Response to a problematic job advertisement

To whom it may concern at Flipside Media,

I am writing to you to express my concern and disgust towards your recent vacancy advertisement. I have been applying for jobs similar to the one you have described and was considering applying for yours, but upon further inspection I discovered multiple flaws and infringements within the requirements.

Firstly, this advertisement states that the employee will be required to work between 10 and 45 hours per week and earn between £15000 and £35000 per annum. This is an extremely broad spectrum and the amount is not a certainty, and could become potentially illegal as another requirement you have stated is that the applicant must be 'under 30'. Not only is this an infringement of the Equality Act (2010) under discrimination of age, an employee under the age of 18 cannot legally work over 40 hours per week. 

Within an employment contract, it is required to outline the start date of the employee, a job title, and holiday allowances, and your advert touches upon none of these topics.

The position within your company is extremely unclear and the employee is required to take on certain important roles such as 'overseeing productions' and 'managing budgets', a rather senior role for a new employee. A profound amount of responsibility is required of someone that is new and inexperienced within your company, and a lot of opportunity for your company to experience problems, both financial and ethical.

The brief that you have set for applicants to respond to is quite frankly disgusting and potentially scarring upon both the interviewees and the applicants. to interview young, underage teenagers about life-changing and emotionally impacting events that have happened is not only a problem in itself, but no safe-guarding or counselling has been outlined (for both the victims and the applicants). The topic of rape is one that should be approached with the utmost sensitivity and care, especially with people that are underage. Also, where do you expect to find these people? Rapists and rape victims are not on a list and are not readily available to question about their situations. Do you honestly feel as though creating a documentary about such a hard-hitting topic is appropriate for a potential employee? What if the applicant has also been affected by a situation such as this?

You may well have liability insurance which covers you if physical or emotional harm is inflicted by you or your employee, but the person that would be producing this documentary would not be employed by you. Although it is a production for you, they are simply applying for a position within your company and are not actually an employee, meaning that your liability insurance would not cover the applicant if an interviewee was to take action/sue them.

You seem not to understand the serious nature of the subject you wish your applicants to cover. Asking them to 'compliment' their documentary with popular music and re-enactments is not the appropriate way to describe a documentary about rape. Not only this, but you ask for 'female victims and male offenders' to be interviewed...a completely stereotypical request with insensitive disregard to male victims and ignorance towards the fact that females can also offend.

Is a mere £20 re-compensation for the documentary what a lifetime of mental and emotional scarring upon both the participants and your potential employee worth to you?

I hope after reading this you will review the vague and problematic nature of your advertisement.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Barnard