My company is hiring for all shifts.
The job? Sucks. The company? Teetering on the brink for the last year. We might have to lay off in a month or so. We lose employees because the job is unstable, and then we need new employees, often people who have been laid off somewhere else.
The person who is in charge of taking the applications and telephone calls is out this week, so I’m the lucky one doing that.
And it’s horrible. Yes, all of the normal irritants are there: People calling and asking for information that’s already in the ad, people not following the instructions on the applications, people asking questions I can’t answer.
But that’s not the soul-destroying part. The soul destroying part is getting over 200 applicants for hot, dirty, sweaty factory work in the middle of nowhere because there aren’t any other jobs. It’s having over 50 people tell me that they have been laid off for a week or a month or six months. It’s having little old ladies totter in applying for a job that they wouldn’t physically be able to do. It’s telling people that we’re looking to fill 3 positions. 3! And not telling them that if they don’t have factory experience, they probably won’t be hired. 3 positions. 207 applicants and counting. And we keep accepting applications because people hate to be turned away, and because we can’t say the positions are filled yet, but with every new application the odds of them getting hired are that much slimmer.
We’re pulling people in from two hours away because they are desperate. The window for getting hired here is closing fast. We’ll probably stop accepting applications by the end of the day, but the calls won’t stop.
And you can’t tell about a person from an application. You can’t tell if they are kind, or funny, or clever. You can’t tell if they’ll fill out the paperwork right, or file false worker’s compensation claims, or fail the drug tests that we couldn’t afford not to put in place.
3 jobs. 213 applicants and counting.