I’ve just accepted a new job offer, which is pending a lot of things (background, references, 10 year employment history etc. etc) which gives the company an out to basically not hire me. They seem to ask for a TON of information, and I’m a little intimidated.
Because of the timetable involved, I had to give notice to the old company when I got the offer, but before they have a chance to go through all of my background.
Let’s say for example I made a mistake on my application, or some yahoo at a summer job I worked 8 years ago thinks it’s funny to tell them I was fired for pooping in the sinks, and the company decides to withdraw the offer before my hire date. I’ve already resigned with the old company and have to leave; I can’t reverse it.
In such a hypothetical situation, would I be eligible for unemployment or would I be pretty much boned?
You didn’t get a job offer, you got a “pending” job offer.
I would not have given notice till I had a firm offer in writing. Not one that is dependant on background checks (which can take up to three weeks) or drug tests or anything like that.
Generally speaking in your case, you can’t get unemployment.
This happened to a few people I knew right after 9-11. I was in the hotel business, and we had three employees give notices the week prior. All three employees had job offers, then after 9-11, the next day all three had their job offers withdrawn.
The hotel company I worked for also withdrew offers to people it had made and indeed, laid a few of their own people off.
None of those who quit were able to get unemployment.
Now does this mean you shouldn’t apply? No of course not, you ALWAYS apply. Sometimes your employer won’t fight it, or often if they do, you can get a sympathetic arbitrator in the appeals process who will give you the money.
In today’s economy you can’t afford to take risks, if you needed this job, you could have not given notice at your first job. You may consider that unethical, but it’s not a normal economy and you have to really cover your butt at all costs because no company would think twice of screwing you over.
Having ethics or even compassion for your co-workers effected by the choice to give no notice, is a nice things, but ethics like anything, can be misplaced
Isn’t one of the few benefits for employees in At-Will employment states (one of which is the OP’s state) the fact that we aren’t required to give notice?
Sure! As of today, everything seems confirmed. My new boss called me to make sure I understood about how things would work for my first day (next Monday) and to explain that I’ll be spending the day in orientation with all other new hires for the company – that’s why, apparently, I had to start that day.
As for why I “had” to give notice: I guess I didn’t, in that I don’t have a legal liability, but I had only two weeks from the day I got the offer and I didn’t want to give my employer no notice. For one thing, even though I doubt I’ll ever work for the company again, I don’t want to burn all the bridges there. Most of my professional references stem from there; there is a definite value to me. Mostly, though, my boss has become a friend to me and I felt it would be unethical in the extreme to just not show up one day. Yeah, the economy sucks, but I just didn’t feel right as a human being.
In the end, it’s worked out. It was a firm, written offer, but just with that contingency, which (after polling people I know) seems to be pretty standard boilerplate for “if we find out that you lied about everything, we reserve the right to yank this offer before you start”. As it so happens, whatever company they hired to do the employment verification fucked up and called me, personally, for verification of my current job. :smack: I set them straight with the correct person to talk to and all was well.
I appreciate everyone indulging my worst fears. As it happens, I got another job interview early in the week, which, barring anything unexpected in the first couple days of the job, I plan to cancel. (It’s not really a position I’m terribly attracted to – it’s doing technical support for accounting software used by farmers – and it’s a long commute. It was just a “safety” application.) I also heard from a recruiter looking for contract workers, so it seemed like I had several options to consider if the worst happened.
For the record, I haven’t been asked for a drug test in this specific situation.
However, I don’t think Iowa law makes this provision; everything I’ve read indicates that you can ask “applicants” or “prospective employees” – there’s nothing that requires a written offer at this point.
Now, in practice, I’ve never heard of a company doing that until after an interview. I used to be involved in hiring at a call center, and even we would not drug test until after the interview stage. It just didn’t make sense to go through the expense unless we wanted the employee, and it certainly would have appeared weird in the extreme to drug test first, wait for the results, and then interview. It was generally more like “Ok, we’d like to offer you the job at X rate. You’d start on X day. Is this OK? Great! Here are the instructions for the drug test, you must do this within 24 hours, these are the directions. As long as the drug test and background check come back fine, you won’t hear from us, so here’s our number and where to show up on the first day.”
And to head any notions of random tests off at the pass, they are very difficult in California except for safety-sensitive positions or otherwise mandated by law (Commercial Drivers License holders, etc)
