Ways to deal with a mis-sold job!

Ok, so I don’t know about you but I hope you have never been in the same situation I found myself in a few years ago?

I found myself going to a 2nd interview with the company directors, the interview went very well and when I asked a few questions/issues relating to the job, what they would be expecting from me, business support, marketing, back end support etc. The directors promised that this was all covered and I would receive everything I needed to make the job a success.

Needless to say, after a very long time being patient with them and still being promised things were going to be changing, it became apparent that they were just empty promises and it would never happen. In doing this with me, they didn’t see how upsetting it was and what a negative impact it could have had on my family life if I didn’t have such a supportive wife.

If you are anything like myself, it will mean EVERYTHING to you personally. When you start to realise that what you were promised at your interview will never happen, you start feeling depressed, lied too and soon you could become difficult to live with as you will start blaming yourself. I will not lie to you, it can be really really difficult for you to control these feelings and emotions at home.

So what do you do now?

The first thing is don’t jump! If you have just started and even on your first day things are not as they told you at the interview. Don’t panic, there could be a huge number of different reasons for this and I would suggest giving them ample time at least 2/3 months to see if anything changes.

During this time, if you have weekly meeting with your boss. Be honest with them about your feelings and talk openly with them, this won’t just give you the answers you are looking for but also will gain you respect. I have found that this is the best way to find out what is happening in the business and any great boss will want you to be happy and content.

If you are still not getting the information you could speak to the HR department, having worked with a high number of HR personnel over the years, they are there to help you, most employees are not normally aware of how much work and expense goes into them before they even start their first day so it’s in their interest to keep you happy and content.

It could be just cross wires somewhere down the line and if you don’t speak up you will never know, don’t start passing the blame until you know you’re 100% been mis-sold your position.

I know from personal experience how dis-heartening and stressful it can be once you have decided to change jobs because you have been mis-sold your position.

What you need to do now is consider your options:

• Can you afford just to up and leave and hope you get another job quickly?
  • It could also make you look desperate to potential employers
• What is your notice period, do you have a covenant?
  • Double check your contract

Now it is up to you, but I would say the best thing for most people, would be to start applying for a new job as you continue to work for this employer, for two reasons. Firstly, it could take a few months for you to find your next employment and looking at your CV from a recruitment aspect, it is better for you to still be employed than out of work and the second is that you will still be earning a salary, so you don’t find yourself in any financial difficultly.

What about my CV?

Ok, so now you are going to start looking for a new job. How do you explain why are you looking for a new job when you have only been in this employment for a few months?

As we are all aware, employers these days are looking for loyalty and longevity in your role, and if an employer see’s that you have only been in this employment for a few months. They could question why you are looking to change roles so quickly and you could get discounted even before they have found out why.

So what should I do?

Now you have two choices, Direct Applications or Recruitment Agencies?

This is what I did when I found myself in this situation.

I started applying for roles directly with the hiring companies. Now there was no particular reason I did this and if I had to do it again, I would now use both when looking for a new job.

What I can say is that at the start, the short work history in that current employment did have an impact for me. I was qualified for the positions I was applying for but I didn’t even get selected for a telephone interview which can increase the feelings you are having.

When I started getting the rejection emails I decided that I would email them back and ask for feedback on my application and why I wasn’t selected. Now some of the companies did reply and explain the reasons and some I never heard back from.

From the ones that did reply with their reasons, it gave me a great insight as to why this was happening to me and the biggest reason I found, was that at first look by the hiring manager. They questioned why am I applying for a new job so soon.

I examined my Cover letter first, and saw that I was really not giving a reason for why I was looking. I had talked about my current employment and why I matched their job description giving examples but I didn’t tell them that I was running the whole project without support, contact from directors etc. Now, this is where it can get hard due to the feelings you have towards your current employer but you need to be able to write your cover letter without putting your current employer down or making them look back as the prospective employer will not look at this in a good light. You could dictate this to a friend, partner or family member and get them to write this cover letter for you so it doesn’t come across angry & personal.

Next I looked at my CV and even though I now had reasons in my covering letter I wanted to include a short reason as to why I was looking for a new position as some hiring managers might not look at your covering letter and just look directly at your CV. I was honest with them, and I talked about how I was employed for one position but now I was in control of every aspect of the business and unfortunately due to communication issues in getting hold of the management, I am unable to fulfil my duties to the best of my ability.

Once I had this changed and uploaded my CV to niche job boards, I started applying for the same type of positions as previously but this time I started getting more calls and was able to explain in more detail what was happening in my current employment.

Once I had explained this to the hiring managers over the phone, they were totally discussed by the way I had been treated and this in turn, gained me the interviews and from there I have now found my dream job.

Now, I’m not saying this worked every time or that my experience in this matter will help you fully but I wanted to try and give people hope that even if you are facing this situation now, it will get better and please don’t full into the same position I found myself in feeling depressed, blaming yourself and the over welling feeling that I had let everyone down.

If you work in Logistics and are interested in seeing what opportunities are out there, check out our website (www.logisticsjobshop.co.uk) for all the latest logistics jobs, HGV jobs, LGV jobs and supply chain jobs.

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