quote:

Originally posted by BurtonRW:
... had to hire my paralegal.

Reminds me of an earlier job where I needed to fill an attorney spot. The genius in HR kept sending me resumes for paralegals. I would call the rep and patiently explain that the position required someone with a law degree and admission to a state bar.

Didn't matter, the next day I would get another stack of paralegal resumes.

So six interviews down. Of the six, all six were good enough to be hired. I hired two. One started yesterday and was a rockstar. The other starts on Monday. I’ll keep the other four in queue, in case I lose another employee.

Maybe posting about it here was my good luck omen.

Huukt awn foniks werkd fer mi!

Good to hear that you found someone who was worth it.

I have a fresh out of college kid that can't handle adulting and an adult job.

What did he expect? He was talking big shit,his resume was big shit, landed a nice job that expects big shit.

I get it.
I go through 2 temp agencies and the people that show up are like a box of rocks most times.
Got rid of one person yesterday because he just couldn't figure out how to clock in and out properly. He wasn't much of a worker either. I mean, the time cards have the day, in and out punch slots and it was explained about 3x how to do it.
I interviewed a few people for a QA/QC position and I finally just stopped. One guy showed up and had a few beers before he came. I greeted him in the visitor area, smelled it and sent him on his way. I mean seriously, why would you drink before an interview?
Unemployment is high around me and I got people who probably couldn't flip a burger.
I could train the right person but they'd have to take a few HACCP classes and most couldn't understand basic job functions.

I feel your pain. Last fall, I put out a request for an engineer. We were looking for someone with 20+ years experience for two years as a contractor.

Only two were worth interviewing. The rest were full of misspelled words, sentences I couldn't figure out WTF they meant, people with 6 months experience 40 times, people with nowhere near 20 years, etc.

Interesting because as a job hunter, it seemed impossible to get called for an interview. Last I checked, unemployment was around 3.6% which is very low. But then I read that applying for jobs isn’t good enough, you have to network your way in. If that’s the case, why post it?

Speaking of "networking your way in", I'll add the following piece of job-hunting advice, which I ran into recently while working through some applicants:

If you put someone down as a reference, you will want to ensure that they actually do know you. Especially if that person you listed as a reference already works at the place to which you've applied.

I'm guessing this person just though it would look good on the application, and assumed we weren't actually going to check with their references?

quote:

HACCP

?

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:

quote:

HACCP

?

Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point.

It has to do with food safety.

One that has always boggled me is when someone you know is qualified--recommended yourself, even--applies, but is somehow culled out by the HR trolls.

But some idiot that has no business being in the pool makes it through them.

Some of the resumes I have seen are hilarious. I may have to hire someone else soon, and I dread it. Sometimes its easy when you have someone picked out already, but when its a blind search its just painful

quote:

Originally posted by Lord Vaalic:
Some of the resumes I have seen are hilarious. I may have to hire someone else soon, and I dread it. Sometimes its easy when you have someone picked out already, but when its a blind search its just painful

Crazy as it sounds, I enjoy reading some of the resume/interview stories. They're funny, kind of like the threads about car buying.

Trying to hire good help was difficult before I retired 10 years ago, I can only imagine now. The most openings we had were for warehouse work and flooring installer apprentices who would have the opportunity to work themselves up to higher positions over time, if they did well. I experienced most of what you all have, what was sad is how many high school "graduates" who were unable to read and write much beyond grace school level. I can't even recall how many times I handed a basic application to a young man late teens to early twenties who would look at it for a minute or two then ask if he could take it with him to fill out and bring it back. He'd come back with it filled out in delicate, obviously female, handwriting. Besides poor reading and writing the other lack which became more and more prevalent with these young men was the inability to read a rule, use a hammer, saw a board, just basic skills would have to be taught now by us.

The fact that the position required they have a drivers license eliminated around half of who applied because so many had lost theirs to DUI. One person I hired seemed ok and did have a license but when I went to add him on our insurance the agent called back saying he did not have a license, it'd been revoked for DUI the year prior. When I confronted him he became a little indignant, produced it again adding "you didn't SAY it had to be valid!" What he had produced was his previous license which had expired two years prior. Naturally I changed my requirement to a "valid drivers license" and was sure to check the date.

As I was watching one, who had applied to be a flooring apprentice, struggle to fill out the application I noticed the letters tattooed below each knuckle.... F U C K _ Y O U !
Needless to say I didn't want that representing my company so after I pointed to his hands and told him he could save his time filling out the application he stormed out muttering "I'll be seeing you in court 'cause I'm suing your ass for discrimination!" Unfortunately for him he was a white male.

Hiring one was just the first challenge because next came training them to show up for work at 7:30, and cell phones, my God all they wanted to do was play on their cell phone. But that's for another rant LOL.

Here is a funny one. A few years back, we called an executive we knew at a competitor to check someone’s job history on their resume.

Us: Hey Pat, did you work with Alphabet (name was so long it had practically all 26 letters in it) on such and such project?

Pat: I vaguely remember him. What did he say was his job title?

Us: {insert job title here}

Pat: {Laughter}

Us: What is so funny?

Pat: That was my job title and I had it start to finish. There was about 4 levels between him and I. There was only 2 people between me and the CEO.

Us: {Laughter}. Thanks Pat.

I got a crooked xerox copy of a resume that was so wrinkled and faded I could barely read it. Along with that came a torn off scrap of paper with his most current job hand written on it. Who has time to update a resume?

I feel your pain. We have several openings in our warehouse and I just can't get excited about posting the job openings.
Our area is booming and pretty much everyone that wants a job, has a job... or they've made themselves unemployable. Shitty resumes, poor hygiene, won't or can't answer the questions asked. Ugh.

quote:

Originally posted by ruger357:
I got a crooked xerox copy of a resume that was so wrinkled and faded I could barely read it. Along with that came a torn off scrap of paper with his most current job hand written on it. Who has time to update a resume?

I interviewed a candidate and asked for a hard copy of his resume and he said “this is my only copy...okay, here take this one I guess”. On the back he had scribbled his monthly budget and some notes from another company about compensation.

He was older than me and had decades of experience. He should have known better and was my leading candidate up to the face to face interviews.

I interviewed a guy once for a position as a claims representative with the Social Security Administration. With the position he would have access to social security numbers, tax data, banking data and all kinds of personal information to millions of Americans. He seemed like a sharp guy, interviewed well, and had a good background. Only one problem. The back ground investigation revealed that he had a prior conviction for identity theft. Turned out he wasn't such a sharp guy after all.

So the two ladies that I hired, are doing very well. I’m quite happy with how this turned out. I still have a few in the queue if an opening comes available.