Employer - Work experience request - was I too rude

poet123

denla wrote: »

OP does carry a false sense of superiority to be honest. So he's the senior professional and she's the immature student, and he's going to contact her college so perhaps her tutors can reprimand her like a child? No it doesn't work like that. She applied independently, not as some representative of her college so by contacting her college you're showing how unprofessional you are.

The college won't do anything anyway because even if she was more... inappropriate, that's her choice outside of college. Long as it's not within college they don't have a say on how she chooses to act as a person.

I am sorry but you are incorrect. I am a tutor who places students for work experience, and we work hard to establish a relationship with them to enable us to do so.

To be able to allow students to go out to employers requires us to ask the employer to jump through numerous, and often quite onerous, Health & Safety assessments. Many are simply not willing to bother with this, and who can blame them? So, we cherish the ones who will and any student who jeopardises that relationship can be disciplined, and would certainly be spoken to very seriously about it.

This student may well have been pointed in the direction of the OP by the college but asked to arrange it independently to show initiative. Business Admin students are sometimes asked to that so they can be assessed on certain skills.

The college do need to be told of this incident so that at the very least it can be addressed in a Tutorial, or if the OP wishes to name the student they can be spoken to personally and privately. The OP clearly knows the name of the college and as a tutor I feel this behaviour reflects on them, and will certainly affect the way the OP feels about student placement in the future. They need to be aware of this.

gibson123

Quick update - Thanks for all your comments, I did take them in board, I am not generally unprofessional and I do care deeply about giving young people a helping hand.

I e-mailed the girl with a simple apology for my last last e-mail and gave her my mobile number to call me.

She called me saying she had split with her boyfriend and was upset and can she still have a placement?

I said no - but if you follow my link and follow the instructions, I will consider your application with all the others and suggested she show her lecturer her e-mail trail and get comments and suggestions before applying. I also said I would not take previous correspondence into consideration.

Oh and thanks for all the posters who said such nice things. :T

Some of you (you know who you are) are :eek::eek: I didn't murder her!!

k12479

denla wrote: »

Seems like OP and you are not actually wanting to help students...All you are trying to do is get them in trouble...

:wall:

Following that exchange, she probably went away thinking either a) what a !!!!, he called me disabled! or b) whoops...I really screwed that up!

I'm guessing she would be thinking more along the lines of the first, when she should be thinking the second. Letting the college/her know that, may just change the mindset and help her get a placement.

gibson123 wrote: »

I will consider your application with all the others...I would not take previous correspondence into consideration.

Personally, I think this is unfair on other applicants who managed to follow simple instructions and contain their own dramas.

j.e.j.

Good on the OP for giving her another chance. I can see both sides, - the girl can't just let whatever 'boyfriend-drama' is happening in her personal life affect how she deals with people in a working environment.

chuckley

To be honest I think u went in on her from the jump. she asked nicely and you basically said 'no only if you have a disability'. Which is why she replied the way she did.

in every one of your replys, especially the last one you decided to personally attack her and imply she was a thicko that didn't understand english.

You should be more worried about how YOU look to your employers if you think emailing kids the way you did is acceptable!

jobbingmusician

I think I would have replied as follows.

Let's get this right. You seem to think that my company has an obligation to spend time and money changing our procedure, and posting you a form so that you can do work experience for us. Perhaps you even think this because you feel that we are getting 'slave labour' from you.

Perhaps I should explain to you that work experience may feel like slave labour to you, but actually costs the company far more than you are likely to contribute, however hard you work. Providing work experience is expensive and troublesome - for a start we have to find an existing employee who, in addition to their normal job, can give the time to train and supervise someone who is not with us for long enough to contribute properly. We do this willingly in order to give young people a start in life. In exchange, we reserve the right to be selective about who we give this opportunity to. Someone who is unable or unwilling to follow simple instructions is unlikely to fit into our working environment (and unlikely to be a good employee in most environments).

denla

j.e.j. wrote: »

Good on the OP for giving her another chance. I can see both sides, - the girl can't just let whatever 'boyfriend-drama' is happening in her personal life affect how she deals with people in a working environment.

It's easy to say good on you for giving her another chance, but reality is, I can guarantee that girl won't be given the job - I mean uh work experience.

Daedalus

TBH I would give her kudos for ringing you up after. I think most kids her age just wouldn't do it. It is one of those things, she seems to not understand how to come across professionally so perhaps she is one who will gain a lot from being given the opportunity.

Then the other half of me is like 'Well I am one of all the other kids who followed instructions and did have the sob story, sod her'.

gibson123

denla wrote: »

It's easy to say good on you for giving her another chance, but reality is, I can guarantee that girl won't be given the job - I mean uh work experience.

Why thank you, I do enjoy some-one questioning my integrity.

NiallB

denla wrote: »

I heard someone once used an email saying 'suckdeep' and the employer responded with a fake email address called 'howdeep' lol.

I once saw 'Hornypervert1@ whateverit was.com' on a CV.

He didn't get called for interview :cool: