Welcome back to Warehouse and Operations as a Career, I\u2019m Marty and here we are in week 2 of a new decade and part 2 of our New Year New Career series. Last week we talked about how much work it is to be looking for work. It can be frustrating and time consuming. A few of us put some thought into what we really wanted to be doing, where wanted to work, like geographically or what part of town we wanted to commute too, and what type of industry we wanted to be in. I heard from a few that we\u2019re looking strictly based on pay rates, I don\u2019t really advise that but, hey, we\u2019re putting a plan together so it\u2019ll work. After we\u2019ve identified those things now we\u2019re ready to start getting serious about presenting ourselves to companies, we know our value to them & we\u2019re going to get them to feel the same way.
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\nOK, let's get started, we\u2019re going to find us a job! I\u2019m an administrator on two sites and I moderate on 3 other sites. I\u2019m dealing with three states so I\u2019m familiar with the different cultures between them all. I think this is something to mention really quick too. Job boards are different from state to state. Some states I notice we\u2019ll find company's and agencies post jobs and applicants respond off of those ads. In other states job seekers or applicants post what there seeking, pay rates and areas or zip codes their looking for and recruiters reach out to them. And there's a lot, a whole lot of scams and mlm or multi-level marketing, work from home type stuff out there clogging up everything too. I laugh every day at the ad for Amazon needs work from home employees, must work 7p.m. to 3 a.m. for $25 an hour. When you look at the posters profile, they have 1 friend and live out of the country. But they\u2019ll have 200 people reply with the word interested and the poster will send them a link. We all know its fake but I think people are desperately seeking easy work for outrageous pay so they reply. Anyway, so here are my thoughts.
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\nWe\u2019re looking for work. Clean up our profile. Right or wrong, recruiters are going to go check us out. Every recruiter I\u2019ve ever spoken with says social media is their first stop. Not that decisions are going to be made solely on our feeds content but let's be honest. Our feeds are worded like they are to project our personalities like we want them too. It may not be the real us but it's what we want to project. When we\u2019re looking for work make it look like that, at least until we have the job.
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\nRead the advertisement, if it has listed a phone number and address of where to apply don\u2019t reply interested. My suggestion is to call the number, introduce yourself and tell them you're interested. If they\u2019ve listed a link to an on-line application, fill it out and call them. Tell the hiring agent we\u2019ve completed the application and ask what the next step is. If we\u2019re lucky enough to have an address to apply, let's get dressed to impress and go there. Odds are we\u2019ll get an interview right there on the spot. Oh, and when I say dress to impress, I mean dress to the position. I don\u2019t feel we need to show up in a suit for an order selector position necessary. But a nice pair of jeans and a presentable tee shirt will be fine but wear your steel toe shoes or boots. We know the job requires safety foot wear so wear them. I know one recruiter that\u2019ll quit listening to any equipment operator if their wearing flip flops. Following the directions within the ad is kind of our first test.
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\nDon\u2019t engage with any trolls, nothing good ever comes from it. They\u2019ll push us into saying something we shouldn\u2019t and any prospective hiring agent will just dismiss us. And please, please do not ask about drug test and background requirements through reply's. Most of the time we know that equipment operators are going to have a pre employment drug screening, no reason to throw that out there to a recruiter.