Posted By James Willmott
Dear All,

Check this out.

2 weeks ago I went for an interview with a major manufacturer based just outside of the M25 (I will called them Company A for the benefit of this).

Had a fantastic interview and everything seemed to go really well. However a couple of days later I received an offer from a job that I had been interviewed for a couple of weeks earlier (Company B).

BIG PROBLEMS what do I do? I really liked the prospective job on offer at Company A, so I called company B and asked them politely if they could hold the job for a couple of days. Which they had no problems with and understood the problem I had.

In the meantime I emailed Company A and told them of the situation. To this they replied (by phone) that I was the strongest candidate and that they were just waiting for confirmation from the H&S Manager. Basically I was told don't worry the job is yours.

A week later I have still not heard anything and Company B are calling everyday for an answer. In the end they withdrew the offer (Cant really blame them).

I then called Company A and was informed that they had had second thoughts and felt I was 'to hands on' and lived too far away from the Head Office that I was supposed to visit twice a month. They also said that they would be reviewing whether the position they advertised was the right one for the business.(surely there is a process that they have to go through to get authority to recruit?? This must be the time for decision making, you would have thought)

To say you could knock me over with a feather duster would be an understatement.

I know its partly my fault for believing everything I heard but surely this cannot be right? To put this into perspective they employ over 20,000 people in the UK alone and turn over billions of pounds.

Has anyone else had any experiences like this?

I know I cannot do anything about it but where do you go from here?

Just feeling very disillusioned about Health & Safety at the moment.

Sorry for the rant!! and i suppose that I will have to keep on looking for the ideal job.

Regards

James.

Posted By Gff
Same kinda thing happened to me a year ago. I risk assessed the situation and went for the firm offer.

A year later and I am moving for the other position as they where still interested .

I am not sure why you are disillusioned with health and safety, you where just unlucky. Remember that's what notice periods are for you could have accepted the offer and then with drawn it. It's not nice messing people around but then you got nailed yourself being the nice guy.

At the end of the day business is business as they say.

Posted By Shane J
I recently got a new job in Health & Safety.

At the interview I explained how I was willing to learn from the company and I wouldn't be imposing any harsh or radical ideas, that I would follow the guidelines already in place within the company.

5 weeks later, I have a lot more responsibility for H&S matters that was originally prescribed as their confidence in me has grown and I'm getting results.

Lesson there was "walk the walk before you talk the talk"

If I had gone to the interview promising fanstastic things then I would have been rejected or I'd be under a whole lot of pressure right now.

Just thought I'd share that. It's an important thing to remember when looking for a new job, most employers won't want to be told what they already doing is wrong.
Get the job first.

Posted By Alexander Falconer
Been there done it!

During the earlier part of the millenium, I was in a position where I was happy, and enjoyed the job tremendously. Cue an outside offer from a company who used an agency to specifically head hunt me into a role.

Me? ££££££'s in my eyes, and basically saw the offer as too good to be true and took it.

Two months into the role, a plant shutdown, and a great big sorry, but your position is no longer viable.

Being angry was the understatement of the year, but some civil proceedings later and lessons learned.

I no longer accept face value on the basis of verbal words.

Get it in writing, give them a deadline, if they dont meet it (what does this say about everything else they do?) then take the firm offer.

I appreciate this advice comes too late, but sometimes better the devil you know, go with your gut feeling in the first place. If it doesnt work out, then you can always look again.

Alex