[Gllug] Graduates paying for IT training before employment

[Jason Clifford]

On Sun, 24 Aug 2003, Alasdair G Kergon wrote:

> X graduated from uni and has been looking for work. Recently he went to
> an interview at a company called ICS.
> 
> http://www.icslondon.com/ 
> 
> They put out a request for IT consultants (some of whom might be
> trainees) who were graduates. Now, considering that X has just got
> out of Uni with a degree in sport science, he's not exactly
> able to hit the ground running. What the company have basically said to
> him is that they'll put him on some of of their training courses (***at
> his own expense***) and then once he's done those and passed the exam,
> then they'll offer him a job at roughly 24k.

I strongly suspect that this may be illegal on their part.

If they are employing him and training him the training should be at the 
companies expense - particularly if the training is inhouse. They company 
*can* include a minimum service period in the contract with a clause 
specifying that if the employee resigns early a percentage of the training 
costs must be borne by the employee.

This scheme the company are insisting upon smells really bad to me - what 
is the guarantee that the applicant will really have a job at the end of 
it?

Three months training at standard commercial rates is likely to cost the 
prospective employee a very large sum.

What is this "three months placement" being referred to? Is there a job or 
not?

That may well be an attempt to avoid entering into an employment contract 
- ie after three months training a three month "placement" at an 
unspecified rate - probably minimum wage - results in all but the top 1% 
being dropped.

This scheme could thus bring in a large amount of income for the company, 
give them access to trained applicants and allow them up to sic months to 
trial someone without giving them a real employment contract.

All of the above would probably incite a lot of interest from the Inland 
Revenue, the employment service and possibly other government agencies.

> As you may notice, as far as money goes, we're not exactly talking
> about peanuts here, and basically our concerns are that if you're
> going to take someone on as an employee, it's a bit fishy to require
> themselves to be trained at their own expense, don't you think? My
> position is that the courses may well be useful and will result in X
> being well qualified in the field, but it's a lotta dosh to fork
> out, and basically, given the amount you're paying for training, and
> then the amount that they pay you as salary, you probably won't do much
> better than breakeven after the first year, and that's negating the fact
> that one is not taking one's entire salary just to pay off the training
> costs.

Even worse as he wont have any salary during the training period - I 
presume the idea is that he'll be on benefits throughout.

> What ICS have said to X is that they will train him for 6 months (so
> there may be more courses in addition to the ones I mentioned, and a 3
> month placement is included in this period) and then guarantee him a job
> afterwards at 24K.

Sounds like some of the training courses being offered back when YTS was 
the current govt. scam. Not too many people actually got the "guaranteed" 
job at the end of the training - indeed lots of people never got a 
placement either.

> We now see that the training is OK but expensive.  However, I am trying
> to get a feel for how unusual it is for a company to ask for someone to
> pay for their training up front and then employ them afterwards,
> provided they have succeeded in the training.  

Not very at all. It may be worth having a solicitor give an opinion on 
whether this is legal.

> I am wondering whether this is a sign of the times.  Now that there are
> no jobs for life and there is no such thing as job security, only skills
> security do IT sector companies do much less training themselves for
> their employees/ potential employees?  We have to remember that it was
> not a graduate training scheme ad which he replied to - the job merely
> said they were looking for IT consultants, including some trainees, who
> needed to be graduates.  

When I first got into IT there was a recession (late 80's). Similar ads 
were common. Some provided training - I don't think too many provided any 
real jobs.

I suspect it's nothing but a sales tactic for the training business.

I may be wrong but I'd be looking for a very long barge poll.

Jason Clifford
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