POSITION WAS NEVER RECRUITED FOR, INSISTS LUXURY HOTEL
The Ritz London has claimed that an advert for an unpaid HR intern which appeared on its own website was “erroneously posted in draft format in our online recruitment system and is not a role that was recruited for.” Our friends at Intern Aware inform us that the advert now appears to have been removed (but you can find a screen shot of it below this post).
Graduate Fog reported on the advert yesterday, after it was brought to our attention by the science writer Ben Goldacre. (Ben tweeted the link to his 250,000 followers, so presumably he was able to find it on the Ritz’s website somehow). When Graduate Fog approached the Ritz yesterday for an explanation of why this internship was unpaid (apart from expenses and meals), this is what their spokesperson said:
From: The Ritz London
To: Graduate Fog
Date: Wednesday, 27 February 2013, 17:28
Subject: The Ritz LondonGreetings from The Ritz London. Many thanks for your email and the questions you have posed. I am afraid that the information you have credited as being sourced from Ben Goldacre and have duly posted on your blog is inaccurate. If you were to review the recruitment pages of our website personally, you will see that there is no vacancy for an “unpaid intern”, and nor does The Ritz London have any interest in employing an “unpaid intern”. I have provided a link below so that you can peruse the pages yourself.
https://www.jobtrain.co.uk/theritz/vacancies.aspx
The Ritz London does provide unpaid work experience placements for students as part of their educational development but during these placements they are here to learn and do not undertake actual job roles. We do hire trainees and apprentices and they are paid above the national minimum wage.
Please find below my contact details. I would appreciate the opportunity to discuss this matter with you further.
Yours sincerely,
[NAME REMOVED BY GRADUATE FOG]
Communications Manager
The Ritz London
150 PiccadillY
London
W1J 9BR
Confused, we wrote back:
From: Graduate Fog
To: The Ritz London
Date: 27 February 2013 17:40
Subject: Re: The Ritz LondonThanks for your response – but I’m not sure I quite understand. This is the link to the advert:
https://www.jobtrain.co.uk/theritz/DisplayJob.aspx
Are you saying it is not hosted on your site and is nothing to do with the Ritz? I am confused.
Tanya de Grunwald
Graduate Fog
The spokesperson then replied:
From: The Ritz London
To: Graduate Fog
Date: 27 February 2013, 18.52
Subject: Re: Re: The Ritz LondonDear Tanya,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. As you will have seen from the link I have sent you previously, this page is not accessible from our web site navigation. It would appear that the hyperlink below is outdated. This was erroneously posted in draft format in our online recruitment system and is not a role that was recruited for.
All the best,
[NAME REMOVED BY GRADUATE FOG]
Graduate Fog remains extremely confused. The Ritz appear to be saying that the internship never happened – so why was there ever an advert for it? And how could the advert have been “erroneously posted”?
*WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THE RITZ’S RESPONSE?
Do you understand their explanation? If so, can you please explain it to us?
Here is a screen shot of the original advert:
What a massive bunch of Bullspit from the Ritz – their email should read:
“after a hasty conference with the pr team, we decided the best course of action was to plead ignorance, delete the advert and deny all knowledge, we will now stick our fingers in our ears and hum so we can’t hear you!”
Is there a single large company in the entire uk that is actually able to hold it’s head up and admit a mistake.
The explanation’s fairly simple, in my opinion. They’ve been banged to rights and they’re now hoping that a deletion will magically modify the memories of all those who saw the advert.
I get ‘intern’ job alert emails from Indeed.co.uk to pass details of advertised unpaid internships onto Intern Aware, and on Jan 11 (I said Jan 13 on FB but 11th is correct) the job alert email included an unpaid Ritz HR internship. The description is at this link – http://www.indeed.co.uk/viewjob?jk=83bbbb8a22a9e137&from=ja&exp=1&utm_source=jobseeker_emails&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=job_alerts – and I have the original job alert email saved in a folder.
I just remembered that I tweeted the Ritz and Intern Aware with the link to the online internship advert on January 11 (and have found the tweet), so at least one person directly told them that it was up online well over a month ago too.
It’s very good news the Ritz backed down so quickly when you challenged them, Tanya. The company “naming, shaming and challenging” approach taken by GF, Intern Aware etc have done wonders on zilch budgets to curb what had been growing employer exploitation of unpaid workers.