My daughter recently applied for a public sector job. She completed all the required elements of the application, while trying to hold down her job and dealing with a sick child. That's just a bit of background, probably quite typical of what any working mother can face when looking around for a better job for improve one-self.
Anyway, the job on publicjobs.ie showed a closing date in the format DD/month/yyyy.
When she drilled down and received the documentation, the closing date was changed to DD/month/yyyy @3p.m.
In the event, she spent two days completing the application form (CVS were not accepted) and finally sent off the completed application. She then realised that she was sending it at 3:04 p.m. on the closing date.
She received an email last week to tell her that, as her application had not been received by the public body concerned until 3:06 p.m., it was now rejected.
She submitted the application by the posted date on the website, but was 6 minutes late according to the rejecting person.
How is this fair? Someone spends days trying to prepare a worthy application and then it's not going to be even looked at, because it was 'late'? Perhaps I could understand it if it was a competition for a post that needed urgent / immediate filling. But the competition closed approx 10 weeks before she was told that her application had been rejected. 10 WEEKS sitting on someone's desk and she's 4 MINUTES late???
I do NOT need to hear any opinions about the fact that she was late. She knows that she missed the time, by FOUR MINUTES. I do want to hear from anyone in public service recruitment or anyone outside who has encountered this kind of situation before.
Thanks in advance.
