University of Birmingham Reviews 

Disrespectful and Unprofessional Recruitment Process

I interviewed for a role within a research team, with Amanda Knight as the main point of contact. I was told I had passed the interview and received a job offer email the same day from the prospective line manager for the role, who advised that HR would follow up the following week.

HR never contacted me. After chasing, the line manager said she would follow up with HR, but nothing progressed. Two weeks later, I checked the HR system and found my status had been changed to “not retained,” with no explanation or communication.

More than a month later, the team manager contacted me to ask whether HR had been in touch. He was surprised they had not. Although the offer could still have been processed, by that point I had already made other arrangements.

Overall, the recruitment process was handled extremely poorly, with serious communication failures from HR, a lack of transparency, and no clear accountability. The experience was not only frustrating but also disrespectful and, at times, frankly insulting. It left me with the clear impression that candidates’ time and effort are not valued.

As an international candidate, the lack of clear communication and structured timelines was especially problematic.

The university says white people have an advantage at their university, maybe because it has Eurocentric culture, a crime to the woke in a European University. I'd stay away from them.

Please support university students by visiting the UK Government Parliament Petition website and signing the following petition:

"Call for Reduction of University Student Tuition Fees from £9250 to £3000

The government failed to act on university student tuition fees or listen to the few MPs who debated the issues. Students need wider support from all MPs as the £9250 p.a. is too high. Reduce the maximum students pay for university tuition to £3000 p.a".

I have to give this a terribly bad rating (see below) but I want to say first that the pool itself is nice, 50nmetres with not too much chlorine and the staff on the floor have all been helpful, polite and pleasant. My only criticism of the day-to-day experience there is that the pool can often be too crowded, tiles are slippery sometimes and that the changing rooms are communal (with booths) and sometimes the students are a tad noisy.

The reason it is a one star rather than three stars is the really venal and off-hand attitude of the senior management. I happened to be a victim of crime while on the premises and was quite happy to wait a day or two for things to simmer down and then come back to the pool without fuss, were it not for the extraordinary bungling of the management. They have set in motion an opaque and ridiculous series of consultations, dithered about what to do, inflamed the situation and talked complete nonsense - taking the attitude that a victim of crime is somehow equally to blame. If I had been a girl in a short skirt attacked by a man, I'm sure they would have blamed me for wearing a short skirt on the same principles.

Meanwhile, I checked their terms and conditions and they are simply flouting the written contract between the pool's users and the pool's management (response within a 10 days, expulsion of members for rude, threatening or violent behaviour) while pretending there is another secret procedure which has taken now, seven weeks, with no response from them at all - I have just been cold-shouldered despite multiple polite enquiries.

Meanwhile they still collected my fees even though I have been prevented from going by their ridiculous processes. They have kept my joining fee too, even though I had only been a member for a few weeks.

I think, like many establishment institutions, they think they just need to publish policies and terms but believe senior management do not have to obey these rules themselves - rules are for the little people who pay their salaries!