The Job Hunt, It’s Work in Itself

Warehouse and Operations as a Career

Welcome back to Warehouse and Operations as a Career, I’m Marty and I thought we’d talk about finding work today, something that’s not always easy. Over the last month or so I’ve received so many questions from job seekers, a lot of frustration with the system and hiring processes, being interviewed, and feeling ghosted, being told your overqualified or under qualified etc. Looking for employment is like a job itself, and it’s a hard one. Let’s make it a little easier today or at least understand more about it.

Let’s start with the job posting itself. Whither we see an advertisement in a classified ad sheet, a newspaper, a flyer placed on our vehicle, or a tear off sheet at our laundromat or grocery story or places like a Facebook Job Group, or Job Boards like Indeed, we need to take the correct approach in calling, emailing, or answering those advertisements.

OK, first off, I’ve never placed quantity over quality. I mean if we answer every ad and send our resumes to every email address advertised, it’ll make us feel better because we’re thinking look at how many ads I’ve answered! But we know a lot of those ads are not fits for us. If we got the job, would we like it? I reached out to a person 2 weeks ago, introduced myself, spoke to the job I was hiring for, and was told, yeah, I don’t want to work those hours, and don’t want to load any trailers, do you have anything else. The advertisement stated the job and hours in the ad. I feel the better approach, a better use of our time, is to target the ads we answer.

We need to understand recruiters and hiring agents may receive literally hundreds of resumes, messages and phone calls about every position they advertise for. And then many may be using a ATS, or applicant tracking system program to help screen all those resumes. Our resume must show our experiences and contain the keywords those recruiters and systems are looking for.

Let’s take a general labor ad for an example. It states the position is a Monday through Friday position with the occasional Saturday scheduled. The start of shift hours will vary between 6 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. and the shift end time being 4:30 p.m. with overtime. The job description or duties or responsibilities listed state unpacking apparel, sorting, tagging, packaging, selecting and e-commerce and shipping. Sweeping, sanitation and box building may be needed as well. Ok, if we’re not interested or can’t work on Saturdays this isn’t an ad we would answer. If 6 a.m. is too early for us or our life situation makes that impossible, this isn’t an ad we would want to answer. If we can’t stay past 4:30 p.m., this isn’t an ad we would want to answer. And if we are not willing to perform any of the task listed in the advertisement, then this isn’t an ad we would want to answer. Yep, it may make us feel like we’re applying and trying to get a job, but we can’t commit to the requirements or at the very least we’re not going to like it. I feel we’ve wasted our time.

Here’s another example. Our experiences are in the hospital or hotel industry. We’re seeing advertisements for warehousing, let’s say order selecting or forklift driving, we like the pay listed so we upload our resume and apply. The advertisement states at least 1 year experience with a electric rider pallet jack or counterbalance forklift. We don’t qualify for these positions, we don’t have the experiences listed, or the equipment certifications. Makes us feel like we’re trying, but we know we be called about this job.

One more example, A position that matches our experiences is listed, it states Sunday through Thursday nights, from 8p to 4:30 a.m. We’re seeking a day shift position; we can’t work nights. Yet we apply. Again, we’re trying right? We can’t accept it because of our life commitments or feelings about working nights. I think sometimes we think, well, if they call me, I’ll tell them I need another shift and it’ll be ok. Theres a 99% chance we’ve wasted our time.

We’re putting all this frustration on ourselves. I think you get the idea. So, lets reduce that frustration and talk about the best practices of seeking employment and how to play the system.

OK, let’s talk about our resumes for a minute. We talked about how recruiters are going to have a hundred resumes to review or their using an ATS to scan for them. First off, we need to be honest about what we list here. Stating an experience we don’t have isn’t going to do us any good. Even if we get the job, we won’t be able to perform it properly. We may need to have a couple of different resumes saying the same thing but just using different words.

Let’s say we’re applying for a G/L position that states warehouse sanitation, experience needed, with at least 1 year warehouse experience. Our experiences are a year in the warehouse unloading trucks. We could state something in our resume like, I have over a year experience working in a warehouse environment, I am used to the fast-paced environments and understand the importance of keeping a clean and uncluttered work area, not only for efficiencies and safety reasons but for sanitation and maintenance purposes as well. All this is true, unloading trailers we were responsible for keeping our work areas clean and we’ve used 7 words the recruiter and or system is looking for. We wrote the words year, experience, fast-paced, clean, uncluttered, efficiencies, safety, sanitation, and maintenance. All these words are in the keyword list for the position. It’s listed as G/L, usually meaning no predetermined skills necessary or training to the individual task will be given. We have not wasted our time replying to this position, we meet the qualifications. We can tweak the same resume, changing a few words here and there to meet a keyword search for similar positions.

Alright, we get the idea now. Our time is an asset to us. And think of the fuel expense driving out to interviews we kind of already know that we don’t meet the listed criteria.

So earlier I mentioned our targeted job search. So, let’s figure out where we want to work. Job boards and job groups are great and there valuable to us, but I want to point out something really quick. So, we all have a distance in mind we’re willing to travel from the home to the job site. We generally know what we want to do for a living, and a lot of the times that’s where our experiences are from. As a side note, say we want to grow our knowledge into other positions, maybe an equipment operator. I’ll share those short cuts here in a minute! Where was I, ok, I think it’s a great idea to look around our neighborhoods or the commercial properties in the area. Or if we know of a particular company we’d love to work for because of their wages or benefits, or growth potential, let’s go by there, see what openings they have, drop off our resume. We don’t have to use advertisements exclusively. Let’s go to the doors and knock on them.

Targeted job search means a position offered within a distance I can commit to showing up every day, and a shift that fits my needs or lifestyle, for the pay my life requires, and matches my present abilities and experiences, and I believe will provide growth within my career working with them.

So, a bit about what happens next. We’ve targeted where to place or upload our well written resumes or work experiences, using keywords that’s going to get us that phone interview. It’s going to be a cold call from a recruiter or hiring agent. Keep a copy of our resumes in our pockets or purses at all times. Know them by heart. If we receive a phone call and we can’t talk right now, say we’re watching the kids, or driving, or not in a quiet area, just share that with the caller. They will understand. Ask if they can call back at so and so time or is it ok if you call them back at a certain time. They are interested in us and want to interview us. They’ll appreciate us wanting to give them our full attention.

When we call back, thank them for considering you for the job. We have like 2 minutes to grab their interest. State an experience we listed in our resume that is on the job task. Give them something to ask questions about. They want to, maybe even need to hire someone for the job, that is how they get paid. Our goal is to convenience them to give us that face to face interview. It’s important that we ask them a few questions also. Without conversation there not going to remember us. Remember, they may be calling 50 people from those hundred resumes they’ve screened. We want to be part of the 20 people there calling in to visit with. A couple of good safe questions to ask could be, is this an additional hire or a replacement position. State how we’re looking for long term employment and growth potential. Maybe ask do you hire from within for other positions. Be nice, professional, we want them to want to see us. And take notes on the resume sheet we’re using to bring up the different points with. We’ll want to bring up the same points they brought up when we’re on that face-to-face interview!

Now for an important thing. I’m not saying I agree with it but it’s just a fact. Many recruiters and companies are now going to head on over to our social media pages to learn a little about us. If they see us with a controlled substance or any type of paraphernalia in pictures or a bunch of handguns covering our bedspread, a lot of vulgarity, odds are there not going to go ahead and call us. Get over it, right or wrong, it’s just a fact. In my experiences, our social media pages don’t really reflect our personalities anyway, they project what we want our personalities to be to others. Anyway, it’s important to clean them up if only while we’re looking for work. A good rule of thumb as it was once explained to me is, if I wouldn’t want to show my grandmother, take it down while I’m looking for work.

Well, they’ve asked us to come in for an interview! We aced the phone interview; we bonded with them on some level and have been invited in to see them. It’s important to bring that same resume we took notes on with us. Think about it, even if we don’t recite anything from it, the recruiter will see how much this means to us and how engaged we’ve been through the process.

We must plan on arriving at least 10 minutes early, if not 15 minutes early. Look at it as our first day of work! We need to be dressed for an interview. Yes, we’re looking for work in a warehouse, but we need to look the part. A pair of jeans and a nice polo shirt or nice tee shirt with no profanity or music groups and such on it. If the job requires steel toes footwear, wear them. It shows we own them and have experience with them. And let’s not have our boyfriend, wife, or girlfriend, or friend, or even parents, back with us when it’s our turn. And do not bring our children to an interview. We won’t be able to bring them to the warehouse with us and remember, this is like our first day of work.

Again, be professional, be honest, answer all questions in a positive manner, ask a few questions of our own. Again, we want them to remember us, they’re going to be interviewing several others, and we want them to remember us!

We’re going to get that Job!

I mentioned that looking for work is hard work. We must put time into it. A lot of the frustrations with seeking employment we can bring on ourselves.

Oh, I mentioned earlier about a short cut to becoming an equipment operator. Target a company that uses the type of equipment you’d like to operate. Get hired onto any offered position. Be on time and a great associate for about 60 days and then approach your boss, sharing that you’d like to be an equipment operator. You’ll have a great chance of them working with you, training you, getting some experience for the job!

I hope the information shared today helps in seeking that new job. WAOC will be offering an updated free webinar coming up on Seeking Employment, check out the website for more details next month. Until then, good luck with the job search, and be safe in all you do.