For Part I, click here.
For Part II, click here.
For Part IV, click here.
So now that you’ve shaken hands with the hiring manager and informed him, or her, of your business, they’ll either have you do one of three things: fill out a paper application, walk over to the designated kiosk/computer to fill out an application, or go home and fill one out online. If they hand you a paper application, just ask for a pen, find a flat surface, and fill it out with what I have outlined in the next step.
6. Filling Out the Application
Before arriving at this step, you should have a list of information written down that would apply to the most common elements of an application. This helps so that you do not constantly have to wrack your brain or search through your phone to find the information you need to fill out the application.
Personal Information. Name, address, phone number, gender, race, date of birth. OK, so maybe not the most important thing to list, but in case if you ever forget who you are, this is a good one to come back to.
Education. Name, school city and state, year graduated, highest level of education.
Work History. If this will be your first job, then you’ll be skipping this one. Usually asks for store address, phone number, supervisor and phone number, store manager and phone number, job requirements.
Reference Information. This would people that you would like them to contact. These would be previous employers, friends or people that you know that have a high standing in a company. They usually tell you not to include family members, so it’s best to try to avoid putting their contact info in there.
Why do you want to work here? This should already be included in your cover letter, but it doesn’t hurt to write it down again.
7. The Questionnaire
This one can be a little tricky depending on where you’re applying. It’s a series of questions that decide whether you’re fit for the job. Employers usually tell you that it will take you around a half hour to 45 minutes to complete, but for some reason these always seem to take me an hour. Not quite sure if they’re lying to me or if it really does take people only thirty minutes to answer 100 questions and that I’m just simply not concentrating hard enough. At the end, there are usually about 10 scenario questions that ask what kind of person you are by giving you a choice as to how you would handle each situation.
When completing these, my advice is to answer the way you would normally answer a question on a test: choose the best answer. Though if you’re really not sure, then it’s best just to answer honestly. The questionnaire for Carrabba’s and Outback did a good job at thwarting my plans of choosing the ‘best’ answer by only giving me the choices of ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ and throwing me questions like “Do you ALWAYS show up to work on time?” or “DO you get bored?” Great…
8. Follow Up
Now you’re going to need an alarm or something of the equivalent to remind you to call the places you’ve applied for at least twice a week. To get a job, persistence is key. Constantly make sure you remind them who you and tell them that you’re still interested in the job. It may take a month or two, but keep trying. Eventually, they’ll have to interview you just to shut you up.
The common advice is to ‘flood the market’ with applications; so if you throw fifty applications out there, there has to be at least one potential employer that will hire you. While you may want to have a wide variety of places to start applying for, you eventually will need to narrow down your list by the time you get to the step where you start filling out applications. If you only have two or three places where you think you may have a chance of getting hired, then focus your attention on those. The two things that employers admire more than anything is persistence and presentation, as these are skills you will be using frequently on the job.
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