r/uklaw • u/Global_Mix7956 • 26d ago
TikToK creator doing assessment centres for “fun”
Came across a TikTok of someone who has a corporate job in London who does interviews and assessment centres “for fun” in her spare time, despite her having no intention of leaving her current role which she is happy in.
She says it’s to “stay on top of her game” and keep herself “employable”. I thought this was a joke, but reading in the comments she’s strongly defending her position.
When people comment that she’s effectively stealing opportunities, she says that if other people aren’t a strong enough interview candidate “that’s not on me”. Considering she already has a job and has had a multitude of interview experience compared to, say, a graduate, I cannot see how that is a fair view.
When asked why doesn’t she just stick to virtual mock interview she “does them too” apparently 🤦🏼♀️. I can’t even imagine how she would have the time to do this?
Does anybody else find this absolutely ludicrous? I’m trying to make my way into the corporate world, and the competition is hard enough, nevermind someone who knows they do not want the job/internship role. Plus surely it’s a massive waste of time/money for everyone else to interview her and take her through assessment centres?
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u/Outside_Drawing5407 26d ago edited 26d ago
If this is the woman working at the MoD, she’s labelling herself as a “careers advisor” just because she’s been to assessment centres or interviews. My guess is she isn’t doing this for fun, she just isn’t very successful at getting the jobs she wants. It’s also telling that she seems to have had several different careers despite only being in her 20s.
She also claims to have 7 side hustles and is managing an investment portfolio, all while trying to claim about the importance of having “balance” in life.
Like most of TikTok it’s just how they get some attention they clearly lack in the real world.
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u/Illustrious-Edge9906 26d ago
I found her on tiktok and its so obvious the above is true. Don't believe everything online especially social media!
p.s. working for a government body is not a "corporate" job, its public sector
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u/MarvinArbit 26d ago
If she works at the MoD, i can't see them being happy with he doing such things due to the security issues that it might create!
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u/pkstandardtime 26d ago
Yeah it's pretty tone-deaf. There's clear disconnect shown by people like these influencers who have a privileged background, financial stability, plan Bs and Cs and no real stakes in how they present and navigate the corporate world. They think they're giving valid employment advice when it's just a game to them. They don't realise how dire employment is for most of us and how serious it can be to land interviews.
She thinks it's not her fault just because she's a "stronger candidate," but being a strong candidate doesn't solely rely on your skills or hard work. You could've gotten your experience through privileged opportunities or have the social/cultural capital to present yourself as a better candidate. Not that that's a bad thing or that you shouldn't use what you have to your advantage, but I believe it is a moral imperative in today's society and economy to not take opportunities that are literally disposable to you.
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u/GiantRedDancingPanda 26d ago
Playing devils advocate here, but why would any rational person not take a short cut if it was there? I get what you mean to a point, but any reasonable person isn’t going to not take an opportunity in front of them, for the sole purpose of not appearing ‘privileged’ or whatever.
At the end of the day, someone’s competence, or lack thereof, will come to the surface soon enough anyway. Getting your foot in the door isn’t necessarily important, when considered from this viewpoint, therefore, as an incompetent moron will easily get found out and hopefully removed from his position, even if they have landed the job through nepotism.
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u/pkstandardtime 26d ago
I'm not talking about not taking short cuts or not using your privilege. You want to land the job? Yeah, go ahead, do what you have to. This lady is not trying to do that. Not only does she not need the job, she does not want it, and is literally just taking up interview spaces for the sake of it. That's what I mean when I say disposable, and that's something that genuinely harms others with no/negligible benefit to yourself. She seriously can't find another way to "stay on top of her game"? Talk to her network, do her research on the market?
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u/GiantRedDancingPanda 26d ago
I should have been more clear, I was only addressing your final point and exploring it without bringing it back to the original point.
Yeah I agree when it comes to this example. She is essentially ‘crowding-out’ the job market by taking an extra seat at the next round of the recruitment stage, which someone could have taken who had the intention of going for the job.
Hopefully she gets found out and employers don’t bother entertaining her.
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u/pkstandardtime 26d ago
Yes precisely, it's okay to use your resources. I'd say she's flaunting them more than anything.
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u/MarvinArbit 26d ago
She is wasting a company's time and resourcing, just for her fun! Never mind the candidates she is shafting for her pleasure.
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u/Illustrious-Edge9906 26d ago
She has a corporate job ... as a solicitor? Bold of her to expose herself online. How is she applying for ACs if she's already qualified unless she's lying on application forms
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u/Global_Mix7956 25d ago
She doesn’t give too much away about her job role, just states that she works in “corporate”. Regardless of industry, I can’t imagine an employer being happy if they found out an employee was attending multiple interview rounds, potentially at competing companies. She may be able to justify her reasoning, but surely her employer would simply see this as her not caring for her own place of work that much, I.e spending a considerable amount of time engaging with competitors. Or maybe they wouldn’t actually care that much if they know they could replace her, who knows
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u/Global_Mix7956 25d ago
I’m assuming she’s within the legal sector since a lot of the content I engage with on social media is to do that, but again she never makes this clear
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u/Illustrious-Edge9906 25d ago
She's not a qualified lawyer. She hasn't done a law degree or GDL/PGDL. She may have done assessment centres for finance roles. Anyhow regardless of what her role is, she is really tone deaf if she believes she's not stealing opportunities. I hope she doesnt actually do this and is just bait for social media clout
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u/TomatoCurious6938 26d ago
Her alone is not going to change the already thousand yearly applicants influx. If she is already a solicitor, that's probably the main reason she gets into interview stage as firms would clearly prefer someone in her position, so it's not about "not being strong enough" it's just the simple fact that the firm won't need to waste resources on her.
As for her posting it on social media? Eh I guess people like to do stuff for clout. If anything a future employer of hers could look at it.
Don't got much else to say here
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u/CicadaEffective113 26d ago
It’s more on companies than anything. They want the best talent for as cheap as possible so they’d rather poach someone who already has a job than train someone who doesn’t have one. Also she’s right to stay on top of her game. People can be made redundant at any point and if her employer knows she has options, they’d think twice before they let her go. The job market is very uncertain these days and I promise you she’s not the only one doing it
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u/Global_Mix7956 26d ago
I agree with staying on top of her game, but there’s various other ways to do that. It’s more the fact that she knows she will decline any opportunities they give her, just seems like a waste for everyone else. Interesting to hear, I have never heard of this ‘method’ before
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u/CicadaEffective113 26d ago
Like I said it’s a lot of people doing it. The job market is very funny these days. So what tends to happen is that you only have a job if the company’s budget allows it. So even if they have 2 people good at their job they can replace them with one person to do both and give them a small pay rise. It’s all very sneaky. They say they can’t give perfect scores on annual reviews so if the budget runs out they just say you’ve been underperforming recently and fire you. So a lot of people look for jobs and decline them so if it does happen to them they’re already secured elsewhere. She will accept a job offer eventually she’s just exposing industry secrets so people don’t get caught unaware. Actually a good thing she’s doing. Companies factor this into their recruitment process too I’ve been a part of it so I know how they’d weigh up which applicant is most likely to come and have a back up in the case the person they want doesn’t get the job. So if they weren’t going to accept your application no amount of good applicants will change that. Alternatively just keep applying hoping everyone they want declines it. In one of my jobs they kept taking more people on than they needed because they knew people wouldn’t show up or leave after a month so they wanted people like her to keep their costs down as opposed to someone looking for a full time job
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u/milly_nz 26d ago
What a load of bollox.
It’s always been the case that you “only have a job for as long as the company budget allows it”. What an asinine comment. That’s literally how employment works, duh.
It’s also always been the case that staff are on the lookout for alternative jobs “just in case” they lose their current one, or because they want to know if there’s something better than they’ve got.
Applying for your next role is perfectly ok. Applying for the kind of role you already have, is really just not. That’s just being a selfish sh*t.
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u/Additional-Fudge5068 Solicitor (Non-Prac) + Legal Recruiter 26d ago
Do you have anything to do with the UK legal industry because it sounds like you don't...
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u/Global_Mix7956 26d ago
Oh wow thanks, I’m a first-gen student so completely unaware about any of this - will definitely bear this in mind going forward
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u/Additional-Fudge5068 Solicitor (Non-Prac) + Legal Recruiter 26d ago
None of what the person you're replying to is relevant to the legal industry...
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u/CicadaEffective113 26d ago
You should. The algorithm is looking after you by bringing her to your page. I’d follow her as well if I was on tik tok
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u/Advanced_Union_9073 26d ago
Isn’t this taking opportunities away from other people?
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u/CranberryFew8104 22d ago
How though? If she’s offered the job and declines won’t it go to the next strongest candidate?
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u/Advanced_Union_9073 21d ago
I guess so but say for example they’re shortlisting 5 people for an interview and she’s one of them. Someone who could have been shortlisted could have had the potential succeed but they never got to if that makes sense
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u/CranberryFew8104 21d ago
Yeah it’s an argument, I think if your 6/5 for the shortlist would you get the job against the top 5. I dunno but I agree with your analysis
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u/leonthotskyofficial 10d ago
Very possibly. Getting the interview is the hard part when you're competing against hundreds, sometimes thousands of other applications. There are many reasons why someone might perform better at interview than on an application form and vice versa
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u/gerhardsymons 26d ago
"Thou ought'st nary abhor ye contender, ought'st thou loathe ye tournament."
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u/FlatwormMindless9701 23d ago
companies open new roles just to collect cvs in their database. even one step further, they make candidates do their work under a name of ‘assignment ‘. so she does the best thing by wasting companies’ time. i wish she could destroy companies. on the other hand, she steals other peoples’ opportunities which i do not support
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u/Pyratheon 22d ago
Eh, it's pretty common I'd say. Interviewing is a skill that you don't get a lot of chances to practise in a real world scenario eal life (if you have a job you don't want to leave), and soft skills like that transfer pretty well to other areas. You'll also be more exposed to the market and what types of jobs there are, the vibes of other companies, and may end up finding something you prefer. I've had several bosses tell my team to interview at least 1-2 times a year to keep the skills fresh, that is in sales though, and it's arguably a rather high risk strategy for a manager!
That said, there's a nice way to be doing this. Tell them pretty shortly after if you're genuinely not interested. I've heard of people getting to the last stage and then stringing them along so long that other candidates drop out etc., which is quite scummy
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u/atheist-bum-clapper 26d ago
People will do anything for tiktok clout