Census Jobs

NonGeographicalMan

Deleted_User wrote: »

And we don't need namecalling either.

It seems to me that name calling and/or indeed playground style bullying (given your little gang of followers ready with their Thanks knives) is actually what you have just done.:eek::(

Regarding the job I don't think anyone who is recruited here as a Collector has actually reported applying for the job so late in the day so I suspect that Capita had technical vacancies on their reserves list but the chances of ever moving from the reserves list to an employee were next to nil for Collector jobs advertised in the third week of March or first week of April. Had I applied for the vacancies still going in various dodgy parts of Lambeth at the start of April I would still have been around £8 per day better off than one locally even with the cost of commuting (due to the £3 per hour pay higher pay rate) or possibly more than that if I had worked 12 hour days three days a week to get the work done. No doubt I might have been interviewed right away for Lambeth but some how I just didn't fancy being found on a stairwell of some sink estate with a knife in my guts.

I suspect another principal reason I didn't make it through to interviewing is that I had to disclose a technical speeding conviction on a £60 fixed penalty ticket that I ended up contesting in court. Although it shouldn't make any difference to have a totally unrelated trivial conviction like this given the level of over application I'm sure Capita just ignored the guidelines to ignore irrelevant criminal convictions and their system blocked me from proceeding to the interview stage for this reason. If I had my time again I would tick the box for no criminal convictions and take my chances with them objecting to it later on if the CRB turned up anything (apparently it seems to depend on the court area as to whether a motoring conviction like this will even show up on a CRB check).

grantaathill

I was absolutely appalled at the level of incompetence and dishonesty of the recruiters at Capita Census Recruitment. I was tricked into completing the e-learning by Capita who told me it was 'highly likely' I would be offered a position of Census Collector. I feel exploited for having completed the e-learning when there was no vacancy. Capita built up a large reserve list at no cost to themselves. I'd urge anyone dissatisfied with Capita's handling of the recruitment process to email the Director of the Office of National Statistics Glen Watson (email [EMAIL="glen.watson@ons.gsi.gov.uk"]glen.watson@ons.gsi.gov.uk[/EMAIL]) and copy into your email the Chief Executive of Capita Paul Pindar (email [EMAIL="paul.pindar@capita.co.uk"]paul.pindar@capita.co.uk[/EMAIL]).

eyeofthetyne

I had applied for the job of CCS Interviewer. Completed the online test which took me a while and passed, had a telephone interview and passed.

Received an email with an offer of the job starting in May... was about to start the online e-learning when I got an email saying I have been withdrawn from the process.

No explanation given.

How nice!

NonGeographicalMan

leeann79 wrote: »

People are not being as polite with this set of work sheets, think they are getting fed up with people knocking on their doors.

Inevitably as time goes by you are coming down to the hard core. In the early days you would mainly be coming across people who had forgotten to complete it or didn't understand that it was compulsory.

NonGeographicalMan

eyeofthetyne wrote: »

Received an email with an offer of the job starting in May... was about to start the online e-learning when I got an email saying I have been withdrawn from the process.

This is entirely typical of Crapita's methods unfortunately. The fact that you have not been paid for any of that wasted time will no doubt hurt the most.

You could always pursue a complaint to deadlock with Crapita and then on the Office of the Civil Service Commissioner if you are feeling so inclined.

NonGeographicalMan

grantaathill wrote: »

I was absolutely appalled at the level of incompetence and dishonesty of the recruiters at Capita Census Recruitment. I was tricked into completing the e-learning by Capita who told me it was 'highly likely' I would be offered a position of Census Collector. I feel exploited for having completed the e-learning when there was no vacancy. Capita built up a large reserve list at no cost to themselves. I'd urge anyone dissatisfied with Capita's handling of the recruitment process to email the Director of the Office of National Statistics Glen Watson (email [EMAIL="glen.watson@ons.gsi.gov.uk"]glen.watson@ons.gsi.gov.uk[/EMAIL]) and copy into your email the Chief Executive of Capita Paul Pindar (email [EMAIL="paul.pindar@capita.co.uk"]paul.pindar@capita.co.uk[/EMAIL]).

I agree with all of that and when you then get the inevitable deadlock letter from Crapita (since ONS will I suspect just act like a spectator on the basis that it was Crapita and not them you were dealing with for the recruitment process) I would suggest that anyone who then feels strongly enough then pursues their complaint with the Office of the Civil Service Commission - see www.civilservicecommission.org.uk/admin/assets/spaw2/uploads/files/Guide-to-Recruitment-Principles-Complaints.pdf

Actually on reading the CSC website further it looks to me as if ONS would already in breach of the "principles" if they won't themselves respond directly to your complaint about the recruitment methods used by Crapita.

leeann79

Kate78 wrote: »

On the daily email from our co-ordinator, he said that another new collector had popped up on the system. Of course the workload for this week has already been distributed so they will be buddied with another collector this week.

It's a totally cack-handed recruitment courtesy of Crapita.

Our co=ordinator already teams up the 15 hour workers with the 40 hour workers. I'm glad I'm 25 hours

grantaathill

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

I agree with all of that and when you then get the inevitable deadlock letter from Crapita (since ONS will I suspect just act like a spectator on the basis that it was Crapita and not them you were dealing with for the recruitment process) I would suggest that anyone who then feels strongly enough then pursues their complaint with the Office of the Civil Service Commission Actually on reading the CSC website further it looks to me as if ONS would already in breach of the "principles" if they won't themselves respond directly to your complaint about the recruitment methods used by Crapita.

Thank you for the advice. I do feel strongly about this issue. Capita Census Recruitment should have been assisting in raising awareness of and encouraging participation in the Census, but instead they have been taking advantage of the large number of people who are unemployed. Much evasion and dishonesty has taken place over their recruiting people for the Census.

After a protracted and difficult job search lasting three years, I do not take kindly to having my time wasted by Capita who have messed me around. I was required to complete a telephone interview, a Siftability test and online learning. All that effort for nothing.

Why was this contract awarded to a company that puts profit before people?

beckythemadcow

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

If I had my time again I would tick the box for no criminal convictions and take my chances with them objecting to it later on if the CRB turned up anything (apparently it seems to depend on the court area as to whether a motoring conviction like this will even show up on a CRB check).

That would not have helped your case. I have had to remove a Collector from the field who failed the CRB. It was a motoring offence that was highlighted and I have heard from above, that it was the fact that the offence was not disclosed to Capita rather than the offence itself that was the problem. Capita, even given their failings, are understandably going to reject liars.

NonGeographicalMan

Deleted_User wrote: »

Don't you think you are over reacting a bit? My comments referred to your posting history and were not insults about you as a person. I have never met you and would never call someone I have never met a "name".

Perhaps. But I'm 48 years old and was working in a specialist financial information job that I ultimately became disenchanted with due to the way the job had narrowed and changed while my company were also restructuring in a manner that made moderately well paid redundancy more or less inevitable.

Then you get the problem that because of your age and the fact that you aren't a hotshot CEO and also your narrow field of work is not generally recognised as a regular profession you don't get interviews because of the way the recruitment system is. Then you get more and more hurt by that.

The point is I have knocked on thousands of doors in elections (well in to the tens of thousands over the years actually) and have never had never had any serious trouble. No one has ever complained about me to my party and I have never been assaulted and nor have I ever assaulted anyone.

Political canvassing is a simple enough job and the Census Collection work will be very like this work. We even target only specific addresses in some streets for leaflets for postal votes in elections or calling only on people who have pledged to vote our way on election day who have not yet voted. The skill sets required are a very close match indeed.

I accept that sadly in this current age Capita are forced to do the CRB check thing after they have found the people they want to recruit and they will lose a small number due to this. But I think Siftability (or "we want to know only if you are an obedient drone rather than if you have an enquiring mind" as it could perhaps more accurately be called) and online learning and classroom learning is way over the top for the amount of work they can offer anyone. If people turned out to be incompetent on the ground on the day their coordinator could just let them go (this is a temporary job so the employee has no rights) and this would be a lot more efficient than wasting the time of a lot of people who wont' get a job and who will be much more annoyed than a usual job as the effort of applying was similar to a normal job without the upside of becoming employed ever being anywhere near as good.

I just think Capita proved totally clueless in running the recruitment by doing it like it was a proper long term job where all the hassle you had to go through would have been far more reasonable. Then finally to prove their total cluelessness in late March and early April (the only Collector jobs I saw or applied for) they were still advertising for jobs they knew they couldn't possibly fill by the deadline because it takes them nearly a week to get you through Siftability and interview. Then another 10 days at least to get you a telephone interview and class room training. Then two weeks after that for Disclosure Scotland (who presumably offered Capita a nice cheap price without any reference to quality of service) so no way were they going to be able to employ anyone in time who applied at the end of March or start of April to be a Collector.

I would hope the Civil Service Commission will feel the same way when they get to my complaint.

Its true that I suspect I did object to Fluffs123's comments rather more than yours.

Deleted_User wrote: »

If you had the same email as I did it actually said:

"It is highly likely that an opportunity will become available and in order to put your application in the strongest position it would be beneficial if you could now complete the following steps:"
vacancy would become available - which is very different from saying that YOU (or I or anyone else) would get that vacancy.

I think the problem is that it was not actually "highly likely" that an opportunity would subsequently become available and was in fact "totally unlikely" that an opportunity would subsequently become available for those of who applied in late March or early April and got this message so we now feel that we were deliberately misled by Capita who treated like us disposable components on a production line rather than as people.:mad::mad::mad: