Left waiting (From Braintree and Witham Times)

Left waiting

4:17pm Thursday 11th December 2008

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

I am hoping for a Christmas present from Braintree Council – a response to a job application in the mail department which was taken in by hand to Causeway Towers.

I filled in the application form for the advertised post about two months ago.

I haven’t received the courtesy of a reply thanking me for my application or a missive telling me I have failed to reach interview stage, or my name will be kept on a register.

Private-sector job applications from me have always resulted in a little note from both large and small firms in the Braintree and Witham area thanking me for applying and later advising me whether I will be interviewed or not and telling me I will be kept on a list.

Not so the wonderfully-closeted Braintree Council, where jobs and inflation-proof pensions are safe because we pay for them.

I expect the answer to its non-reply will be that it can’t afford to waste taxpayers’ money answering job applications.

Whenever I have been in a managerial position, I have always replied promptly to job applicants and sometimes phoned to thank people for applying.

I am reasonably lucky that I am able to just about tick over financially, but it must be soul-destroying for someone who has been made redundant or is out of work to apply for a job, especially with their council, and then not receive the courtesy of a response.

The silence is downright bad practice.

I received the Braintree Council Making Contact four-page broadsheet this week with a sub-heading A Better Deal for your Community.

Perhaps the inward-looking council doesn’t realise some of its community would actually like to work for them?

FRED HAMMERTON

Blackmore End

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)