The nightmare scenario: One man's cautionary tale of how his new agency went bust before his first shift

Sounds unlikely? It’s exactly what happened to me just two weeks ago. From exaltation to disaster management in one short phone call, courtesy of the jobs market.

In the digital bubble it’s all too easy to consider every opportunity a safe bet and every company a potential world-beater. Digital is a booming industry after all, and money is being made hand over fist, no?

Well, no. The reality for many businesses in the digital space is that they live on a razor-edge between moderate success and complete meltdown.

Small agencies with no safety-net, short client lists and high overheads scrape by on the goodwill, often, of a single major account. What happens when that client runs into trouble, falls out with your account managers, or simply decides to take its spend elsewhere?

Service providers with no technology or USP subsist by creatively selling their service to clients who don’t know better. But the clients are getting smarter, and the snake-oil is getting harder to shift.

The end result is that businesses can and do come unstuck. Falling victim to the massively competitive nature of the digital space their models weren’t fit for purpose, their niche was too tight, or they were simply unlucky. Whatever the reason, the human impact can be huge.

My own situation was terrifying. I’d been with my former employer for more than 2 years. Things had been great: fantastic experience, brilliant people and ample opportunity to build a fledgling career. I’d sought a new opportunity to continue that trajectory. When I accepted a position with Candi London, an independent digital marketing agency, I experienced the same uncertainties that flash through the mind of every job-seeker: am I making a huge mistake? Is this all going to go wrong?

Suddenly finding that, yes, actually, this is all going disastrously wrong, is an experience I’d not like to repeat. When I found out that my new employer had gone into administration I realised just how precariously balanced around employment my life really was. The prospect of being unable to pay my rent, bills, transport costs without a regular monthly pay packet hit me like a ton of bricks.

There are many like me. The digital industry is full of twenty-somethings living month-to-month, totally cash reliant to sustain their homes and lives. Their comfort and financial security is intrinsically linked with the continuing success of the digital advertising sector.

As a prospective employee of a suddenly-defunct business my legal rights were virtually zero. A quick call to Acas, the HR and employment advisory service, confirmed that whilst I had a signed contract of employment, I had no legal rights under it until the start date. Furthermore, any employee requires 2 years in service before they are legally entitled to redundancy pay. My contract was worth less than the paper it had been printed on; in effect I’d been summarily executed.

Feeling sorry for myself aside - and there’s been plenty of it, truth be told - there are broader issues to consider here. Not least among them is the important warning to others in my situation: do not walk blindly into this trap. Digital is growing, yes. But not all employers are created equal, and it’s naive to assume that the success of digital is divided equally between all businesses in it. Some are riskier propositions than others. I’ve been exceptionally lucky with the support I’ve received from my old employers, but others may not find themselves in such a fortunate position.

And what of the protection for employees who find themselves working on a sinking ship? It’s inadequate, surely, to simply label them the victims of bad luck and move one. Those who have dedicated time and effort to the cause seem woefully short of protection, not to mention those unlucky few who, like me, find themselves suddenly out of a job having resigned a perfectly good one to join the team in the first place.