An 18-year-old aspiring estate agent has been offered a job interview at haart after initially being rejected because her car was considered too old.
Alanah Thompson French, from Burton Joyce in Nottinghamshire, applied for a trainee lettings negotiator role in Nottingham but was told her 2014 Citroën C1 did not meet the requirement for vehicles to be under 10 years old.
haart said at the time that reliable transport is important for staff safety, particularly when traveling long distances or working alone. French, who currently works full-time in a coffee shop, noted that the application specifically asked if her car was under 10 years old, and she answered “no.”
After the story received widespread media coverage yesterday, haart informed EYE that it has decided to remove the car-age requirement and invited French for an interview.
A spokesperson for the estate agency said: “We are extremely grateful to Alanah Thompson French for raising her concerns about our car policy. Although it was introduced with good intentions, to ensure that colleagues use vehicles that are roadworthy and safe, it was never meant to prevent people from joining our organisation.
“Indeed, as the UK’s largest independently owned estate agency group, we have brought 826 new people into the profession through our sales, lettings and financial services academies in the past year alone, training our teams to be the best in the industry. We have an impressive track record of recruiting people of all ages, including many younger people who are struggling to find work elsewhere.
Forget the Ministry of Transport and its MOT, Haart wanted to ensure that vehicles used are roadworthy and safe. I trust they have now carried out a full inspection.
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A company taking this attitude is indeed sad as a company vehicle could be rented / leased for what £200 pm ? More importantly they fail to address the potential & suitability of the young lady as a candidate for the industry.
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Rumour has it the interview was a no show as the car had broke down. (Not really, just kidding) I think it’s great to see that Haart have backtracked on this one. It’s hard to get good willing to learn youngsters to fill positions nowadays, afterall they are the future ones of the industry. Thinking back to the car I had when I first started out 30 odd years ago if policies were in place like that none of us would have got a job! You can’t expect people just starting out to be rolling in around in up to date recent cars, it’s hard enough for them to get insurance let alone fill the car up with fuel at today’s prices. I say Good luck to Alanah I hope you have a long and fruitful estate agency career!
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When I was an agent ion the 80’s negs had a company car and were very well ,p[aid
Times have changed
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ha ha ha you cant make this **** up
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This is the problem of interview by AI, I bet no one even saw her application before she was rejected
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The Power of PIE!!! They should be in Government with a U-turn like that.
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They will end up offering her a BMW mk1 which is tagged so they can see where you are at all times.
She will also receive a weekly email letting her know how good her driving is or isn’t.
She’ll then have her car inspected weekly to make sure it’s not dirty.
She’ll then have to learn to register people the Spicerhaart way, which is terribly robotic.
She’ll also have to sit in a meeting with her team whilst people listen to her and critique said registration.
This is on top of having to explain to the regional director why you have not hit your target that month.
My advice is not to interview there……..
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