PLACEMENT BACKFIRED WHEN EMPLOYER FALSELY CLAIMED SHE HAD BEEN FIRED
Unpaid internships may suck – but at least they increase your chances of getting a paid job, right?
Don’t be so sure. A graduate has told Graduate Fog how an inaccurate reference from an unpaid internship led to an offer of a paid job (salary £25,000 a year) being withdrawn – forcing her to move back in with her parents and claim benefits. Although this may seem like an extreme case, we think it highlights how vulnerable young graduates are in today’s job market. It all started when the 24-year-old, who studied Spanish and Linguistics at the University of Manchester, took an unpaid role with a PR company. This is her story…
Tell us what happened to you exactly?
“In January this year, I applied for a graduate role with a top financial firm and was over the moon to find out I’d been successful in securing this position, which had a salary of £25,000 a year. Having interned unpaid for almost two years, this was a huge relief and I was looking forward to starting a proper job at last. The offer was subject to their referencing and vetting procedures, but I had no reason to think there would be any problem. I was asked to supply a five year employment and address history, which included the internship I’d done at a London-based PR agency the previous year. I gave them the details — but was then shocked to hear that the PR company had provided a reference saying I’d been dismissed.”
Had you been fired?
“No! I undertook the internship in October 2012 in the hope of furthering my career. I was interning in the role of an account executive working 9am — 5pm (sometimes later), Monday to Friday, paid just £10 a day for expenses. After a few weeks with the company, I decided it was no longer financially viable for me to continue with the placement, along with the fact I was being asked to do menial tasks that were not beneficial to my future career. I gave notice of my intention to leave to my account manager via email. This was acknowledged by the company and I left without any formal documentation.”
So if the reference was inaccurate, did you challenge it?
“Of course. I disputed this claim as it was categorically untrue. In the meantime, the financial firm who had offered me the job issued me with a start date of 4 March, so I left the job I was in on 27 February, assuming the error would all be sorted out no problem. Then, on 27 March — a week before I was supposed to start my new job — I was told I was no longer able to start work as the PR company had issued a second bad reference, again claiming I was dismissed when in fact I had resigned.”
What did you do next?
“I contacted the managing director of the PR company directly and he said that as a ‘professional’ he did not give out false references and would not be willing to change the one they had issued. Not knowing what to do next, I asked my dad for help. He then contacted the managing director to ask for this reference to be changed, and we received a reply a week later stating the PR company had withdrawn the reference and issued a new one without any mention of me having been dismissed.”
So once it was all cleared up, you got the job, right?
“No. Despite the reference being changed, it came too late and I missed out on the job with the financial firm. As a result of the false reference, I am now having to claim benefits and have moved back to Liverpool with my parents, as I am unable to pay my rent in London.”
Are you taking any action against the PR firm?
“I have spoken to my local Citizens Advice Bureau and ACAS (the employment conciliation body) who have advised me that it is a legal matter. I am in the process of talking to a solicitor for compensation. I have also been in contact with Intern Aware who are helping me try to claim back the money I am lawfully entitled to for the time I was with the company. I have also been in touch with my local MP who has written a letter to the CEO to show support for my cause and to highlight the fact that using unpaid interns is, in many cases, illegal. HMRC (HM Revenue and Customs ) are now going ahead with an investigation of the company. We’ve had some contact from the CEO recently but they haven’t agreed to pay me anything yet.”
How do you feel this whole experience has affected you?
“It’s been really stressful and has definitely affected my confidence. It’s so unfair that, as an intern, I seem to have no rights. Not only were they not paying me in the first place, but they then caused me to lose a well-paid job due to a malicious lie. How can it be right that they can get away with that?”
*HAVE YOU HAD AN INTERNSHIP TURN BAD?
What happened? Are interns vulnerable to poor treatment from the people they work for, because of the ‘unofficial’ nature of their working arrangements? Should interns be given greater protection under employment law? Or, if they really are ‘workers’ as defined by NMW law, are they already covered?
Love this? Read Internships: 10 things every graduate should know
Absolutely sickened by what has happened to this lady. What happened to her clearly shows that ending up on benefits is not a ‘lifestyle choice’ made by those who do not want to work, as our lying Secretary of State for Work and Pensions would have us believe. She actually had a job lined up, but lost it due to someone else’s vindictiveness. A main reason why I am stuck on benefits is due to a false reference given by the headteacher of school I used to work at- her malice has caused me to lose the opportunity of gaining a teaching post elsewhere (as I wish to work in schools, if a reference came from someone other than her it would be viewed with suspicion). I wonder how many people are stuck claiming benefits because of the power that someone else has to ruin a person’s employment prospects through badmouthing that person in a reference?!
I have all sympathy in the world for the person in this case.
However, the fact it was an unpaid internship is absolutely irrelevant. The unpaid internship didn’t make the person less employable. It was the careless and negligent reference given by the unpaid internship provider. such a careless and negligent reference could have happened whether the job was paid, unpaid, Commission Only, Zero Hours, in Manchester, or London, or Glasgow, or China, or the USA!
Employers cannot agree to a reference only to give a bad reference. It’s called defamation and it’s a Civil Law matter. If you’ve ever received a bad reference and it has caused damage (or, in some instances, even if it hasn’t), speak to a solicitor and get legal advice about compensation.
Your conclusion doesn’t that unpaid internships are the issue does flow from the facts of the case. I feel for the grad, but I’m afraid you’ve misrepresented the story with your title.
** Your conclusion that unpaid internships are the issue does not flow from the facts of the case
If a company takes on someone as an unpaid intern and uses them to do the work it would normally have to pay a temp or employee to do, perhaps that company is more likely to treat its “victim worker” badly in other respects (eg over references)?
I think there are an awful lot of employers out there that treat young people like dirt and have an almost delusional sense of entitlement regarding their low paid or unpaid workers.
I really hope the company is eventually named and shamed so other potential interns can be aware of how they may be treated.
I’m disgusted. I hope karma comes and bites like a b*tch. Ruining lives just because they can. I hope there’s really a thing called hell.
“I hope karma comes and bites like a b*tch. Ruining lives just because they can. I hope there’s really a thing called hell.”
Wow… Bit much that Kelly. He gave a bad reference. He didn’t murder seven children.
I agree that what he has done is terrible and I hope that the Court case is successful on both the wage and defamation aspect, but if we send people to hell for giving a bad reference, then heaven’ll be a very empty place.
CostaDel- I’m afraid I have to agree with Kelly. If hell exists, I really hope that is where the headteacher who ruined my employment prospects in schools will end up. From what I’ve experienced of her, she doesn’t have a conscience!
A4e Sucks – To each their own, but I can’t support or respect the view that bad referees go to hell. It’s so vindictive and it actually makes you worse or, at best, equal to than those whom you resent (intent is always worse than negligence).
If there is a hell, I hate to say it but you’re going there too bud. I don’t think God views resentment, hate and anger in high regard. That same resent and anger will hold you back in life more than a bad reference ever will.
“Hanging on to a resentment, someone once said, is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill someone else.” Alice May, Surviving Betrayal (1999)
He didn’t murder seven children, but they’ve destroyed someones prospects of having a quality of life. These grad schemes generally set people up for life career-wise, and it’s been wrongfully stolen from this person, just because of a cruel bad-minded person/company. Hopefully the person in this story will get another chance elsewhere, but it’s getting harder and harder to get onto these schemes. What happen’s if the person doesn’t get another chance, but instead falls into a minimum wage/dead end job that becomes a cycle…one that is very hard to break? Unless things pick up soon, it’s likely that they could be stuck in this cycle for a LONG time, thus trapping him/her into a life of so-called lowly jobs, financial stuggling, and possibly children in poverty further down the line. I know of people in this situation. So know, maybe not blatant murder, but murder of ones prospects, and for that, they are scum and I hope they suffer for it/burn in hell/company fails.
By the way, I have no personal resentment, andam doing alright myself, but these stories do anger me, as I’ve known people in similar situations. It’s downright cruel, deliberately trying to stop someone from progressing. So maybe I came on a little to strong, but, as someone who has worked with various employers, and see the antics they carry on with and discrimination they get away with, then yes, based on my experience, they do deserve to roast! Lol of course I don’t mean literally, it’s a figure of speech! I don’t believe in hell but it would be nice for some of these employers to get a taste of their own medicine.
I don’t know about condemning anyone to hell but I do believe on a practical level that what goes around comes around. Whether it’s giving out malicious references or treating employees and applicants like crap just because you can, if you behave like a jerk then you may well find yourself on your own if you ever get into trouble.
This person needs to take responsibility for what they have done and other potential interns need to be aware of what type of person they are before deciding if they want anything to do with them. I can’t help but wonder if they felt so entitled to her free labour that when she resigned it made them think that she deserved to be screwed over.
Actually, karma is much more along my way of thinking than the idea of heaven and hell. I think Kelly has explained very well how serious it is when one person deliberately sets out to ruin the career prospects of another (as she has rightly pointed out, so many things are closely linked to earnings- being able to buy your own house, being able to afford to have children etc).
Kelly, just mind that slippery slope you’re on there.
The fact is, this person not getting this job might be the best thing that ever happened to them. You simply don’t know that. I look back now and didn’t get on graduate schemes, and I’m glad I didn’t.
You are assuming that this single set-back will ruin her life. I doubt it. Any determined person isn’t going to spend 40-years of a potential working life doing NOTHING. So unless she accepts this defeat and never gets over it, forever resenting and dwelling, she will be employed and will go somewhere. A determined person would have it no other way.
Besides, your assertion that graduate schemes are a life career is simply untrue. In fact, the business model of graduate schemes is that they will get 3-5 years productive work out of you, then you will fly the nest and join companies and bring those companies in as customers of the graduate scheme provider. Think about it.
Adhering to the Psychology of the Herd has never represented the most astute basis for decision making, and sadly if an individual decides to work for an employer for nothing, they end up not only being complicit in deceit, and are party to tax fraud (ie the employer does not pay salary, tax or national insurance), but should not expect the employer to treat the candidate on a professional basis.
What graduates don’t realize, is that their paper qualifications and exam results won’t give them a one way ticket into a glamorous and high paying career. (Law & Medicine exempt e.t.c)
Even studying the two career paths in brackets requires not only require the top degree’s from the top universities, they also requires a skill which is world famous to the disk jockeys on the club circuit. (It’s not only what you know, but it is who you know.)
Unless these graduates have connections or have family within these roles.
They are pretty much destined to a future of low pay/no pay cycle within employment, Unemployment or even a Criminal Conviction.
On to Unpaid Internships, there a appears to be a snob trend among many graduates when faced with the possibly of having to go for work experience where it be voluntarily
or under the governments back to work scheme.
Here we have Cait Riley, a Graduate who Graduated from Birmingham University in 2010 who decided to not only go through the courts , but to the press as she felt the her mandatory work placement was not only beneath her, but felt that that she could claim from the tax payer without doing any form of work experience that would helped her into the labour market.
Her placement at the Museum wasn’t sufficient as there would be very little chance, if any at all of landing a paid position, even with a degree in Geology.
The work placement at Poundland would of gave her experience within the appropriate field and would of benefited the client in the long run.
For the case to reach the Supreme Court, is a travesty of justice. A case that should of been thrown out from the very beginning.
Degree or no degree, it should be mandatory that all benefit claimants should be placed onto the governments work program and do 30 hours per week work placement in return for their benefits.
Since when do you need to complete work experience to work in a shop? I know 14 year olds who have worked in a shop. Besides all the unpaid labour issues what good does this sort of placement do?
@Justice Bailey
The first part of your comment was highly accurate. It is becoming even more difficult to progress in a career without connections and/or wealth. Unfortunately, the rest of your comment about Cait Reilly is nonsense.
I don’t think it is snobbish to not want to be messed around and fobbed off in the government’s useless ‘work experience’ schemes. We have a huge problem with the numbers of graduates who are failing to develop any relevant career progression and unpaid internships are making things worse. This will lead to calls for more immigration in the future to fill ‘the skills gap’. Their predicament is not because of a lack of ambition, but due to the poor state of the economy. Most of the government’s schemes are of an extremely low quality and will very likely doom people to the type of zero-hour contracts we are now hearing about. I take your point about how long tax payers should be expected to pay, but at a human level having an aptitude and enthusiasm for a certain subject, spending years studying it and getting tens of thousands of pounds in debt and then having that hope dashed is extremely damaging. Some people are motivated by more than just money.
I think most people want to do work experience. The problem comes when people want to get stable paying jobs in something they have an aptitude for. Many people are finding it a wild goose chase and the government’s schemes have an extremely poor success rate. It’s unfortunate you chose Cait Reilly to illustrate your point. My understanding is that she already had experience of working in retail. What she wanted was relevant experience to progress her career, which she was getting at the museum. There is no evidence that she thought the placement was ‘beneath her’ as you said, however I feel that your mentioning of ‘the appropriate field’ belies your prejudice here. Her problem was that:
1. She was told the scheme was compulsory when it wasn’t
2. She was promised an interview if she completed the scheme which didn’t materialize.
Rightly, she was upset that she had been lied to. She wanted a paying job and she was messed around and fobbed off, most probably to make the unemployment statistics look better. I don’t think you even can call it ‘experience’ when you are doing exactly the same job as paid staff, with minimal training for weeks/months at a time. Even so, people can gain experience while being paid. What did the government do after their behaviour was deemed unlawful? Retroactively change the law to make it lawful!
What we are seeing now, with the full complicity of this malicious government, is a drive towards the destruction of employment rights. Companies want a disposable pool of free labour that can be turned on and off like a tap. Quelle surprise, those with half a brain don’t want to be used and discarded.
I can relate to that & I have a very similar degree. I got my first ‘paid’ job in 2013 and it was a poorly paid internship. Nine months later I had to quit because I finally realized that my employer was not going to pay my social security. I worked the most hours there & was paid the lowest wage.
Fast forward 16 months later, I still have not been able to secure a job. I did get another job though the employer did not send me a proper contract but rather a very vague pre-contract agreement. When I told them I needed them to specify my salary & working hours in the pre-contract, they said they would but never got back to me. I should also mention that this was supposed to be a ‘serious’ language school based in Spain. I had reserved a place to live & everything. To top it all off I even lost money because of them.
So I’m still unemployed with no job prospects at the ripe old age of 26.