Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:01 — 8.8MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Thanks for listening in to Warehouse and Operations as a Career today, I’m Marty, and we appreciate you stopping by! Last week we were in Atlanta Georgia, I had the opportunity to be a part of a large hiring event there, it was my second time to get to visit and meet job applicants out there and I really enjoyed meeting so many Career driven individuals! This week I’ve been helping out again in the recruiting departments here in Texas, I really enjoy talking with all the applicants and visiting with them, learning from them actually. We’ve talked a lot about our resumes and how although they don’t have to be a professional document, at least in our fields, they should state what we’ve done in the past and I believe we should tailor them to each position that we’re applying for. And I think the phone interview and the face to face interview techniques has been discussed so I won’t go into each of those again. If you’d like to review our thoughts on them just scroll through the past episode library and look for anything social media or recruiting, there’s several shows on those important subjects. Well, I jumped off the page again, I wanted to get a few more questions answered about our powered industrial equipment today but let’s run with down the road I started on, I guess. I’d like to share a couple of stories I’ve experienced the last 10 or 12 days.
So, I had this one gentleman come in, I’m sure a recruiter had called him in after a phone interview, everyone was busy so I was asked if I could interview him. Upon entering the interview room, I noticed he had 2 little boys and his daughter with him. Now I personally don’t think coming to an interview is or should be a show stopper but I’ve learned most recruiters are not of the same opinion. I see their point, I mean that’s how they make their living, their professionals, and we should probably be more professional ourselves. Anyway, it didn’t bother me, we started the interview, we were just getting into his experience with powered units, he’d been a counterbalance operator for 4 years, with the same company. As I was being impressed the little girl had to go to the restroom, she wasn’t shy about it, was very matter of fact about it actually. The gentleman said he needed to take her, or she’d just keep pestering him, and he asked if I could watch the two boys? The girl was the youngest, I’d guess around 4 years old and the boys were like maybe 6 and 7 years old. As much as I didn’t mind, they were there, I wasn’t going to be comfortable watching his children and suggested he take’em all with him. I guess everyone had to go once they all made it to the bathroom because I know it was over 6 or 7 minutes before they returned. Well we geared back up, talking about where he’d worked, why he’d left, what he was looking for in his next position etc when the youngest boy decided he needed to run down the hallway and got really upset when his father tried explaining that he needed to sit down and be quiet. I spent the time to conduct the interview, but I can understand how a Recruiter would have giving up or out right asked the gentleman to leave and come back the next day. I see this pretty often. I know its hard to find or pay for a babysitter, especially when your looking for a job. But, and we’ve talked to this point before, Isn’t our job interview really kind of like our first day at work? We’re showing our value, our skills, we’re going to want to impress the boss with our knowledge right. I’ve heard all the arguments, I’m not being paid for the interview or they placed an ad and need me so they should cut me a little slack or my personal favorite I was walking by and saw the sign. If we’re walking by and saw the sign, I know we haven’t done any research on the position or the company, we’d have to just be, or it makes it sound like, we’re willing to take any kind of a job that’s being offered. I once had a recruiter tell me she doesn’t interview anyone that comes in and ask do you have any job openings. She explained that in her experience if a person does not come in and apply for a particular position, they’re not interested in a long-term career and they may not stay. If they’re willing to accept just anything from you they may not have a direction, there prone to leave if the jobs not what they were looking for. There I go again, losing my place, anyway, so my guy had impressed me and against the advice of the pro’s I felt like the gentleman would be a good hire, he had the knowledge and experience and wanted this particular job. I asked a recruiter to go ahead and onboard him and I set him up for his PIT or powered industrial training for the next day. I did explain to him to make sure he was on time and brought his steel toe boots with him and after class we’d go ahead and get him started. Very appreciative and excited that he’d landed a job. Well he didn’t show up for the class the next day and nor did he call with any reason or apologizes. It by no means was my first bad hire, well I’m not going to say bad hire, I’ll say the first time I stuck my neck out only to find I may have been wrong about the call. So, when I gave the gentleman a call the following day and asked him why he no showed he said he couldn’t find a sitter again. I politely told him to give me a call when he could commit to the job and we’d see what I could do for him then. Another lesson learned, or in the eyes of the recruiter anyway.
I loved this one, a recruiter called about a pit class for a young man, he had experience on the sit down or counter balance lift, a cherry picker and the electric rider jack. All he needed to be certified on was the electric rider jack, that’s the only piece of equipment they had over at their facility. The young man showed up on time, had his steel toe boots on and breezed through the classroom portion of his PIT class! A star associate until it came time to operate the electric rider jack. The truth came out about then. Although he did have quite a bit of experience on the Cherry picker or order picker he’d never operated or even been on a rider jack before. The position he’d been hired for was for a pallet runner and at a facility that had no time to train him, in a very fast paced and productivity driven environment. When his instructor asked him why he’d misinformed his hiring agent he stated that he figured he’d be able to fake it until he learned it. I probably don’t have to tell you that he didn’t get a position with that firm.
I had a great time the last two weeks, recruiting and interviewing is a part of my duties I really enjoy. It’s so rewarding when your able to help someone find employment. I love the challenge of placing them in just that right job, the right environment where they can prosper and grow. I guess what I’d like to get across today, whither we’re looking for a job or already have a job is that we shoulder a lot of the responsibility for getting and keeping that job. We all need the paycheck, and its hard to remember that we’re, or I hope that were working for more than just the job or the money. Here at WAOC we’re always talking about how we have to enjoy our work. With most light industrial positions, we’ll be working at least 2,080 regular hours, with many of them we’ll work over 2600+ hours when you figure in over time. Then if we average 7 hours of sleep a day that’ll be about 2,550 hours. There is only 8,760 hours in a year. So if you add our working hours and our sleeping hours together that only leaves us with about 3,600 hours for ourselves, our families, friends and hobbies or the things we enjoy. Pretty much 1/3 or our adult lives we’re going to be at work, we’d really better enjoy it and have a plan, we’re investing a lot of time to our jobs. Might as well use that time wisely and make the most out of it right! Well I feel that I had a very productive week, and I definitely enjoyed it. I hope you did as well and are looking forward to doing it all again next week! Thanks for listening in, and I look forward to seeing you again next week! Until then we’ll be on the social media feeds and of course would love for you to send us a message at host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com. Be wise and productive this week and above all keep everyone safe!