Pulling out of job after signing employment contract?

faringdon

Hi,
Some weeks ago, a (very large) recruitment consultancy contacted me,
and as a result I agreed to go forward for an electronics engineering job in a city in the south of UK.
It was a military job. The City is a 2 hour drive from my home so would mean relocation.
It was at a well known defence contractor in this large city.

The recruitment consultancy sent me a web link supposedly detailing the job description.
Though I had already found the job on the web and so didn't go to the link at first.
Then the recruitment consultancy got me on a Teams call.
The Teams call was odd. There was no mention of the original job, but the consultant just asked
me if I would mind doing some "cable assembly work". (cable assembly work is simple and could be done
by an interested 16 yr old school leaver, and wouldn't need an electronics engineer to relocate 120 miles for).
Anyway, thinking that it was just an odd cable assembly job I said "yes no problem".

Anyway, I then received an employment contract and signed it and returned it to the recruitment consultancy.

Anyway, I then opened the web link of the job description that they had previously sent me, but the link just led to a blank
web page. This seemed strange.

Then I happened to read the employment contract thoroughly (the one that I had signed and returned to them), and noticed that the "work place" was put down as their
recruitment consultancy office, rather than the actual engineering company premises, which is on the other side of the
city.

Anyway, I now wish to contact them and tell them to void my application to this job. I suspect there is no actual job, and they will just start me off,
doing nothing whilst sat in their recruitment offices, and then having got me "off the market", they will then set about putting me into
some job that they know I would not likely otherwise take.

So Will it be OK legally for me to now drop out of the application process even though I have signed and returned the employment contract?

—- —- —- —- —- —- —- —- —-

(As an aside, I have had problems with this recruitment consultancy some 18 months ago with them saying they had work for me, then the work just disappeared.
The first time it happened, they gave me a start date, and it just came and went, with no contact from them. Then some weeks later, they said the job was back on,
but then it vanished again, then the same thing happened a third time, and they actually told me to "start the job" and just stay at home for a month doing nothing, then they said they would pay me a month's wages anyway….and after that of course, I told them to drop it as i didnt believe they would pay me to do nothing. As discussed, that was some 15 to 18 months ago.)

monkey-fingers

You appear to have the saddest time with jobs. You've been made redundant, sacked, sacked again, been in court more times than I can now imagine and now you've got a job, but you don't want to do it.

Did I miss anything?

Marcon

How can anyone here know if your breach of contract is legally ok when nobody has had sight of what you've contracted to do?

Emmia

One for some legal advice - next time, before you sign the contract... Read it. (And take screenshots of the adverts)

Grumpy_chap

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6678657/pulling-out-of-job-after-signing-employment-contract

I would expect that the job is real.

The place of work is put as the recruitment agency because you will be on their PAYE payroll and then seconded to the Client.

There is simply not the money in recruitment agencies to pay people to not work so that they are "off the market".

I would take this job and commit to making a success of it.

Is the real reason for your doubt about obtaining security clearance?
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6678542/cant-get-references-for-job/p1

faringdon

There is simply not the money in recruitment agencies to pay people to not work so that they are "off the market".

Thanks but they have government grants that allow them to do this.

Previously i backed out of a job with them, and they made me hand in notice even though i had not actually started the job…they then payed me £812 for the few days doing nothing even though i never started the job.

This time i suspect there is no job…but they will find one for me whilst i am in their offices…..but who knows where it will be and what it will be doing.

I think i will leave it even though i have signed the contract. You often have to leave UK military jobs because they are forcing you to put rubbish circuitry into production…..leaving's a pain if youve relocated to some isolated spot for it. Ive already had to leave two jobs where i was told to put dodgy circuitry into production on UK military equipment……i wouldnt do it, and complained but was ignored.

One was on an extremely critical equipment and this circuit was a potentially lethal danger to any sailor who might touch it. It had a 100nF X2 capacitor instead of a Y capacitor from Line to Earth. They refused to change it. I wrote a huge report to them about it and left. There was no way i was putting that into production.

For the last three decades the UK has outsourced pretty well all electronics to the Far East….and there is totally insufficient knowledge in UK now to make anything containing electronics…so when the UK military try to do some electronics in UK….it goes terribly wrong very often. There just isnt the staff or management to know how to do things properly….and when you tell them its been done badly, they dont understand you and just ignore you.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6678657/pulling-out-of-job-after-signing-employment-contract

There are plenty that commute over 2 hours a day so relocation isnt automatically a necessity but obviously depends what the pay is like, contract duration etc on which is better for you.

There are no grants that are bigger than the payroll bill so no one is going to make a negative investment to try and get some grant money.

Having signed the contract you are bound by its terms, therefore you would need to hand in your notice and serve the period. Depending on when your start date is that may be fully served before you start or not. Of cause two consenting adults can agree to almost anything they want to so you may mutually agree it better for you not to start at all.

The work may be simple but sometimes there are reasons why people pay too much for too experienced people, I once applied for a role that basically was to make 300 people redundant and close down a branch of the company. All the interesting bits had already been done, was just managing the practicalities. I had thought the day rate was very high considering they were only asking for a couple of years experience but they stated its going to be a really crappy job but they didnt want to hire someone who then leaves in a couple of months for a better project so theyd pushed the money up £200 per day above the going rate for the sort of person that would be competent at doing it

Grumpy_chap

I think I might start a recruitment agency and employ a load of people to do nothing but watch Netflix at home while I get rich on these supposed Government grants 😉

Woodstok2000

Sounds like you've made a lot of assumptions, so you could potentially miss out on a good job because you're not getting all the facts straight.

Contact the recruitment agency and ask them for a copy of the job description for the role you're being employed in, and confirmation that you will be working at the site of the engineering firm. Get that in writing. You were obviously happy with the original job and the pay offered, so as long as this all matches up then you can go ahead with the role. If there's any discrepancies then it gives you better leverage to negotiate your notice period.

As a side note, notice periods aren't really enforceable in practice anyway - no company is going to spend money on legal fees to force a new person to come in and work for two weeks. The down side is you may end up with a black mark against your name if you get a reputation for this sort of thing. I work in a relatively small specialised industry and there are quite a few people we would never consider hiring because of previous experience, or what we've heard from other companies.

TELLIT01

It is school holiday time again!

sheramber

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82091333#Comment_82091333

OP’s problems go further back than school holidays.