[Skip to content]

Recruiter
TwitterYoutubelinkedInTumblr
Search our Site
Thursday 23 May 2013
HOT TOPICS
INDUSTRY SECTORS
CURRENT ISSUE
To read the latest issue, click here
Recruiter cover
To view past issues, click here

Subscribe
SPECIAL REPORTS
Hot 100
Asia Pacific
Fast 50
Australia
.

Car sales boss hits outs at work-shy jobseekers

Fri, 27 Apr 2012
Email Comment Print this page
Online car dealership CarSmart’s director of sales has voiced concern at lack of enthusiasm among benefits claimants for new job openings at the firm.

The company is looking for at least nine new staff members, with seven new applicants due to turn up at the company for a day’s paid work, organised by the local job centre last Wednesday, 25 April. Not one turned up, the firm reports.
The company statement adds that “all seven were no-shows on the same grounds that by the time they had paid their bus fare and lunch fare by coming to the company today, they could earn more by sitting at home claiming their job-seeker's allowance”.

Cooper says: "We've had all kinds of characters through the door recently" – although more to the point, not coming through the door at all – making the extra office space it had rented in anticipation “a complete waste”.

He adds: "We asked the Canterbury Job Centre to refer everyone that comes through their door on to us. But in five working days, we have only had one person passed on to us, and only on the grounds that he's 'a lovely boy'."
Email Comment Print this page
Page Comments
Please enter your comments below
Fill out the all the boxes and click the 'Submit' button to make a comment on this page
*Comments are added to the bottom of the page. They are moderated and will not be published until approved by the Recruiter team. They may be edited.
According to the article in yesterday's Daily Mail online, this guy was proposing to pay the staff £100 for a week's work, at some kind of "introductory" rate but felt they could earn an extra £300/wk in commission. This basic falls well below the NMW and is surely illegal? This might be why nobody wanted to show up!

Rachel Lawrence (27/04/2012 13:31:11)

CarSmart's Sales Directors comments are interesting, however the thought of working 14 hour days, Saturday's and Sunday's for minimum wage and commission of probably 5% or less is perhaps not such an appealing option for many with family's or prohibitive travel costs.
Employment is a two way street, just because you're and employer, it's does not give you the right to expect people to work unreasonably long hours and in fact reading the story, I would not be surprised if the street wise youth of today aren't cognisant of the roles being poor and less than opportunistic.
I work in sales and have done for a number of years, it's not for everyone and programmes like the Apprentice make it seem like it's easy, when ultimately it's not. I would be interested in seeing the package on offer from CarSmart in a future Recruiter article, I'm sure it would stimulate debate if nothing else.

Andrew Shearer (27/04/2012 15:33:54)