'I Walked Out Of A Job interview After 1 Question – Did I Overreact?'
The Trade Union Congress found that in 2023, UK employers claimed £26 billion of free labour last year via unpaid overtime and employees working on their lunch breaks.
So it’s no wonder a Redditor felt the urge to “walk out” of an interview after their would-be employer mentioned unpaid overtime upfront.
Writing to r/jobs, they wrote: “I walked out of an interview after just one question. Still not sure if I overreacted.”
We spoke to Neil Ormesher, CEO of Accounts and Legal, about whether or not his reaction was warranted.
The poster was told unpaid overtime meant “dedication”
The original poster (OP) wrote that their interview was going well, but that they felt blindsided when their interviewer asked them how they felt about unpaid overtime.
OP asked why they wanted to know, to which they replied that some degree of overtime was “expected” among their company’s employees to show “dedication.”
The post author, put off by the comment, says they walked out of the interview then and there.
They aren’t sure whether their reaction was fair, however.
“I don’t think the interviewee is in the wrong”
Ormesher tells HuffPost UK, ” Healthy employer-employee relationships are built on trust, mutual trust, so from a personal standpoint, I don’t think the interviewee is in the wrong here.”
He adds, “employers have a right to define expectations, just as employees have a right to accept or reject terms. With respect to demanding extra to show dedication, this shouldn’t be a requirement.”
After all, he says, an employee should only have to agree to the contract provided – not an unwritten “rule.”
“Legally speaking, employers are required to keep records of employee working hours to maintain compliance with the Working Time Regulations 1998 statutory instrument under UK labour law, so in my professional opinion, the employer’s comment about not really tracking hours is concerning,” he continues.
“Ultimately, interviews stand to help employees and employers gauge how well a proposition suits both parties, and in this case, the terms laid out are not mutually agreeable.”