Applied online and was contacted within a few days for a telephone interview, this was then followed by a face-to-face interview the following week with the Regional Manager. So far, so good. I was then invited to attend a trial shift in London the week after that, which I accepted and attended. From here it started to go downhill.
It was a 5 hour round trip for me to attend in London but I was assured that my travel expenses would be paid (they weren't). I was greeted by a girl in jeans, a t-shirt and tatty Nike trainers who turned out to be the manageress (I felt overdressed despite attempting to 'dress-down' to match the company image). She gave little to no instruction on what I should be doing but it became obvious that they want you to perform for three hours (think clown, not to demonstrate competence). This was followed by a de-brief in the office. I was not offered anything to eat and when I enquired about my travel expenses I was told that they did not pay for it.
I was then not contacted for 6 days and had to call back the guy from recruitment myself to be told that I'd not been successful as the manageress had found me to be impersonal. It's not an issue to be rejected after applying for work but after attending an unpaid trial shift that took 9 hours in total (including the 5 hour round trip), I would expect to be reimbursed for my travel expenses, offered something to eat and to be contacted within a reasonable amount of time.
