Ethically bankrupt. I interviewed on the 28th of July and was told 'Congratulations! You have a conditional offer!' I believed this was a standard conditional offer based on good references and the financial credit check. Several emails which followed began in the same manner. I was then asked to provide a detailed employment and educational history. Despite making it clear that I worked six days in a row following the interview, the company demanded that I complete this ASAP or I would become a reserve candidate. They also requested that I submit proof of address in person on my day off, at the end of the week, which seemed reasonable. The urgent sounding email included 'time is already a very limiting factor in the reference and vetting team’s ability to process your details in time for the 14th August.' For that reason I stayed up until 2am filling in the detailed online form despite having to get up for work at 6am. It was only then that I was sent the following email: 'Dear (Name), Thank you for your email. We had not yet had the opportunity to inform you that we wished to place you as a Reserve candidate, as this call cannot take place until the forms have been submitted. We wanted to inform you now prior to the call as a courtesy to help inform your decision regarding when to complete the Top-Up form. Nobody in the team in the previous steps would have been aware of the position we intended to offer, due to the fact that we have already had enough successful candidates to be placed as official Starters. If any of these candidates fail their referencing and vetting, or decide to drop out, then there will be a place available for a Reserve candidate to take. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us again. Kind Regards, (Name) LBG Recruitment Team' 'As a courtesy' after I was required to ask my current manager for a reference in order to complete the forms. At no point earlier was it made clear that the roles were considered filled prior to the interview process. I called to say how unethical this seemed and withdraw my application. The recruiter refused to answer how many reserves there were. I asked if 'reserves' would be put first for other roles in the company and the answer was no. The recruiter defended this by stating that they need to have reserves in case people fail the referencing stage. This is an incredibly lazy, selfish method of recruitment.

Friendly interviwer made me feel really at ease and the application process was thorough but relevant to the job role applied for, prior to the interview an online test needed to be completed.