in one morning to find an envelope on my desk with a piece of string formed into a hangman’s noose and a sketch of a hanging man. The note read ‘if you’d do this we’d all be a lot better off’. I thought about my responsibility for a week and then took it to the office manager.

    The next day he came to me and said ‘the general manager is in hospital for an operation for cancer at the moment…he received a similar note this morning, same writing..a card saying ‘hope you die on the operating table’.

    Outcome/investigation ?…zero.

    Two days after the other “Senior” finally went about 2 weeks later, I received a call, he presuming I was the old Senior SE…to tell me to get the contract signed immediately for the equipment offered by the chap who’d just left in competition to Clyde’s Tender which he’d given…He was agent in Australia for a Swedish engineering company and competing against our employer! He said if you don’t get the agreement to me today we’ll lose it. I didn’t help of course.

    Soon after that the NSW manager departed and a new one arrived, not me. He moved closer to my desk, outside the old office and seemed to spend inordinate time glaring at me, as so often when I looked up he was (LOL!!)

    Some weeks later I asked my (very competent) secretary to type a personal letter to do with my house, for me if she’d be so kind during her lunch hour. It was a five minute job so I felt ok to ask.

    She did apparently but during it the NSW manager demanded she hand it to him . She refused and said it was private and it was her lunch hour so not being done in work time. He then sacked her on the spot….she only had time to explain it to me when I came into the office from a job and before she went that afternoon.

    Her sister also a secretary but to the incapacitated General Manager ripped into the NSW manager, savaged him, and called him for everything in the book with every epithet known and then said ‘now sack me you #$@%%$#^&# and see what happens to you’

    I also told him my opinion of him, but by this time he was a bit shaky and also realised he’d be wise to be careful about how he handled me.

    What he did do however was to sack quite a few others…perhaps as a cover,but probably as the GM’s sister had yelled at him he was well known as a staff-assassin without a conscience. That explained why I wasn’t there in the job.

    One, an older man with less than 2 years to retirement was in tears, his sobbing was so hard to take…. All they got was a brown envelope with the bad news. He’d been there I think 29 years. He wept,’I’ve been her 29 years and now this….” it was pitiful.

    I’d had a gutful and I fronted the NSW manager and amongst the statements I mentioned that people with long service to good companies were given some recognition even if it was an inscribed Rolex.

    The next round of sackings he came to me like a puppy looking for a pat on the head and said “guess what …this time we are giving anyone here over 20 years a watch” and a beer …(un-inscribed $150 variety watch).

    He just didn’t get it..but for some reason he wanted me to think better of him I guess or maybe he wanted to think better of himself.

    I’d contacted Defence, for whom I’d worked as as an engineering specialist and also with tenders and contracts management also…. which enabled me to detect faults and mis-comprehensions of specs in tenders from places like OK Tedi and to have them sorted out.

    My letter was concerning the call about the equipment I mentioned, a composite system of analogue and digital laboratory and field equipment which suffered losses in the interfacing.

    A complete and far better system, not ours, was a specific and purpose built system they had rejected for this seemingly ‘inside job’ assembly of various components. We’d lost the tender so my concern was not prejudicial to us.

    My concern, having been involved with aircraft spares during ‘Vietnam’ was that for me safety for civilians and our armed forces is bigger than any company or any deal….and so very often Defence specs are written around equipment which is from a successful salesman but not the best available at lowest price with spares/warranties/performance etc for the job.

    The equipment was to be used for vibration testing for detecting wing stress on aircraft in the advance-detecting of cracks. I’d said and said ‘wrong choice’ explained why in a comprehensive analysis of the specs Vs the gear.. I was thanked but they bought it anyway…less than 2 years later as I recall was a news report about ‘stress cracks found in XYZ aircraft’….the equipment, as I said, would not do the job had not done the job.

    Around this time there was a major mine strike in Wollongong/Thirroul areas.

    The NSW manager came to me and required ‘You will go to Wollongong and sell our equipment on the basis it will replace men’. I said ‘I’m sorry….I have no interest in being kicked to death , I am not going to do that. I will go there and sell our equipment on its merits and it will have a far better chance if the workers are treated respectfully. Right now also I am on a project that can’t wait…Wollongong can….”

    Two weeks later “what was the result”?…’I didn’t go’ “why?” “I told you why, I am not prepared to do what you want and as well as that I have previous important work on and the Wollongong run is not as critical’. I said “long after you are gone this company still needs to be able to show its face in places like the mines and I’m not going to screw that up…If you agree to my not selling primarily to replace men fine, I can go next Wednesday”…(5 days away)…so I went. I met workers, Union rep. met hierarchy in a very tense environment which I was able to work my way through and get a hearing on both sides.

    I left info and pamphlets and all the rest and offered our equipment on its merits. Obviously I am not suited to the Attila-the-Hun approach but I gave it all I could for my Employer.

    I came back and three days later was told to resign by the NSW manager. I did so, there was no future under a person who had no experience with stand-off industrial situations and no background in the materials we sold. His job was to lop heads and mine was I imagine, a particular pleasure.. I spoke to him again about his dismissing of my secretary and what a loathsome specimen of management he had shown himself to be.

    A couple of days later he came to me almost in tears to tell me I was a really good bloke etc. He said I’d done the right thing and he would be giving me a really good reference and a couple of extra weeks to find another job.

    He said he had been told I was to be the next manager and decided right from the start I was going to go.

    I guess Melbourne management might have had a word in his ear but whether or not I suppose for me it was what it would be like leaving an asylum for the clean fresh air outside knowing you didn’t fit in. ‘Not fitting in’ felt SO good. No material gain is worth the loss of one’s soul, integrity or decency.

  29. In December I had a job offer and an interview for a job I really wanted in same week. I managed to get more time before signing the contract to see if I would be a viable candidate for the 2nd job. I advised the 2nd job of my situation in hopes of expediting the process and confirm I am a top/serious candidate. They told me gruffly that they are not going to be ‘rushed’ nor should I expect any ‘coddling’.(!) So, I accepted the first job and signed the ‘At Will’ contract. Just before Christmas, I received an e-mail indicating they are rescinding the offer- no explanation. I suspect they found someone cheaper as I had to negotiate the salary various times disgruntling the Owner. He had hoped I could turn the ‘negative environment around’- I wondered at the cause and now see it may be him! Well, in both cases, I’m told I’ve ‘dodged bullets’ and ‘it’s their loss’ by colleagues/friends. So, I am back to job searching and trying to stay hopeful and positive! Hope this helps. Thanks!

  30. I flicked back here as I saw the alert when opening the emails. One thing naturally many of us don’t realise is that when companies tender for work they nee to have certain staff to do the job on allocation of a contract. Now particularly when the tender is more or less at the death there might be 2-3 preferred tenderers and the question arises ‘does XYZ ABC and 123’ have the resources?…some companies do not have the financial resources until a contract is let and the bank funds it. So….positions are advertised by perhaps even all those companies to have people in the wings….to say ‘yes we have that staff’. Two or all of them will not get the contract so any ‘successful’ candidates are going to not be taken-on.

    Sometimes a contract is rescinded even after being given and the now rejected company may be paid for its costs so far or may sue. Either way they don’t pay people for their costs and wasted time even were they themselves paid for it. There is a constant ebb and flow like this on Commerce and Industry and they don’t give a toss about the applicants….

    So Marie….The first employer perhaps saw you as doubtful as a stayer and for me this sort of ‘what’s my best step’ situation arises from inadequate information in job advertisements and interviews in which questions are avoided even though they are pulsing to come out!…concerning issues which make you decide to take the job and perhaps know it can keep you .

    It’s not quite clear who knew what about your movements however were I say employer ‘one’ and knew you were extending for a second interview I’d be looking after myself first, depending on my needs or ask you to come in and there discuss with you what advantage you saw in the other job to see if I could accommodate it.

    You might think about the impressions you give across during interviews when you have more interviews to go’

    Were I employer number 2 I’d have said “Marie I can see your reasoning and the problem you face however our goal is to get the position filled within our resources and time frame so whether we win or lose with you we have to work with that. We cannot accelerate the decision making for you and as well as that we don’t want to be even thought responsible if we don’t take you on and you lose another job so at this point I’d say to you don’t rely in any way on our position,take what you can get in the meantime….don’t even dream of getting this job in your considerations for your own best future. What happens here will unfold in due course, which may not be for months yet.”

    As I said in an earlier letter the old days have changed, culture destruction is underway to globalise the world in advance of doing what the Australian Government has been doing over several years on behalf of the New Order…organising work for escapees from cheap overseas labour, feeding large sums to ‘body-hire’ parasites almost invariably of their own nationalities (you may have seen instances in a recent documentary… but I have seen if for years on building sites).. and others may have when seeing immigrant cleaners turn up in a new Volvo to clean houses on the North shore. One who recently assailed me about ‘you Australians…you lazy’ I said “You came here for the lifestyle didn’t you?…now you tell me that we have it through laziness…..what should we do in your opinion’….’you all lazy’ she stormed off…and compared with some of them maybe so but….are we just workers? taxpayers? or humans? Young people today face much obstacle in constancy of work…even getting work.. which we never faced in the 1950’s and 60’s.
    and they face deceivers in power.

    The Government and COAG tried the cheap globalised-labour con on by hiding it deeply in the National Licensing submissions. I uncovered it and gave them a savage response to every page of the ‘grand con’ …Having failed in deceiving the Australian trades population that way they waited a while then incorporated it into the so called ‘free trade’ humbug….’free trade of no benefit worthwhile to Australians …and again offering and it was quite clear…the denials were lies…that the Chinese could work here without trades testing.

    Next will be India and Indonesia ‘free-trade’. The Australian Public by and large drifts on in a pipe dream, neither knowing nor wanting to know how they are being manipulated into just another place for serfs to produce money under military and police jurisdiction, as in 3rd world nations and USA.

    The future of workers is in their hands. Unfortunately the ILO supports the New World Order. That said in my view…and I have many points of difference with unions to which I have belonged all workers should join unions AND control them, not be railroaded. If you want decency from employers it may need you to demand it of your local member….under multiculturalism…previously an Australian virtue now a legal obligation…

    Australian mate-ship culture is pretty well dead. They forever roll out Gallipoli several times each to pretend it isn’t.

    Look for jobs you can do, look for possibly long term employment and save all you can. Don’t play companies off one against the other and do remember so many CEO’s etc. large and small are linked by The Lodge, Rotary and Lions for example and they talk to each other. As well as that anyone silly enough (my view) to go onto social media should remember that lawyers, police and employers do so too….and learn about you things you really do not want them to know or wish you’d never said.

    If you don’t expose inner yourself to the world you need have no fear or paranoia.

    I’ve said all that just to indicate it’s anew world…we are commodities who may eventually become a sort of ‘people’ but ultimately a commodity. Bear with me for some examples.

    After my apprenticeship I left the company…silly move as I was apparently their best ever…and as jobs were short I found walked the streets with a yellow pages…from Sydney city to Artarmon..being sent on sympathetically from one to the other also. I ended up being offered work by a consulting firm at three times what I was prepared to accept.

    I did well and became a design and detail draftsman doing good work. They also employed contract draftsmen and women at far more than I was getting. After 18 months and some really well done designs I asked for a raise but heard nothing…tried again three months later…nothing….eventually I went to see the chief engineer in his office just to ask…he said “remember this (Me) NO ONE is indispensable” and that was all.

    I was 21 then when that job took me and I have never forgotten it. Vietnam was on ad I went to Defence.

    It’s new world Marie (and all those Maries) ….try to plan your future by always consolidating experience and building so employers can see how you have goals and targets and meet them. Only go for jobs you really can see improving you and be prepared to make a decision ‘no’ as well as ‘yes’ in fairness to yourself.

    I’m from a family of let’s just say at least 15 children with no idea who was our father’s father . Every one, even the autistic one, has outstanding management ability…interestingly enough in Hotels!! but elsewhere. This has been passed-on as natural ability to the next generation certainly in my lot.

    My grand daughter then 19 left her first job (dental nurse assistant) after a needle stick injury fault of the dentist. Before she left she actually organised a replacement completely on her own resources …who stayed-on. From there she went to a computer company on $49,000 at age 20. After a year or so she went to another computer company on same money and left before it folded. She then went to an international cereal company where she gained events management experience….all the time building expertise…

    Knowing she was going to go to Uni she took a contract job as events manager at about $68,000 aged 24. They ‘tried it on’ last Christmas ‘we’ll be closing etc. for a month …you can come back in January and we’ll start payment again.. ‘No way’ she said.. ‘we have a contract and that was not a part of it’….so they had to relent and in the meantime she’d found (no flies on this one) that they’d advertised her position which was natural I guess as she was going to leave….when she went to leave her work had been so good they honestly wanted her to stay on.

    She said ‘no’, starts uni this month doing the course she wanted to do at 18 but couldn’t get as her ATAR was only 91. I’ve mentioned this also Marie to illustrate than employment is like building a house….you lay the correct footings on food foundation …build upwards whilst building outwards but your outwards is controlled….your upwards is limited only by the strata space you can achieve on the footings you designed-in and the foundation material which is your own vision and composition.

    Her mother had an appalling relationship which saw her managing the male so as to survive….At about 30 she ended up in a surgery. Some few years ago she was asked to become manager and she immediately set about saving and recovering large sums of money for the partners, all the time living in the relationship where he developed large debts in her name and so on…Not so long ago he shot through. She was soon after offered permanency on her casual rate plus other benefits and including a share of any money saved..st 45 she is on over $100,000 basic now….and about to start uni!!….part time. What’s her success story?…integrity, prioritising, sticking with it, being honest and straight-talking even when it hurt some of the partners…because she’d done the research and they learned to trust her…she was always unconsciously building that workplace house but staying within the envelope…..until she without ever even talking about it to me other than when thinking of moving on which I dissuaded…became so intrinsically valuable she was an investment the partners can’t afford to lose..and they and the patients all love her.

    I don’t know if this all makes sense you Marie….maybe I’m trying to say only take on the battles you know you can win…and as in Musashi’s advice…he the great swordsman… when asked by a youth about how to win in battle he said ‘do not go in hoping to win or lose, go into battle doing the best you can do’ Musashi though it grates on me to say it…can be read in the Book of 5 rings. Though painfully Americanised it might be a great read for you Marie.

    Maybe if one line of all that long-winded story helps someone, that’s good. If not…well…Voila

    Voila

  31. As if I haven’t said enough already!.. I want to pickup on something I missed. There’s an important difference between a job offer and an appointment. Companies may interview down to a small group then maybe say 3-5 or 1-3 whether or not ready to make a decision. They discuss terms with each to see where they can gain the greatest advantage. Depending on the time lapse between application interview and appointment they know that one or more might stay where they are or become elsewhere employed. They may send offers to all(say 1-5) of them at the discussed terms or shaving some of it away. Various people receive offers and may reply indicating their willingness. The Company assesses the response and may then appoint one person. Each person however thought they were the one chosen and may even have written back indicating they want a change to the conditions disused at interview.

    This leaves several in serious disappointment from their ‘misunderstanding’.

    Companies (and lesser organisations) may receive many hundreds of applications for an advertised position. Time spent in analysing the advertisement,creating appropriate C.V./’Resume’ may take an individual dozens of hours plus costs of postage or in some cases paying several hundred dollars for a CV/’Resume’ targeting that job. Companies rarely acknowledge that and it can be a plus when they use a recruiting company. Even being head-hunted faces challenges and sometimes, ultimately humiliating deceit.

    It may be that people called for interview even buy clothes or a suit and shoes for the interview rather than say rent clothes…which may not even enter their head. It’s not unfeasible that an individual may spent $1000 by interview. The resulting emotional investment can be so massive as to ruin their interview.

    The company can tax-off all their expenses and so could appoint a person or people to answer all ‘phone enquiries concerning the job and conditions and save applicants the money through better advice. It rarely happens satisfactorily as an answering service/call back offer is often encountered.

    I’ve called about any job and sometimes got as far as explaining that an indication of the package/location/some other point would enable me to decide whether to apply or not. If they refuse I don’t apply…like societies that run on secrets I don’t see them as credible.

    Some do it to really quite pointlessly to stop ‘in house’ enquiries which might lead to a person realising that they are the one going to be replaced (another reason decisions can take so long as the ‘about to be flicked’ may have no idea of it)and then problems can be created if they don’t find someone ‘better’ to replace the person.

    So…be aware that, as in that really interesting(on Internet) series and book “Pawns in the Game”, that’s what we have become when power is concentrated, unemployment massive(far more than the figures given, which ignore whole sectors of unemployment)and people no more than, at least at the outset,commodities for use in profit.

    There are techniques which Nick Corcodilos and other commenters can provide more than I in how to become an applicant, even a successful applicant and still stay a truly functioning human. These are a couple of mine.

    One is devising or having devised for you a CV/Resume written in such a way, perhaps made modular, as to be quickly re-arranged for a new application, is on.

    Another particularly if already employed but even if not…or if still at school…or laid up sick…is to narrow down your field and study that field, companies prominent in it and their history, techniques, achievements, current undertakings and even failures so that you are really well prepared to decide on where you will apply and not apply, be knowledgeable and interesting at interview but develop a caution against being critical or smug or raising issues of their failures.

    In closing, I recall being interviewed by the Board of a very established Public company. The Board was all ‘much older’ me. They seemed impressed with me until I said “I have some ideas on how the Company can become more profitable’ Their eyes glazed-over. I was out!…I didn’t realise that from where they sat I was saying ‘I can do better than you are’.

    Leave the “I’m your man” decision up to them, instead be a ‘person of interest’ in their field…applying for a job in your real area of interest and best experience should start long before a job is advertised…I’d say at school.

    Continuous improvement of yourself in all ways, inside and out…being yourself but ‘spruced up’ from public speaking, mentoring, spiritual development and ‘mindfulness, Tai-Chi, helpful courses, study as mentioned earlier, learning the TYPE of person usually successful in that industry…much history of successful men and women is written and readily available.

    I for example was twice recently told I am ‘very confrontational’ in my writing but far less so when in conversation where I am quite pleasant and easy to speak-with . Hmmmm!!… My pen is more dangerous to me than a sword!! LOL! This instance was in academia where some and especially theorists are used to adulation and power through academic results rather than down amongst the ‘great unwashed’. A practical manager with much experience and qualification I challenge that power in their eyes even when I have backed right off in mine. The sense of authority lingers in writing style. Now I am in their environment, not mine, not always dealing with practical people, I’m in their lion’s cage, and I don’t slink away when rumbling noises are made or when refused answers. That’s very confronting to them. You must be taught your place…and they do wield a great deal of power. It’s the same throughout the New Order, learn how to work to live, to give and take, to see another point of view, but don’t let a job or an interview for a job, destroy you or leave you embittered. If you do it will show at the next interview. You tried, it was their decision to make, learn and move ahead with a smile and…keep learning..

  32. I left a perfectly good job to start work at UMDNJ, which some may know was the NJ State medical school. The verbal abuse from my manager started almost immediately. I asked for a day off to close on my house, suggesting I make up the time with the extra hours I was putting in doing training. I was told ‘you have some nerve thinking you could make up the time with training hours, the only reason you need extra time is because you’re so slow!’. Who talks to staff like that? It turned out, this same woman (a retina specialist and surgeon) was known as the ‘monster’ and had demolished 7 others in the same position over the last two years. The Dept. Deliberately failed in its responsibility to manage the excesses of the monster, allowing her to unabatedly ruin lives. P.S. Several complaints to the university’s EEO Dept. Went unresponded – what a cesspool! Bottom line; its your life and livelihood, don’t hesitate (in the most professional manner) to ask important questions like ‘is this a new position’, how many others had the position in the last x years and speak to a variety of other team members both in the Dept. And in related depts. Be clear about expectations and boundaries. Get it in writing.

  33. Luci–my sympathy. My brother is a UMDNJ graduate from when they first moved to Newark, and from what I’ve heard it’s no better, probably worse, under Rutgers. I hope you’ve moved on from there.

  34. I’d add to Luci’s point about ‘is this a new position’–if it is a replacement, find out what happened to your predecessor and even better, find them (LinkedIn is good for this) and InMail them.

    In the case above, I got shifting stories about this marketing director’s wanting to start his own business, having time for his family, tired of a long commute, etc. That was from the CEO and CFO. From the parent company CEO (another gut-wailer as he oozed pious sleaze), I got a story about the predecessor telling the CEO about not being able to contribute 100%–and the CEO then told me that this job needed 100%. My BS detector went to MAX.

    Oh yes, I did try to contact the marketing predecessor–crickets. Another red flag. Was he restrained by his departure agreement? Was his new marketing agency doing work for the company? I found out (by looking at his website) that it’s listed as a client, along with his (now defunct) side company.

    Add to Nick’s 5 points a point 6–find out what happened to the predecessor and ask multiple people including the predecessor. See how the stories compare.And research the predecessor(s)!

  35. @Luci the cat: at my last job at a large state university, my school/program/dept. got absorbed (temporarily) by another school due to severe, to the bone budget cuts. Nursing people were put in place to run us while we were on probation with our accreditors (huge red flags for them that we didn’t have an independent dean, that our business offices and funds were mingled with Nursing’s, and that we had gaps in the faculty due to the budget cuts and folks taking early retirement). It was a debacle, a nightmare, a disaster. The one brought in to be my boss used the program as her own piggy bank, ran roughshod over faculty and especially over staff, and treated my program as the poor stepchild–tried to get students to switch out to nursing. She was slimy, rude, disrespectful, didn’t care about staff (didn’t bother to get to know people). She treated nursing faculty and staff the same way, and went out of her way to be a high-maintenance prima donna. There were complaints filed against her with the unions (she refused to give a nursing employee time off to go to her father’s funeral) and with HR. She would random dump work at whichever blob happened to be in her cross-hairs. It was irrelevant to her that the task/work/project didn’t go to the right person, or even to people who didn’t report to her. The woman who finally, politely told her that she didn’t work for her when work was dumped on her desk got fired when my boss didn’t like it–and went to her BFF the dean to get the employee fired. That employee, an African-American woman, went straight to the union and to HR, filed a complaint, and threatened to go to the media. Her complaint was tied up for nearly 4 years, by which time another faculty brought her to work under her instead of the dean, and was still pending when my boss’ contract expired. This happened AFTER I had been working there for about a year, but asking those kinds of questions: is this a new position? if not, who had the job before and where is s/he working now? How many people have held this position in the past (pick a time frame)? If they start sucking air or refuse to provide information, RUN as far and as fast as you can. It means there’s a problem: maybe the boss/director is a psychopath, maybe the job is undoable (too much for one person), maybe there’s no where to go afterward (no opportunities for promotion).

    What I want to know is how do people like you old boss at UMDNJ (I’m familiar with it as a number of the students in the program I used to run earned their medical degrees there) and like my old boss (the one who refused to grant another employee time off to attend her father’s funeral) not get jobs but keep them and get promoted?

  36. It’s time for me to abandon ship…but before I go………

    Academia is a different world as far as I can see….so many know everything except how to be practical hands-on. I don’t know about USA/Canada/Britain but it seems easy to ‘make redundant’ any protesting staff whilst keeping on the hot shots. That way the observant staff are made to look like troublemakers, affecting their chances for any ‘made-redundant’ staff re-employment if they open their mouths.

    Dumping the ‘hot shots’ when useless, screw-loose, menaces, psychopaths, ‘what-ever’ is a big ‘OUCH’ as if it gets around it reflects on the University and its CEO/Chancellor/HR …. something which must never happen to such genius’!”I mean hey….come on…’we are the champions..of the world’…are we not?!

    The ‘seat of learning’ travesty must have a cloak of invisibility pulled over it.

    One very commonly-used and extremely expensive solution is to put the bad-choice academic rat-bag on a bigger salary then negotiate a big pay-out for them to maybe hang about a while so ‘all seems well’ and then to leave with nothing said adversely either way.

    We could be talking of $millions and a few years of them sitting around or at the beach anywhere to keep them out of sight…whilst paying them a Motza with more to come.

    In USA uni’s apart from thousands of active sayannas there seems to be a socio-facist student movement claiming racism/sexism and other humbug, standing over the establishment with megaphones and ridiculous accusations and “gimme gimme gimme….,and “I demand and you will jump as high as I tell you!!…and as often!” screaming for a showdown and seeing top management then come lamely out wanting to look like good little politically-correct masterminds and ‘negotiate’ with those brats….and even when given what they want they still demand it!!.

    It’s just so pathetic and someone might end up employing these dominating whining dead-beat who might be ‘graduates’ one day….where they may find spitting the dummy and bib-ripping Farex-hurling highchair/dirty nappy tantrums in commerce find them out on the street.

    Maybe they get a job at a University.Then they become ‘real’ victims in their own kindergarten minds and like in Hollywood recently even if not worth being noticed they play the race-card and threaten self harm or mutiny or blame anyone but themselves until someone (else) gives in.

    This smart, arrogant, powerful but wimpy academia makes Uni pretty neurotic and stressed. The ‘persecuted’ students (and many are just ring-ins not students)themselves high-end bigots who know from what they did at home, at school and now under some ‘multicultural’ political fascism can yell and scream their way through uni having terrified the establishment to just want to get rid of them as quietly as possible.

    So….this does reflect on the mid-range staff?; of course it does and nerves fray.

    A far better idea is ‘reformation’….for the staff who will be going to work under any new boss be by agreement, involved in interview and reviewing references….by going and speaking with the ‘proposed employee’s ‘ previous employers and work fellows. You may have to go to the Dean or Board as a group for that revision of the employment process.

    I recall one instance at a NSW Uni where three professional staff were given the flick whilst the target of their displeasure, and with good reason, went on to cost the Uni $Millions of wasted infrastructure and a similarly considerable amount to ‘say nothing’. Saying ‘one NSW’ university doesn’t mean there are not 50 more like it around the Nation.

    Taxpayers and students and donors pay all this wasted cash…vast sums so that ‘no one knows’ what appalling choices the academic genius’ make with these nightmare people who may have sacks full of degrees from universities from here to Pluto and they may well be legitimate ‘flow on’ degrees of 6 months or a year or RPL’d….but they are in la-la land when it comes to practicality, honesty and management.

    They are like pathological ‘Bill Sikes’-‘morph’d into academic-foxes who’ve found their way into the University Hen-House Bank.

    Once employed they may have up to $500,000 or so of their own unaudited expenditure available…Some employ their mates to replace the ‘trouble-makers’ they has ‘removed’ …and this in universities where people outside think ‘these are our best, smartest, wisest’ etc.

    Sacking protesters and whistle blowers keeps the illusion alive until a solution can be negotiated with the academic who ought to be sacked and maybe, jailed.

    In these situations I’d say…..from day one keep a systematic and absolutely truthful diary or several diaries of the awful boss’ behaviour and orders and misdemeanours. Maybe set up a professional recording camera. They don’t cost much.

    At the same time however don’t drive a good one bad for some reason of your own (wrong religion….wrong collegiate…)or he/she actually makes you work the hours for which you are paid.

    People who can cope easily, know what the job requires and have adequate experience rarely behave like Simon Legree unless ill.

    They don’t have to scream and yell to try to be able to blame all the ‘useless lazy’ staff for their own management and personality transgressions.

    To make a sound, perhaps irrefutable case get good, consistent reliable evidence before acting and then, act as a group….maybe suggest counselling for the devolving personality, maybe some time off for their ‘relaxation’….then a ‘suitability assessment’…

    These things take a little time and they take solidarity based on genuine reasons which are universally acceptable, not some degree of ‘dislike’ or hormonal hatred’ because what you do reflects on the whole University image (so the Board will purport if it ever gets past the Dean and when maybe kicking your butts) when in fact they are just diving for cover…no matter what it costs.

  37. Speaking of exploding job offers, what about the ones that expire after 24 hours, or even less? Very disturbing employers wouldn’t give enough time to make any sort of considered decision.

  38. Well Stevie (hated your ‘music’ by the way LOL!!) employers over the era can be the kindly, safety conscious financially responsible salt of the earth or can be (as more likely these days the devious conniving unconscionable scum of the putrescent political new order deviancy and deceit and who ought to have been strangled at birth.

    Curiously and unacceptable to some parents, this rarely happens and strangling the parents might be good back-up to make sure none ‘slips through the net’……I think a “psychopath/sociopath detector” should be involved in all and compulsory prenatal scans with a button marked ‘goodbye and good riddance’ ….

    If so the position of PM of places like Australia, Israel, the US Presidency and Chairman of Nth Korea would have been a long time vacant! and the population problem would very quickly go away….

    Having amused myself there and as we don’t have such social advances yet, in later life parasitic employer trash of all nationalities and cultures who use-abuse and screw-over employees could enjoy public caning, knee-capping, be staked out for the crabs to eat ..or the ants….or something more deserving for first offences .. perhaps their erogenous zones permanently desensitised, their assets stripped and distributed to their victims.

    Worse cases could be denied further employment and charity, given a distinctive ‘brown-eye’ tattoo on their forehead to be easily recognisable, a port-flagon, a greatcoat and some Nike’s and told ‘go for it…..’

    Repeat offenders…best dropped out of an helicopter into mid Atlantic with leg shackles and water-wings to give them some time to consider their lives before the sharks get them or they decide to turf the water wings.. An option could be a very gradual feed into a tank of dilute nitric acid…give them time to ‘enjoy’

    Stevie I think the employer you speak about should be brought to the attention of one’s local member to front an ombudsman for significant punishment. The occupation you speak of might be (?) restaurant work, labouring, casual short term body-hire jobs.

    Stevie…would you really want to say ‘yes’ to such drop-kick employers?.. I’m not into social networking but….putting such documents on site could see them finding it hard to get staff.

    PS serious ‘dud-employer’ re-education can be learned through Mossad..it’s sadists taught the Americans at their ‘ rendition’ centres….

    Where there’s a will there’s a way Stevie.

  39. As usual, there are a lot of scary stories here, and the scariest come from the countries I thought were more civilized than the good old Yew Ess of Aay.

    My wife and I have recently planned for semi-retirement. The decision to do this was based on the ability to go on full retirement immediately if my current employer did not agree to let me go to part-time status. Chaos seems to be the basic MO of most companies now (or has it always been this way, and only now are more people taking note?), so even a week and a half later, I still have no word.

    We don’t expect to be rejected, but we fully anticipate the possibility. Other people approaching retirement seem to be taking a similar approach, that is, don’t tell anyone anything until all your paperwork is done at the Social Security office.

    Way back when, I remember when it was considered a courtesy to give your employer as much notice as possible before leaving. Now, I often see co-workers fired when they try to be polite.

    When I began this survival job over five years ago, I made the determination to never “move in”, that is, never have enough personal stuff at work to require even the iconic file box to carry it out should I ever be released from employment “at will”.

    Even though I’m lucky enough to have a locker, not more than 5-10 bucks worth of stuff is sitting in it at any time. I am literally prepared to be escorted off the premises carrying just the shirt on my back.

    Speaking of which, isn’t being escorted out of a building insulting and/or demeaning?

    Perhaps that’s why I’m glad I’m not a manager any more. Silly me–I actually let people say goodbye to their co-workers and trusted them not to walk off with company property after I fired them. What was I thinking? Or has all honor left the arena?

    Or was it never there?

  40. No one would be (officially) allowed in Australia to work under the ‘Chinese Coolie’ conditions of USA less than $3/hour and no guarantee of hours..often less than 20/week and no guarantee of continuum… particularly for waitresses. Now ‘tips’ are to be included in pricing…well no prizes to guess where much of that will go!!

    Ok let’s have a look at the changed world and why employers are substantially worse than they were post WW11 to about 1968.Let’s think about things I write that you might agree-with or with which you disagree…but ‘snap out of it DO something’.

    There were always lousy employers but not anything like we read of today. The rot started at roughly the time drugs surged in Australia around 1966….USA and Europe were already in the grip of a drug assault formed by the CIA in pushing LSD and cannabis whilst protesting its presence…as they d now with Cocaine and Ice…….using 60’s/70’s ‘rock stars’ to promote decadence, drug and alcohol use. MK Ultra and MK Delta were two of the new order channelling.

    In recent years the ABC almost every night runs its version of brain screwing called “Rage” ..that’s its allocated contribution of our funding to the New Order along with fear, horror sexual depravity and violence.

    To shonk the unemployment reality education is pushed and for example engineers and solicitors struggle at the outset to get a decent wage and we are fed relentless b/s humbug and outright culture frogsxxt about needing other nationalities to emigrate here to do the work….all a part of the New Order activity of globalised, inescapable, world serfdom.

    Business and government are controlled by debt and so we as their debt payers are under relentless pressure to pay the interest. Why do people accept this…apart from those too old and battered to care or try anymore…?

    The idiot-box trains people from the cradle where it is used as a baby sitter….screwing childrens’ brains and concentration so Mum and Dad can do as they please… thus the modern day ‘latchkey’ kids for whom taxpayers are rorted for ‘day care centres’ after which the contributory payment of workers they’d be better staying at home and minding their offspring.

    Those kids growing then to be employees and employers…No worries about what the child is absorbing through the cradle to grave machination but then … ‘entertainment psychologist’s wouldn’t have that planned out for future income …nor would deviates waiting for a new generation to prey-upon….would they!.

    All two parent employment ever did was to skyrocket home prices so both HAD to work and so developed day care centres and increases in old people’s homes as their homes were sold off to pay for the care…. Instead of demanding control we allowed Crown land rorts by aliens to deprive us of that fantastic system and developers to push for high rise, allowed by councils on which sat many developers and agents …and why?…because general managers of councils get paid more money as local population increases…the salary is geared to population. That can also be affected by changing boundaries for ‘political equality’ increases. Thus beautiful houses and land kids could run on, climb trees and play cricket were reduced to strata dumps using the humbug that the people wanted it.

    The use and targeting of children in advertising,sexuality and sales hardly gets a mention these days….No one did anything…the latter day Woodstock types here who’s brains are focussed on drugs,depravity and such humbug hoo-hah as marriage ‘equality’, and “Republicanism” … which works well nowhere on earth say it’s all good so long as no one gets hurt’…..and when they do get hurt ??…’oh send them to therapy’ or some drug clinic but don’t bother us with YOUR problems.

    From the child’s age of 11-12 in Australia NO parent has the right to know whether a child is a drug user, physically or mentally ill, having an abortion…That’s a part of the approach of the new order in dissociating families culture and controls.

    Nations spend trillions on mass murder particularly in the middle East, to achieve what they have achieved to more easily control us….revenge-terrorism. What you fear you cannot love. What you fear controls you. Our local councils are …an absurdity….attached to political parties, yet we just drift on, ‘whatever they think is ok is ok…..’ no concept of independent local government and so we get corrupt councils, premiers and businesses. People weary of protest especially since the “R” word was formed ‘redundancy’.

    We go dope about the so called ‘morals’ of the ‘refugee crisis’ and the clearly massive industry spreading them around the world, demanding ‘rights’. They say nothing about the opportunities to create business, to work, to repay what they are given or for the damage they inflict, say nothing about $480,000-$1m per refugee being spent….whilst we suffer without whimper reduced medial and pension entitlement and plans to get into our superannuation.

    I’ve lived in countries where they detest outsiders…and I know how it feels but I also understand ‘why’ in seeing their cultures usurped, their house prices increase…rentals increase….and wealth surrounding their poverty.

    In Soweto for example in one street is dire native poverty even if you can acquire an elephant house. In the next street Ferraris in the yard of people who bought the house cheaply, the elaborate security and razor wire around the high walls of the politically vaunted ‘protectors of the people’ like W Mendela and Bishop Tutu. One can tell their opinions of the people just by looking t their fortresses.

    In Soweto markets are held in the mud as natives try to eke out a living,

    So refugees, submarines, fleets of warships to please one alien government and selling off a port in Vitoria and in NT to the traditional opponent of that Government Who’s going to pay for all that in cash or ‘being controlled’ ? …. Government’ you say?…and where do they get money…..?…get the point?

    In the “GFC” not only was Australian Government’s worst management applauded as we sank into Bankruptcy but the USA was compensating those executive banks of the Central Banker conglomerate using borrowed money…borrowed from the Central Bankers.

    How much did we the people spend on Adler, Miller, Bond, Pratt, Skase, Connell, Williams, Foster and so on….and all those who were protected and allowed to get away including transport magnates. Do we make a stand and demand strict standards for management and a return to employing people as the primary goal of business?…or just let it roll over us.

    If you have position and power or even vote swinging ability, one of the advantages of ‘multiculturalism’ is dealing through ‘community leaders’ through which politicians are given selective audience. In the 1950’s everyone was given audience….

    When Governments give poor example as has post war government particularly post 1970 it rapidly spreads through out society…

    So….If we want better management start by controlling our politicians …at the nomination stage and don’t allow political groups to choose candidates without all promises being in writing and the person elected being employed only so long as it fulfils the promises. There’s a narrow band left in which our cultures can be returned but we have to snap out of it and DO it.

  41. A few years ago an employer paid for me to fly to their headquarters in another state for an interview. I met with a Director and a few other employees and at the end of the morning the Director sat down with me and we hammered out a verbal employment agreement. He told me normally the negotiations would have been handled by HR but they were not available that day and since I was flying back home that day he wanted to get it done.

    Upon returning home I was set up for a drug test and
    a few days later was called by what would soon be one of my peers and invited to lunch. After that things got wierd. I called the hiring manager and asked him when I would be starting, he told me he had not seen my paperwork yet, but he would call the Director I had interviewed with and see if he could not push it along. The hiring manager called me back later that day and said the Director would be calling to explain the situation and that was the last I ever heard from them.

    Fortunately I had not put in my resignation because I did not have a written offer, and I had not agreed with them on a starting date.

    Ironically there business cards had on the back a statement that read something like this “XYZ corporation the people company”

  42. I may just be one of the little guys, but a exploding job offer is no less devastating to someone who relies on their income.

    I left my previous employer after getting a job offer in writing from a company. It was contingent on a drug screen and background check. I passed my drug screen, did not hear anything about the background, so i assumed it was set. I called the employer to verify orientation and was told it was “taken care of” I turned down other job offers. I spent my last saved up money for a new uniform (required by them) and got there early for my first day.

    I was told i was not signed up for orientation. The HR rep seemed uncaring about my dilemma and I on the verge of tears went home to await her call because she was “looking into it” I did not hear from her all day so i called the staffing department, who in five minutes told me I was set to go, and that it was a simple computer error.

    long story short? its been 3 days of phone battles and I still dont have a job. I was told i could “apply to other locations” which is BS. anyone on earth with fingers can “apply” to any location. I followed ALL of my requirements for the offer (which was a clean drug test and no felonies) how is it even legal they can retract it when i complied? I feel like they fired me before i even started over something that was the fault of the HR department. Since they have hundreds of applicants, they do not care one bit. Now i am broke, jobless, and have an uncertain future.

    • Bella,

      My heart goes out to you. Were you able to return to your former job? Did the company that made you the offer in writing, ever explain what had happened?

  43. I came back on as Bella indicates a very serious issue and one which is a trap for young players…and older ones who also get excited about a job offer then expect decency to reign. There has been a dramatic shift since 1970 in the way employers treat the ‘job market’ and people in it.I’m going to make comment on the ‘behind the scenes’ activities which have led to what is now a pandemic of ‘who cares’ when lies are told and people hurt and disillusioned. We might not want, we may rail aganst it but….are we likely to make an impact? and are we being used by minnows in grand scheme? It’s time, long overdue that the ‘serfs-to-be’ started to take control of government and financiers, particularly the Central Bankers and laugh-off ‘voting’ as the only way to do it. I want to go into a much broader ‘behind the scenes’ picture before specifically addressing your story Bella.======
    One great advavantage in lies told about unemployment (e.g. unemployed school leavers, unemployed not on the ‘dole’ people who have never worked and illegal immigrants and overstayed visas being hidden in the ‘cultural community’ and ‘multicultural community jobs which will never be filled by a European-descendent Australian ) is that there is a vastly greater pool of unemployed than most of us could imagine if we knew. Immediately one can see if you take on board my assertion for a moment, an intial basis on which the retrograde treatement of job applicants succeeds.======
    Then one can extrapolate into the bigger picture…the nucleus of you like,..we are all faced with slowly increasing atrophication in our hearts and minds owing to such travesties of the mind as ‘mind brutalising TV shows using sick CIA psychology and called ‘reality tv’ to hich people flock in those “Oh but I love them’ cooking shows and other group exploitation which encourage sexual interaction, sadism and mental torture. Our minds are satiated by media’s daily exposure to genocide by brutes and psychopaths our governments praise, a never ending circularity on ‘terroism’ and through the millions murdered by our government cquiesence and involvement with ‘secutiry services’ . =======
    Instead of becoming more compassionate ‘business’ is becoming far less so.The upsurge of pawnbrokers ‘helping out’ the impoverished is one very visible example. We have largely lost compassion enought demand our governments desist and so exhibit it in irrational views on refugees. ABC’s Rage permeates viewers with disrespect for women, brutal sadism and the promenades worst noise possible as ‘music’ to cleverly breach its ‘not commercial’ manifesto along with other means and we daily face deliberate acts of evil by the New World Order which controls our governments through debt and cult worship. =============
    Along with the conniving insanity of central bankers who are the NWO in which environment is drastically ruined every day whilst they encourage increases in population to increase income came the madness of conniving globalisation and pulling stunts to sneak untested aliens into Australia to do ‘piece work’ in trades…as the Australian Government did with the National Licensing scheme which I helped destroy for it then about 18 months later re-emerging hidden away and duplicitously explained when caught out in free-trade agreements. There is the iniquitous and scurrilous and issuing 457 Visas in the pretence no Australian is available (ie Australians expect ALL employers proper conditions and wages for which workers have fought and died here).======
    That the Australian Central Bankers were never prosecuted for the multimillion dollar rort in the (awful) polymer note fraud in which massive bribes were paid to influence its accepting by corrupt, or NWO cult, governments is an illustration of the corruption in which Australians are pawns.=====
    Further out is such as creating and financing war and strife to enable a globalising migration of ‘refugees’…for whom I have in general terms great sympathy as they are pawns in the game…but also they are in part extremely arrogant and whilst costing some $5000,000 upwards each to taxpayer for care, accommodation, money mobile phones and the like…how dare we refuse them entry!!…The ‘care’ money is all borrowed and requiring massive interest payments. It is inescapable that an unknown number is prepared to destroy, invoke and force their ‘right to invade your nation’ furthering culture killing multiculturalism government fostered to move forward our NWO complaint ‘one world government inescapable serfdom’. The GFC was screated by the Central bankers with Kuhn Loeb as an executor…same bank as handled the financing and murders in the Russian ‘revolution’. They were then rewarded with taxpayers’ money whilst thousands of devestated victims…however one sympathises with them for their trust or gullibility or blames them for their stupidity…slept in cars or on the streets with their families. Denial doesn’t alter the reality and the New Order is no longer a secret, Bush and his criminal conspirators openly admitted it.
    So, Bella a great change has taken over the world, deception is its underlying feature and the atrophied mind and sense of decency is obfuscated by illusions of freedom..mardi gras, fun runs, sport, casinos, numerous useless and immensely expensive government gatherings to consider their navels eat drink and be merry, religious gatherings run by money grubbers and the like. “Business”, not always but pervasively under collaboration in lodges and other social-commercial groups uses it in allowing applicants to feel demeaned to such an extent in the last 45 years that dismissiveness has become an accepted travesty…a ‘norm’. You felt it Bella.=============
    The creating of anxiety and fear, also creates dictator mindsets and Unions have also corrupted and been pilloried which made their otherwise honorable intentions vulnerable, tarnished and disempowered. What you fear you cannot love.
    Bella, it’s important to take on board that these products of modern management education and worst practice example the ‘HR scum’ do not think they are doing anything wrong.When they do it’s momentary and switches instantly to excuses even where personnel are not yet totally decayed “yes, I felt bad but it’s not my problem’. A good example of the mindset where is the encouraging of people to invest money into schemes which were always intended to be rorts or who unwittingly perhaps employed pofessional rorters then proclaims “well…they took a risk to try to make a profit so bad luch…it was their own choice. That the scheme offered performance never intended or never able to provide the services used to get our money …and these include those Insurance schemes increasingly offered via TV….is just overlooked. Deception rules today.
    Ok…that’s my scenario for your developing an effective resume and plugging away Bella….Bella it’s possible that anything could have changed in that application , it could be there never really was an intention to employ an ‘outsider’, it could be someone’s mate or relation became available. It could be an overseas controller of the company doing a due diligence check on ‘what’s around’ or headhunting someone they really want but want to do by public methods..
    That equirements which border on absurdity such as police clearance are required is for three reasons, due diligence for insurance purposes, so that the employer can access your ‘whole story’ and so that secutiry services can store your life story and whereabouts. Your mobile telephone is a tracking device, your credit card and electronic banking is totally monitored and recorded by government and Israel (Inslaw Promis), your movements commonly recorded by cameras and ‘sign in sign out’s. With a raft of cocaine and ice users in upper management and with ‘freedom loving’ governments permitting ‘entertainment’ which encourages drug users in huge numbers it’s facaetious to require drug testing; that said having had to manage drug users myself, I do wonder why the hell they were employed as their secret lives and embedded duplicity get too much free reign when they can become invisible on construction sites and in large commercial enterprises.
    Bella, drawing towards the end of this….Those cautions such as making sure your application is honest and sensible, comparing what you offer with what they demand and realising that perhaps hudreds just like us want that job has to guide your interest. Accept the possibility you will be badly treated but that better now than later. Lasting one week or one month or three months or being asked for sexual favours …not at all uncommon in jobs through employment agencies and centrelink and is very common when emplyed with the “Horse Industry”or to badly treat others isn’t likely to improve your outlook or personality. On the other had it may make you more self preserving and brutalised …”if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”.
    I’ve also a caution, Bella, don’t start spouting the history I have given here…just be aware that this is how it is in the big picture. Deal with it by consolidating your good points and though I have many objections to RTO training, find well priced qualification gaining courses and do what you can and can afford…and courses advertised at $2200 for example I have found elesewhere at $395-$600. Do try to draw together a very small group of jobs you feel you could contribute in, having read profoundly what is involved and perhaps the history of people who have been successful in them then mould yourself into a possible desirability in that field. For example even a Cert iv in a management role indicates drive and opens one to higher courses.It is possible also to get into Uni on say an RTO Diploma and adequate work experience (likely a minimum of 3 years) later on….or you can do an HSC at TAFE or possibly a night school….or return to school at any age accepted and put your heart and soul into learning.
    Finally Bella, I know it’s not at all easy for many of us….
    Get counselling if from a dysfuntional or alcoholic/drug using family and continue it as you develop.
    Find and do voluntary work, it could be a nudge along in an application.
    Don’t rave-on in cv/resume and be factual “I did the HSC” when “I failed the HSC” is hardly truthful. “Education sccessful to end year 5” is more honest and if it counts they can ask you about it.
    If in doubt leave it out or seek a mentor.
    Seek a mentor.
    Seek a mentor
    Seek a mentor
    Don’t discuss politics, religion or people you don’t like or bad experiences in applications or interviews. If asked, you can say “To be honest,my views are kept private I treat others as I’d like to be treated, I’m not a gossip and I admire loyalty, that’s all I want to say’ or some other global answer, unless the nature of the job demands deeper answers.
    Bella, learn technique and ‘the other’s point of view’ from every application. Don’t hesitate to ask “where was I deficient, I’d like to work on it” however when trying as you have been to get ‘justice’ and accountability and responsibility from people who don’t want to give it….and I am in that position right now in a University situation….you damage yourself with open wounds and later scar tissue. You also almost immediately ensure no success as you are ‘hasseler…and we don’t need hasselers’…or ‘she’s someone who will not take ‘no’ for an answer, thank god we found out before employing her’ or even worse they employ you to get off their backs and then sack you to justify themselves. That it might have cost applicants say all together $100,000 to apply for a $25,000/year job really doesn’t worry them….”don’t apply then!…no one’s forcing you”…
    Places that demand ‘teamwork’ are immediately suspect for me as few have much idea of real teamwork and its best practice and development. When you get there and try best practice you become ‘not a team player”…silly as that seems to be…so if interested in being a good ‘team player’ study what that is in the modern context, explain it when asked or have an application opportunity (could be just ‘are you a team player’? …’I studied team work employment in such and such a course’ and apply it if you get the job.
    If you look at a lot of society adulated team players today…for example footballers and cricket players you see a shipload of tattooo’d nitwits and drongo’s barely literate (not quite as significant in Rugby…where GPS schooling has been widely a source…!! unless using ex-league players or ‘bad boys’. These ‘team players’ are reknowned for using drugs, as liars, fascinated (see fattie’s show) with cross-dressing, who inexcusably treat women as sexual commodities, fashionably ‘coming out’ often violent and who promenade themselves as ‘examples to the young’. You then move to say Australian women’s basketball and soccer where at this stage you see much more ‘real’ people and real teamwork. Often being offered a job leads to an interview or phone-call in which your respnses voice, hesitancy or “too much readiness” to answer may be gauged by a person with only a desire to get some one with a sexy voice and who says all the right things. In other words…a great deal of fate is….fate!…Try to only pick the battles you have a good chance of winning and if you lose, discover why as best you can without further damaging yourself, recover your strength and humour and rebuild and reinforce your situation through skill assimilation
    and mentoring.
    I think though we can become depressed, infuriated, angry through poor treatment which demeans us to ourselves, drives us to bitter tears and self doubts that we have really now to realise ‘that’s how it is today’ and use every possible way to develop ourselves. One of the things about doing say charity work is that we meet people, learn skills, see personalites we don’t want to end up as but can from which we can learn. In doing charity work we also make our lives of value and that really does give us self worth and sustenance….time to observe, time to think, hear stories, meet even ‘down and out’ ‘mentoring’. It all contributes to our store of desirability and if we get to interview stage, our (hopefully not contrived) ‘body language’. Voila

  44. As a travel nurse, after signing a contract for a travel position American Mobile Healthcare left me with no job and no place to live when they reneged on the start date and also tried to get me to train for free on Kronos and other facility specific items.

  45. I was a tenured teacher and accepted an offer for a new teaching position in order to be closer to my daughter. The offer came a day before the start of the new semester for my current school district. This was in 2010 in California, just shortly after the recession. My current district had someone who really wanted my job, so I knew they would not be left short-handed. I accepted the offer, resigned my job, and left the next day to sign papers and get finger-printing done in my new district- 3 hours away. I contacted the Vice Principal of the school where I would be teaching that I was coming. Once I arrived, I called him and got the answering machine and left another message to contact me. I then went to look at a house rental. I continued to contact the VP the rest of the day, with no luck. He called me the next day at home to let me know that I could sign the contract and do the rest of the paperwork when I arrived in 2 weeks- the start of their semester. I proceeded to rent out my house, make arrangements to rent the house I had seen the day before, and started packing. The Friday before the Monday when I was to start, the VP called me, while I was packing up the rental truck, to tell me the district had instituted a hiring freeze, but he didn’t think that would impact me, but I should be sure to stop by the District office Monday morning at 8 to sign papers. I was worried but what could I do? We continued packing, drove the truck to Monterey the next day, unloaded my goods into my daughter’s garage (I was holding off moving into the rental until I knew all would be ok). Monday, I signed the contract, did finger-printing at the DO. No one seemed to think there was a problem in HR. I got to my assigned school only be told that things had changed. I would be hired as a long-term sub until the hiring freeze was over and then re-instated with full pay retro-active to my start date. However, I couldn’t start until finger-printing cleared. This had not been a problem two weeks earlier when I originally wanted to do it. I agreed to the terms, however, the next day, I was told I would probably be a long term sub for most of the first semester and no retro pay. And I still couldn’t start. I contacted a lawyer at this point (I had pre-paid legal). He notified me that the law precludes employers from doing this and I could sue for triple pay, etc. I contacted the VP regarding this and asked what we could do to work out the situation. I was still willing to work with them, but I wanted to start and I wanted assurances of retro-active pay. The cost of living in Monterey, CA precluded surviving on sub pay. By this time, the house rental was gone and I was hemorrhaging money staying in a hotel. I also had dogs and cats to consider. The school never followed up with me. I never heard another word once I said I had talked to an attorney. I left, went home, luckily my tenant had not moved in yet so I had to tell them the bad news. More conversations with pre-paid legal resulted in nothing. They just give advice. They don’t actually do lawsuits. So, I hired a moving van several weeks later to move my belongings home. Now I was out a job during the recession when teachers were still not being hired and the school year had already started. (Teachers only have the summer to really look for a job.) And I was 58 years old!

    Months of looking for an attorney to take my case followed. I finally found someone in San Diego- a new lawyer. Two years later, the District said they would sue me if I continued my lawsuit. It turned out public entities, including schools, cannot be sued. No money, no job, and I was still not living near my daughter. It was one of the worst things to happen to me in my career.

    I started a tutoring business and I did fairly well, but eventually the recession took it’s toll on that as well. People in our small town just could not afford extras like tutoring for their kids. Ours were mostly lower middle class families who held on for quite a while, but by 2012, there just was very little available money.

    My daughter had graduated and returned home and she couldn’t get a job, so she went off to graduate school And I took early retirement at half what I would have made if I had worked until 65 and I moved to Mexico. I volunteer now to keep busy, but funds are tight and I cannot help my daughter they way I would like to. She has huge student loans and her prospects are tough now that she has her Master’s.

    The worst part is that my daughter sees that the system is rigged. She sees that I didn’t everything I was supposed to do- college, graduate school, working long hours to make great lesson plans, mentor teacher, I spent every summer taking summer school jobs to supplement my salary, I spent weekends grading papers and making lesson plans so I would be available for my students when I was in the classroom. I was dedicated and I believed I was making a difference in our world and that i was teaching my daughter to make a difference in our world in whatever career she chose. Now we both believe that none of that was real. We were patsies. Things have to change. There has to be trust between employer and employee and a sense that we are all in this together to make our world a better place. Employees cannot be just another resource to be discarded to serve the bottom line. Companies do better when there is loyalty- on both sides. And our society does better when there is stability.

  46. I already have the newsletter and read this blog religiously. Nick Corcodilos is one of the few employment bloggers/specialist like Liz Ryan who cut the BS and tell as it really is. Keep up the good work Nick! You have fans out here. :-) Employers today cannot be trusted. It is cut-throat and naivety and hope will not get you far. I accepted a job offer myself recently which of course came with an expiry date. I accepted this. I discussed full conditions during verbal offer before written official offer letter came and TBH I pretty much knew after final interview if I would take job or not. My main concern was to see if offer was reasonable or not. I am still not yet 100% confident about everything being in the bag and my new employer pulling an exploding offer on me. I mean you never know. S*** happens whether we like it or not. Most employers care only for no.1 candidates should too. As for people here worrying about resigning. No need. Go sick before the job starts. Check out new job first, if all is OK then resign like in first or second week while still on sick leave. OK it is a lie. But hey. Employers are no angels either! You start on a trial/probation period and what if it does not work out, you absolutely hate it or worse they completely lied about job? Best to think of you first rather than some perceived ethical obligation. I have seen a pattern where many people see employers and companies through rose-tinted lenses and get caught up in the excitement of job offers and immediately start planning to change their lives straight after receiving an offer. Not so fast. Go slowly that way if anything changes you still have plan B. If you get other offers/replies before you start the new job then do what employers do. Radio silence. This way you cannot be accused of continuing your job hunt after formally accepting an offer but if all falls through you can reach back out and maybe pretend like e-mails were not received/went to your spam box etc. A word of consolation, any employer who explodes a job offer is slimy, sadistic and callous. There is no two ways about it. You deserve better and you definitely do not want to work there. A working culture where they allow low practice behavior like this is not where you want to go to further your career.

  47. This happened to me in 2015, except I rescinded. I’ll try not to create a diatribe about that one, but they changed the start date and delayed 30 days without any reason and acted as though they wanted to re-interview me, after successfully passing the drug and background screening, the only contingencies. Not the kind of company I want to work for.

    Although I was laid-off at the time previously from a company that was selling off “group” companies in 2015,today it’s been 31 months now since being laid-off, and at 51, the job market is pretty absurd.

    It seems ALL companies operate in these despicable ways.

    I did some short term consulting in 2016, but more importantly, I am just in the last 60 days, having obtained a new contract position, full-time through a staffing firm, which is part of an engineering consulting firm, suppose to start a new position.

    Problem you may ask?

    After drug, background, etc. all completed and successfully passed, the firm start date in the written employment package has already been delayed twice, after my notice to my full-time employer (working full-time retail to obtain and pay reduced cost insurance) was given.

    Now, I’m still at the moment asking, when is the start date? All the while taking their negligence and irreparable harm to me on the chin.

    Promissory Estoppel? Good luck!!

    I think if it does not work out, I will threaten them with a lawsuit, but not sue, and attempt to obtain back wages, since the employment paperwork states each party must give 14 days notice to the other, including I will seek damages.

    I’m not trying the case in this blog, so please, thanks in advance for your comments, I am just venting at this is really a big problem in the United States.

    It’s bad enough all the legal discrimination in the hiring process; let alone all the illegal discrimination, that never ever gets proved. Not saying I am being discriminated against, just bullied.

  48. just recently applied for a job, interviewed with HR, then completed a panel interview with the hiring manager, and a separate interview with only the hiring manager. The hiring manager told me I would be receiving an offer and to let my current boss know. So I waited, and waited. I just didn’t feel confident in giving notice without seeing an actual offer, thankfully I listened to my gut. A week and a half later I received a short email from the HR department stating they were not going to fill the position. It’s just such bad form.
    Also, know someone who applied for a job who had a felony from 20+ years ago. Disclosed that information when applying and interviewing and additionally asked what he should check on the application since the question was presented as “have you been convicted of a felony in the past 7 years?” Asked multiple times about the background check coming back and was told he was good. Was told to give notice and a start date. Gave notice, current employer told him to only finish the week, had a start date the following week, a day before the start date they called and rescinded because of the background check. Seriously, what more do you have to do. With a background even from 20 years ago in PA it’s almost impossible to get a good job, which is why this person was so insistent on asking about the background check. HR didn’t even care, how do you lie and tell someone they are good to start if they don’t know! So frustrating, lessons learned, I will not give notice until I have a start date and after all contingencies are met.

  49. I had an exploding job offer explode today! I went through a process with a state agency out of state. It required a lot of federal credentials, all of which I have. It also required a food handling cert for their state which I also have. The job didn’t require previous experience in the industry but I had that to offer as well. Yesterday I got an emailed job offer with 5 days to accept. I sent an email to the person who sent me the offer. This job isn’t just out of state, it is in Alaska and I am in Florida so it is a huge move. The job posting advertised a hiring range but no salary was listed in the offer so I had to clarify that. Come to find out that due to the very unique nature of this job (maritime related), overtime would not kick in until after 84 hours each week. That changes everything since the chances of getting many hours beyond 84 seemed slim. Also the cost of living is much higher where I would be going and they require you to move to the state and prove residency.

    So back and forth a few emails and I asked if he could just send me a webpage link and I would look it up myself instead of bothering him with more emails. He sent a non-working link that just gave an error message. His last email said he wouldn’t respond to any more emails and if I had further questions I needed to call the person who interviewed me. I sent her an email this morning and she apparently forwarded that email asking to set up a time to call her to the guy who sent me the offer letter. He apparently didn’t like my ‘tone’ in that email to her and decided my ‘tone’ was ‘unprofessional’ and he rescinded the offer.

    This is a state agency. This guy is acting like he runs the corner hot dog stand. I was following his directions to contact the person who interviewed me. I guess he just expects people to sign off on a job offer that doesn’t even have the basic info like payment listed. I am an adult with a home in Florida and adult responsibilities. Picking up and moving so far away is a big anxiety inducing proposition. Nothing I was asking was outside of the basic questions any applicant would have.

    I don’t get why this guy got all huffy and indignant to the point of pulling a job offer. It takes months to get he maritime certifications that I am bringing to the job. They already ran the background check and know I am clean. The rescinded action is based purely on whatever ‘tone’ he manufactured in his own brain over the two sentence email sent to the original person who interviewed me. They most likely don’t have some endless applicant pool where they can afford to just alienate people for no reason. I am not going to beg for this job but I did look up the Executive Director of the state agency that oversees this agency. Regardless of whether or not my own employment offer is salvageable, I think someone needs to be aware of this guy just arbitrarily pulling job offers once they are made. I am in a protected class so I think this type of behavior starts to wander into some dangerous legal territory for the company.

    I don’t know how it all went sideways and it is disappointing but I am not going to go groveling to this idiot to try and get this train wreck back on track. I do hope my email to the executive director saves some future applicants the same unexpected explosion, however. Oh, yeah, and I’m sure that action will be the permanent nail in the coffin for me but at least I have the satisfaction of making someone else aware of his ridiculous overly emotional response and how poorly that reflects on that company.