Ad description
A webpage on CV Library and a job vacancy website, www.cv-library.co.uk, seen on 13 August 2021. Headline text stated “Jobs in Kirkcudbright”. A job listing below stated “Integrations Analyst Posted a week ago by CV-Library Ltd Featured job Remote job, accompanied by a house symbol, Location: Kirkcudbright (279 miles) Job Type: Permanent”.
Issue
The complainant, who believed the ad was misleading because it stated that a remote working job was located in a specific town, challenged whether it breached the Code.
Response
CV Library Ltd said the job vacancy advertised was a nationwide listing and did offer a remote working option, which they said was denoted by the remote working wording and symbol in the summary view. Due to the remote nature of the job, a candidate could essentially work from any location they searched for and that the location field populated, based on what a user had searched for. The reference to 279 miles in the ad was the distance between Kirkcudbright and where the employer was based, which was CV Library’s head office in Fleet, Hampshire.
Since being notified of the complaint, CV Library said they had updated the location details on the job results information page to make it clearer to consumers that their head office was based in Hampshire. The role could be either remote or hybrid; the job could be performed fully remotely from anywhere in the UK or partially from Hampshire, if that was commutable for the consumer.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered that consumers were likely to interpret “Location: Kirkcudbright” in the job listing, to mean that the employer’s premises was located in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. We considered that impression was reinforced by text at the top of the ad which stated “Jobs in Kirkcudbright”. We also considered that because the listing stated it was a “Remote job” that applicants would understand they could work exclusively from their home.
However, from the information provided on the subsequent page for the individual job vacancy, we understood that the head office for the featured job was based in Fleet, Hampshire and not Kirkcudbright. Although we understood that text which stated “(279 miles)” was a reference to the distance between those locations, we did not consider that would be understood by consumers. In the context of a job search for a specific location, but which nevertheless showed remote working jobs, we considered that the geographical location of the premises was material information potential applicants would require, and was likely to influence their decision to apply for the role.
Therefore, although we acknowledged that the role could be done remotely, including from Kirkcudbright, because we considered consumers would understand from the ad that the employer’s premises was located in Kirkcudbright when that was not the case, we concluded the ad and was likely to mislead.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading advertising).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told CV Library Ltd to ensure their ads did not mislead by implying an employer was based in a geographical location if that was not the case.
