lullabelle

I thought I had escaped all that fandango.

BUT, I have just been called to an interview next week (London) and they are asking me to bring with me:

My passport or birth certificate
Proof of my national insurance number
Proof of my address dating at least six months.

Wow. That has never happened to me before in the UK. Ok I have not had an actual formal interview in Britain for bloody yonks, but... Well, wasn't expecting it.

Is it just me that finds this very weird? At an interview?

Bahtatboy

Is this for work in the UK? If so I wouldn't object to the last two, but your passport? That, I would suggest, is none of their business.

lullabelle

Yeah uk. That's why I was so surprised. It's a well known company too.

Bizarre.

Oyibopeppeh

Why?

It's the most widely accepted piece of identification. I've been asked to show mine at some stage of almost every job application in the last 10 years

GolfGardener

Yes, I think it's standard practice these days. Some sort of Home Office rule I seem to remember.

Millhouse

Why object to the first and not the other two? I'm curious.

Millsyisland

Last time I saw my National Insurance card I was using it to scrape ice off the windscreen of my Mini van. Probably around 1989.

Can still remember the number though.

mentalist

There are National Insurance cards? I only remember the number.

Ethos83

I'm in the office early today as I have to interview a couple candidates this morning. The proof of identity is becoming standard as part of the crackdown on illegal migrants. We want to make sure you're legally able to work before we waste time on you. Everyone hates the recruitment process and we don't want to go through all the hoops only to discover you're an Aussie or a yank trying to slip through the cracks.

It is no doubt frustrating for native born people to suddenly have their identity questioned but this is the aftermath of Labour's opening the immigration floodgates and allowing millions of migrants into the country under lax supervision. Notwithstanding the economic conditions there are still desperate people from all over trying to find a way to work in the UK.

LaLaLayla

There are cards??? I never had one either.

<feels strangely cheated>

And I can still remember the number, on account of long periods at uni signing on the dole in the holidays. Those were the days

Norm_uk

It makes me sick that for 15 years the people like those in Labour have been calling many of us bigots and racists and throwing slime left, right and centre. Now they are out of power (and obviously out of touch) they have come clean that there is a huge immigration problem in Britain and they made it far worse that it needed to be.

If we have to show ID when we go for jobs that's how it has to be...at least we know they are finally cracking down on the problem.

N.

Millsyisland

This is what the National Insurance card looked like:

Jim Smith

Don't remember see one of those before! Maybe post 1977 when I left UK?

Millhouse

I had one issued to me in 1994... As yes, I concur that the only use for it is the de-icing (and buying fags of course).

Bahtatboy

Passport proves nationality, not right to work.
NI proves right to work (doesn't it?).
NI + proof of address = all the employer needs to be proven at that stage.

Isn't that right?