Blog Post: Job Application Experiences
- Describe your experiences from the perspective of an applicant for the last job for which you applied.
Last spring I applied for a Summer job in order to help pay for school expenses. There were a few places that I had sent in applications to, but the position I ended up getting hired for was as a stocker during the night shift at a local Safeway. Eventually, I decided to go to the store in person in order to deliver a resume and inquire into whether the application had been received. Upon arrival, it became apparent that the hiring process was remarkably ad-hoc as the person who ended up being in charge of hiring spent only a small portion of their time doing so. Often, they worked the register or some other position and considered hiring to be a small part of their duties. Even when I got in for an interview, the managers who were present to conduct it seemed rather new and unaccustomed to the process (though I would later discover that they were both in fact new to their positions).
- Explain how your experiences during the job application process shaped your impression of the job you were applying for and your desire to work there (or in some cases to not work there).
I was often surprised by how often the employees or even managers at the local Safeway seemed unfamiliar or less focused on the hiring process than I expected. The whole situation made me reconsider many of the presuppositions I had about how a company like Safeway operated. At the time, it did not affect my desire to work there much as I had not fully grasped what my experiences suggested for the store’s operation as a whole. If I had had more experience going through more hiring processes, I would have undoubtedly seen some of what was happening as being red flags. In any case, my initial interactions in the job application process suggested a lack of organization at the store, which would later be confirmed during my time there as an employee.