my friends story is true, a full days trial is pretty ridiculous and they didn't even offer to buy him his lunch :nono:

would you do a days work as a trial? I wouldn't :shrug:

No I wouldn't and my friend didn't want her son to do it either, but he was 17 and was desperate to get a part time job so didn't listen to her when she said it didn't sound right that they needed a full day off him.....

people do lots of things for free if they think they will get a return on their investment.

A man will take a women out and pay for meals and gifts if he thinks he will get a ride at the end.

Found this about B&M!
http://www.boycottworkfare.org/tales...ntinues-at-bm/

which is basically a link to others who have suffered the same fate with B&M (Tales of unpaid toil: workfare continues at B&M)

That is SO retail. So glad I'm out of it. There will be some clause somewhere which means they're entitled to do that.

This happened to me years back. Interview for a waitressing job, they said I had a trial and such. Ended up working for 20 hours in total (2 days they scammed me for) before they decided they did not actually need staff at all and refused to pay me as I had not 'worked' I had just been on a trial :bored: Turned out they did this a lot..every weekend actually. So they were just scamming young people into working for free in their busiest periods.

I am surprised it still goes on, and especially in large well known companies.

I once had a "trial" in a small independent bistro type restaurant, send a good 5 hours doing prep (chopping veg, making salads, prepping fish etc) then was told I "unfortunately hadn't got the job". Got suspicious when the "staff wanted" sign was still up several months later... Turns out the guy was just getting people in on Weekends to do the extra prep on busy days for free.

He also had an illegal immigrant from Pakistan working 50 hour weeks for £2.50 an hour.

I think people reported him, nothing happened for ages but last I saw the place was shut down so I guess it all caught up with him eventually.

Oh, he also employed 16/17 year olds as waiting staff and seemed to be paying them almost exclusively with bags of cannabis :think:. Plus the staff room was Literally FULL of bongs :joker:.

We don't do work trials here... closest is unpaid internship but you're told clearly it will be unpaid and is meant to be resume building,

I wouldn't say retail is better here though. But maybe the laws are enforced as companies I worked for prior were adamant I stayed on clock. If I clocked out and got stopped by a customer, if I didn't fill out a timesheet I could get into trouble...

Now some places, not retail but a beaurocracy, if you can't clock in until your shift due to the way the system is designed, but they asked you to come in 15 minutes early for shift change or roll call...timesheets were discouraged so that was a free 15 minutes probably there but if they had to report somewherd, then yes its logged...


Maybe culturally it is much more difficult to get away with. Americans are quite adamant about being paid.., though I wouldn't say our work ethic is as good for it, What's in it for me is pretty common I would say... on the other hand, in Japan, these practices are super common I think...

Oh it does hapoen in the creative field... this concept of having a group of designers to submit work in order to "bid" for the job... is actually a complete scam, especially those logo design contests.... I've heard it called "spec" work. I just call it bull****. Being ripped as a contractor or otherwise being shorted part of your fee is unfortunately quite common..

I'm sure it helps that people here are very litigious. Everything is a lawsuit waiting to happen... your conception alone brought unwarranted harm to the world and now we must sue you... maybe they won't win, but they'll bankrupt the defendant along the way to court with all it's meticulous proceedings...

A friend of mine has to do "work experience" at B&M - 30 hours a week, just for JSA. When he's employed he works with computers, so the "work experience" there is completely valueless to him, a complete waste of time he could spend looking for a job in his actual field, or perhaps just volunteering with computers to keep his foot in.

I was thinking of making a thread in SD&N to see what people thought of that and if they knew anyone in similar circs, maybe I will/

Tbf it's not completely useless.
It can help to fill a gap.

I did a couple of short term "unpaid" work experiences when I was claiming job seekers. One of which I wasn't forced to do, I found it myself.

I still got some money, the employers were always nice enough to give me something for my time but I wasn't officially earning a proper wage and it was just for a couple of months.

Anyway, it prevents a gap on your CV. Gaps are always a turn off for employers.

If I never bothered with any job outside the field I am actually passionate about pursuing I'd have not earned much to this day. Sometimes needs must and work is work. Employers will appreciate someone with a good work ethic who's done what they needed to keep busy or pay the bills over someone just waiting for the perfect job to land in their lap.

I heard on the radio today that this kind of thing has increased tonnes over the last three years and now the government are considering making “trial” unpaid shifts illegal

yeah heard that too, whole day or even two day trials seem to be very common in some work practices, that is what a probationary period is for

There is a second hearing of a bill to stop long term unpaid trials. Companies will still be able to offer "working interviews" that can be unpaid but they will have to be more transparent with them and not use it as a way to obtain free labour.

As Marsh has said, there are benefits to undertaking voluntary work as it enhances your CV, the problems start when companies do what Amy has described in the OP

Sadly he left it and took it as a learning curve, he's honestly too nice I would have been livid, I 100% believe they took advantage of him with absoloutely no intention of ever taking him on.