I’ve had two recent fiasco meetings with some more temporary staffing agencies. I’ve figured out how these companies make their money. They get commissioned on the number of bodies they get in the door to sign up for their alleged services. It doesn’t matter how many they actually help find work for. That’s the only way I can see how any of these companies stay in business.
I had high hopes for KNF&T. When I met with them they seemed very professional and took the time to ask me what I was looking for now and where I wanted to see myself in the future. Then, Connie, the woman I met with, told me how once a week she gets jobs in from Human Resources at UMASS. I told her I’ve already applied there several times. She told me that their Human Resources department is like a “black hole”. But I asked her to keep me in mind if a job position that fit my criteria opened up there.
Connie then went on to tell me about a “great opportunity” at a company in Marlborough. Some hardware manufacturing place. For a purchase order clerk, or along those lines. Sounded fine to me, although I have no actual experience in doing that sort of thing, but was willing to give it a shot. She called me the next day to tell me I had an interview with them.
I went and met with Steve, the supervisor at the hardware manufacturing place. The best way to describe him is to think of a wet noodle. Needless to say, the interview lasted a mere ten minutes and I knew it wasn’t going to happen. On top of that, KNF&T was paying shit for this job and upon complete hire with them (this was a temp-to-perm position), it wasn’t going to be much more than what KNF&T was offering.
When I went to follow up with Connie the following day, she had gone from being the nice individual who had listened to me the previous day to a cold-hearted bitch who basically said, “he could sense your disinterest in the job”. My disinterest? He really didn’t tell me much about the job; he had spent most of the time talking about himself and how he had worked his way up through the ranks to Supervisor. I had to ask him about the position and what it entailed. But my “disinterest” was for the best. I can tell you that if I had gotten that position, it wouldn’t have been for very long.
My next temporary office experience was with Execustaff in Worcester. What a waste of time that was! I drove 20 miles into the city just to be told by Brenda, the contact, that they mainly make placements in the medical field. Since I didn’t have medical field experience, I would probably have to get something in an entry level position and that I would need to e-mail her on a weekly basis for job opportunities. Sorry, I’m not going to waste my time, Brenda.
On Friday I went for an interview at “ANTON”, which is where my husband works. I should’ve known it wasn’t going to go over well when Joan, the Supervisor who would be interviewing me, called me up to request the interview and said, “It only pays $30,000, no more than that, just so you’ll know”. Uh, who says that to you on the phone?
Then when I met with Joan, we weren’t even in the elevator and she asks me, “Why do you want to work at Anton?” It wasn’t asked like you would ask in an interview such as “So, tell me why you’d like to work here”. It was asked in an accusatory tone, such as “how dare you try to get a job here”.
“Well, I’m looking for something different,” I told Joan.
“You’ve been in insurance for so long, though,” she replied.
“Yes, but I’m kind of sick of it,” I explained.
Then came the math test. She plopped me down at an empty desk right out on the floor with all the other employees instead of having me take the tests in a secluded office or conference room. I had to listen to one woman on the phone making her party plans for that night and another guy on the other side of the wall complaining to a co-worker about how he always has to clean up after this other co-worker and how he was “always the one getting in trouble”.
Needless to say, I didn’t have an easy time completing the tests with all the distractions. Then all Joan did in our interview was talk about herself, the account lines her department worked and kept asking if I had any questions. I couldn’t wait to get out of there!
On a brighter note, I received three promising calls yesterday: One for an interview for this Thursday and two other job prospects.
bunchesofos