Just applied for a job that I’d love to do but the agency has come back and said there is one aspect I seem to be missing on my CV. As I’m so close to fitting the role apart from this one bit would offering to work for a trial period for free sway it? Or would they run a mile? (desperation doesn’t look good I suppose).

Is the missing bit something to do with being a guest of Her Majesty?

I offered to work somewhere for a week for free a couple of years ago. Spectacularly taken advantage of.

It depends whats missing.

If its to do with something that they will see you have/can do by offering a trial, perhaps its worth it, but otherwise I’d say probably not.

I’ve not long finished working for free for 6 months but nowt forthcoming. Can’t keep doing it but it seems the only way to get a foot in the door when you’re old (51). :0(

Funily enough, I applied for the job after my friend was offered it and turned it down. He says that my CV covers everything they required of him so can’t see why they would not interview me.

So the agency are saying you meet maybe 9/10 of the criteria? Now either the criteria are quite tough, in which case its unlikely the agency will find many candidates who can fulfill 10/10 in which case you will be in with a chance anyway OR the criteria are softer, plenty of candidates will tick the boxes and you just won’t qualify.

I think your mistake is assuming because the agency tell you you are ticking 9/10 boxes that you think you are in with a good chance. In the current market employers can afford to be quite fussy, even if you ticked 10/10 you might still not even get to interview if the employer doesn’t get excited by your CV. I’d guess the agency (who are basically selling you) were hoping you could rework your CV to tick 10/10 either in the hope that you’ll get the job and he’ll get his commission, or possibly he already has a prime candidate but promised his client he’d find 3 cv’s who ticked all the boxes, or possibly that he has a target to meet to keep his boss happy.

EDIT – to be more constructive, since your friend presumably knows who the company are and the contacts are there you could always have a chat directly. Even if you don’t approach them directly about “can I have the job if I work for free” you could style it as “I am looking to build up some experience in this area and wondered if you needed any help FOC for a month”?

Will they tell you which bit is missineng? Could be something you could compensate for in other ways?

They did say what was missing, but it is on my CV. Shouldn’t have put my dob on it.

When I say ‘they’ I mean the company, not the agency. The agency has been very good and asked me to expand on the wording on my cv and will have another go.

I’d keep at it. You don’t mention what job you’re going for, but if it’s something a bit “niche” the commpany may not have a big choice of candidates

It’s basically a data integration role, mapping data from one system to another and writing software to do it.

Draw their attention to any cases where you’ve done this faster/cheaper/more reliably (etc) than the norm. Or perhaps you’ve worked on a very similar set-up or industry before. Can you find out what tech they’re running? If it’s something unusual/legacy & you’ve worked with it before, you might be in a good position?

(I work in IT recruitment, but more for commercial roles)