Job candidate blindsided when their new employer terminates them on their first day on the basis of their first day being a “trial period”: ‘I had accepted a full-time job at $22/hour’ – FAIL Blog

The hardest part about wrapping your mind around even starting the job search is the feeling of uncertainty. That loss of security that you will experience through the interview process. While you hope to end up in a better place, advancement in career, higher earnings, and more growth potential, you fear that you’ll actually end up taking steps backward.

We’re taught that our careers, like our lives, will have a linear progression: work hard, get promoted, earn more, and become more financially secure. 

It really is for this reason that the idea of “trial periods” in employment doesn’t really make sense. The idea of leaving a job that is a secure “sure thing” just to enter into an uncertain “trial period” really leaves you scratching your head. Sure, in jurisdictions with strong employment protections, they save a small business the pain of being stuck with a “dud,” someone who should have never made it through the hiring process, who, for one reason or another, they now cannot get rid of. But, for candidates and employees, the very idea of the concept is backward and serves as the opposite of what you’re hoping to achieve by taking a new role.

But in areas where the doctrine of “at will” employment is the root of all employee/employer relationships, there is no need for any cause to dismiss an employee anyway, so the idea of a trial period is always implied; your entire employment becomes a trial period. And, if at any point your employer decides they no longer want to employ you, the ability to terminate you is at their discretion. 

The reality is that life doesn’t follow a linear path. We can’t always know what’s in store for us, or just around the corner. But we can control one thing: continuing to learn and grow from anyone and every experience. This is the surefire way to ensure you find success wherever you end up in life; success just won’t always look like you anticipated.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t going to help this candidate in the short term, given that they were blindsided by their new job with a trial period that they hadn’t been told about. Given the constantly moving goalposts that they experienced on their first day on the job, it’s doubtful that this was even a trial period at all, and that their new “employer” was just getting cold feet for some other reason and couldn’t be trusted.