A Tale Of Two Interns… And Then A Couple More

The company I work at recently hired an intern through a recruitment agency. He’s been doing great, although he has had a number of IT issues. These issues prompted one of my colleagues who had been at the company for a while to tell those of us who weren’t there at the time about another time the company used a recruitment agency to hire an intern.

It started out normally enough. Human Resources provided the agency with the details of the job, and the agency told HR to expect [Intern #1], providing them with his details so our IT guys could get everything set up for him and his induction could go smoothly. The morning he was supposed to start, however, he called in to say he wouldn’t be able to start until the next day. The next morning, he called in to say he was feeling unwell and wouldn’t be able to come in that day, either. The morning after that, he had to spend the whole day at the hospital because of a medical emergency involving a family member. And so it continued, with each morning bringing a new reason that [Intern #1] couldn’t start his new job that day.

After a couple of weeks of this, HR got fed up with his excuses, told him his services were no longer required, and asked the recruitment agency for someone else. Cue [Intern #2], who was a better choice than [Intern #1] simply because she actually showed up for her induction. Unfortunately, that’s all she did. Two hours after arriving at the office, it was discovered that she didn’t have a permit to work in the UK. She was asked to leave, and HR went back to the agency to try again.

This time, the agency offered the role to [Intern #3], but they warned HR that she wouldn’t be able to make or answer phone calls. This wasn’t a vital part of the role, so HR decided that this was acceptable, assuming that the reason she couldn’t use the phone was that she was deaf. Instead, it turned out that she couldn’t speak a single word of English, and while phone use wasn’t vital, communication with other team members was. A colleague who spoke her language had to explain to her why she couldn’t do the job.

Fortunately, the troubles ended there, as [Intern #4] turned out to be perfect for the role, although he did spend his first couple of weeks in the job using the login details and email account that had been set up for [Intern #2].