Employer Fail #7: The Horde

No, not that Horde. Not the one with green-skinned brutes, towering cow-men, rejects from Night of the Living Dead, and the Pasadena Anorexics Anonymous club. This one:

A few weeks ago, I encountered a listing on Monster that talked about a new hotel opening, and the corresponding drive to staff it before its inauguration. As a result, a "casting call" would be held in a nearby theater, and the listings stressed that no experience was necessary and that a wide variety of positions were being exhibited. Not really wanting to work in the hospitality industry, I still figured I might as well show up if only to get some hilarious stories out of it. I mean, how dour could a place that described its application process as a "casting call" really be?

Not dour at all, it turns out. The "casting call" was for two days, Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, the listed start time was noon, so I headed out a little early and made my way across downtown towards the venue. As I was approaching it, I happened to be across the street, which was fortuitous for it let me behold what this impending hotel-opening had wrought. Across the street was not a line but a throng, a horde, a teeming mass of suits, polo shirts, heels, skirts, pantsuits, those-fancy-but-useless-things-people-use-to-hold-their-resumes, and so on. It was only 12:03. The line stretched all the way down an entire city block, and was winding around the corner as it became more and more tumescent. In addition to its length, most people were also sardined width-wise, as each "spot" in line was 3-6 people deep. I walked up and down the street opposite this event, taking in the view and making some calculations. I figured that at this rate, even with the corresponding drop-off as the day went on, they would have a thousand people come in over the course of the day. I stood around for five minutes and noticed that they were only taking in a person at a time, with only two people ever taken in simultaneously, and calculated that it would be well into the evening before I got to go in, provided I got in line right then and there. I decided not to waste my time, chances for hilarity notwithstanding, and headed for the nearest subway station.

I did notice a few hilarious things even while not in line. The coordinators seemed absolutely stunned and agape at the turnout, and their efforts to somehow manage the massive turnout seemed frantic, flailing, and futile. Some police had shown up, perhaps also confused as to why a riot/protest/demonstration/Harry Potter release queue had shown up without notifying the authorities beforehand. (In the end, I found out that 600-700 people had shown up that day. Not quite a whole grand, but still a ridiculous figure.)

After I got home, I decided, on a hunch, to investigate why turnout was so ridiculously large. Google answered this for me rather quickly, as it generally does. The hotel company had posted the same listing everywhere it could have: every local newspaper, Monster, Craigslist, LinkedIn, Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, Japanese Facebook, and the moon.

Employer Fail #41: More is not better when it's overkill. If you can't process that many candidates, don't try to set records for "longest line of unemployed people." Also, Japanese Facebook, really? Really?

The next morning, however, brought with it another day of unemployment, and I found myself going right back to that same block for a glimpse of hilarity at best, and a hotel job at worst. This time, the horde was nowhere to be seen. Of course, this makes tons of sense--if you're unemployed, it doesn't matter whether you go to something on Monday or Tuesday, and as a result, most interested parties would have shown up on the earlier day. Given what I overheard on the street, most people there on Tuesday were those, like me, turned away by the pulsating throng of the prior day, not those that generally couldn't make it on a Monday for whatever reason. Ah, double-digit unemployment, so effortlessly imposing its own will on the citizenry.

The next day, the process was set to begin at 10:00, so I headed out even earlier. I got there at around 9:30, and found no line, just a lone man sitting outside, perhaps not even for event, but solely for lack of another place to be. I stood with my back to a wall and read a book, positioning myself to keep the sun out of my eyes so I could read undisturbed. As a result, a lot of people leapfrogged me in the theoretical line, and were generally confused by my presence. By 10:00, a line of twenty or so had formed, but for some reason, no movement was taking place at the front; they were apparently late getting started despite the lack of a horde.

In the course of this delay, a bitter irony transpired. A destitute Asian woman, perhaps homeless, noticed a line of well-dressed people and went over. Starting from the back, she would pop into someone's field of vision, exclaim "Hello!" and shuffle two dimes between the fingers of a raised hand. The greeting was almost certainly the only English she knew, and her strategy was not particularly effective, as most people in line seemed to think she was offering them change rather than asking if they had any to cede to her. Perhaps if she had known she was asking for change from people who themselves had no ways of making living, people who were dressing up in suits to get jobs as bartenders at a hotel, she may not have proceeded as she did. But then again, what other choice did she have? Certainly her choices are worse than those whom she was asking for pennies, people who themselves had few choices other than being there and waiting for the interviewing to mercifully begin.

Eventually a man came out, assuring us that everything would start shortly, and asking if we had any questions. Unfortunately, he would not dignify "Do you happen to know what the meaning of life is?" with a response. (Yes, I did actually ask. No, he didn't think it was funny.)

Employer Fail #42: Can you at least show everyone the respect of starting on time? I don't show up late to my interviews unless I'm really suspected to be Michael or Marielle, so you shouldn't start interviews late. It's rude and insulting to presume that I have nothing better to do than wait around, even if that happens to be true.

Finally, at 10:10, or closer to 10:15, we were allowed to file in. We were filing into a gaudy, ornate, ancient-looking theater that resembled an opera house. Everything was golden, velvet, and winding, and the ceiling had exquisite, intricate patterns. At the front desk, people handed out clipboards with applications, which I turned down because I came prepared with one already filled out. Still, this didn't prevent me from having to wait in line behind those who hadn't come prepared--the way they had it structured was that you had to stand in the same queue that existed outdoors, and the indoor queue existed to give people time to fill out their applications. Not that it mattered; the application was rather short and hence the total wait was only a few minutes despite having about a dozen people in front of me, but still, a display of efficiency and competence would be nice.

Employer Fail #43: Sometimes people know how to use lines. No need to enforce something that just slows the process down. Then again, at other points, people utterly fail at using lines, so maybe this is less of a fail than an unfortunate prophylactic measure.

After coming up to the desk when it was my turn and handing in a completed application and resume, I was told to "go upstairs" and have a seat. Upstairs meant to the balcony theater seating, and that's where I took my seat and gazed upon something terrifying. On stage were a number of brightly-colored white, black, and red furniture props--couches, tables, chairs, and so on. There were also a lot of middle-aged people on stage dressed in fancy party clothes--tuxedos, cocktail dresses, and so on, also of the black, white, and red variety. A mix of disco and club music blared over the theater's speakers, and the people on stage were dancing and laughing awkwardly. Thoughts of terror ran through my mind: "They're going to make me dance, aren't they?"

Employer Fail #44: Is this an interview or a burlesque show?

Fortunately, I didn't have to dance. After a few minutes of watching the most terrifying thing this side of a Sarah Palin presidency, a secretary appeared at the other end of the balcony and started calling names. My name was first and I headed over--seven other names were called, but no people bearing said names appeared. She read them again and again, and after a while, two of the remaining seven showed up, but we were still missing five. I joked that I didn't mind waiting as long as she didn't call the cops on suspicion that I began to murder people in the theater to increase my chances of getting a job, but she just looked at me with a look of confusion and left to go retrieve the missing people. For a company that had strange people dancing up on stage, the people I initially spoke to sure lacked a sense of humor.

After failing to find the remaining five, she led the three of us down the stairs, then ran off, failed to find people once more, led us down another flight of stairs, magically found four of the five people, and then decided to forge ahead without the remaining person. However, she mysteriously revealed herself, emerging from a nearby restroom at the final second. All of this led me to wonder: how do you expect these people to work in a hotel if they can't follow simple directions such as "go upstairs and stay there until your name is called?" Hotels presumably have lots of stairs, and travel via them may be necessary, so getting lost in a considerably smaller building isn't exactly an auspicious start.

We were led down into the main theater hall and made to sit in the front row. The soul-wrenching dancing had stopped, but the music hadn't. We sat for a few seconds, and then were pulled up on stage into what was possibly the most ineffective group interview ever.

We sat in a circle, the eight applicants and three interviewers. The circle itself consisted of chairs, a couch, and weird futuristic granite chairs that looked like some three-dimensional version of what a 6-year-old might make the first time they're exposed to MS Paint. The interview proceeded as such (feel free to stop reading at any time to either laugh hysterical or off yourself at the realization that this is what employers are now using to judge candidates):

1) An interviewer would look at all the applications/resumes and then ask a question to one of the candidates. The question would be a generic question, such as, "What's the most important part of work to you?" or "Is it important to do something you enjoy?"
2) The candidate answered. A follow-up question might be asked.
3) Another interviewer would ask a different candidate a question.
4) This process was repeated until each candidate was asked a question, and perhaps a follow-up question.
5) Some questions open to the group were asked at the end.

The whole thing took about forty-five minutes. How they expected to learn anything about anyone by virtue of asking each person one or two generic questions, well, that's beyond me.

Employer Fail #44: Group interviews are one thing, but group interviews where your total exposure to each candidate involves hearing them give answers to a few generic job interview questions, well, that's just pathetic.

My interview group was the most eclectic assortment of people this side of Lost, condescending surgeons with martyr complexes notwithstanding. The cast of characters was, as follows:

1) Yours truly.
2) An adult Latino male who had worked his entire life in the airline industry as a steward, now out of a job as a result of continued fail by the airlines.
3) An African-American young adult, the same one I initially saw by the building when I first walked by. He was homeless, and offered up the best part of the interview when he responded to a question about why he wanted to work for the company by saying, "Look man, honestly, it's about the money. It's about that paycheck. Times are tough and I need some stability now, you know?" The interviewer asking the question looked displeased, but what did he expect, a homeless man to shred his dignity even further by pretending to subjugate his material desires for the lofty spiritual goal of working for a hotel? Please.
4) A middle-aged African-American woman who had worked as a line cook and pastry chef in bakeries and restaurants.
5) A mid-20s white woman who had just moved here from Phoenix, ditching a stable marketing job in the process. When an interviewer asked her why she threw away something like that in the middle of a recession, the woman responded with a nonsensical, "Well, I've always been the type of person that just needs to change it up once in a while," which drew a reproachful silence from interviewers and candidates alike.
6) Another African-American young adult with experience in retail (mostly Best Buy), who had been in the Army and took a bullet in the arm during training, getting himself an honorable discharge in the process.
7) Another Latino man, friends with #2, who had worked his entire life in the hotel industry in every capacity: janitor; concierge; bellboy; front desk; bartender; you name it.
8) A thirty-something African-American woman with a degree in accounting who currently worked as a medical secretary at a small local hospital. Why she thought working at a hotel would be any kind of upgrade is beyond me.

I tried my best to be vibrant and snarky because it seemed like the thing to do, but given that all I got to answer was, "Why are you here today?" and "What was the last time you had fun at work?" that came off as rather difficult. Seriously, this was possibly the worst interview format ever, made worse by these facts, divulged to us after the interview:

1) The company considered itself an anti-hotel chain and thus wanted to project an image and aura very different from most hotels. For this reason, they actually preferred their employees to have little or no hotel experience.
2) As a result, the interviewers stated that they wouldn't be looking at our resumes unless we were called back, meaning that the two questions we answered was all they had to go off of.
3) I was pretty much the only person in my group acting reasonably loose, probably because I didn't care at all about any of their positions. That I didn't get called back despite exhibiting "personality" beyond everyone else makes me think that their selection process isn't consistent even in their own minds.

So, two questions. That's my new interview low. Will it be topped (or bottomed, in this case)? Only time will tell.