every get turned down for a job..

..And not really care?

A couple of months ago the new Casino here in Atlantic City started hiring. Revel Entertainment. They are due to have their first big show in less than two weeks and are just getting around to hiring people to actually work the show.

The application process was very weird. My general gist was that they are more worried about compatablity over what you may or may not know. All 15 questions on the application were about how you interact with your co-workers and the like.

So.. thursday, I go in for my interview.. they do "Mass interviews" where they bring in a dozen people at a time and quiz you. One of the first things they did was make us stand and kept us standing for the full hour. They did this because standing is "part of our job". Yes.. we know, most of us have been doing this 20 or more years.

The questions in the interview were all "what would you do if...." And in general it was all very condenscending. Like they were doing us a favour for even bringing us in for the interview. Scuttlebutt around town is they don't care what you know.. they want to make sure you drink the koolaid and will teach you what you need to do your job..

So when I got my rejection email today... it really didn't bother me to hit "delete"

I heard this story about that place when it aired:

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/30/146000685/employees-to-face-term-limits-at-casino

impulsive wrote: I heard this story about that place when it aired: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/30/146000685/employees-to-face-term-limits-at-casino

That's kind of screwed up. I'm thinking their UI is going to be a bit high.

Yup. Small family-owned place called Toyota Motor Manufacturing of Kentucky. It was more junk of how well you fit in with others then if you could stand on your head for 12hrs a day putting in who knows what...

I had an interview like that last year. I felt like the two guys interviewing me were being unnecessarily difficult, and about halfway in, I came to the realization that if this were actually going well I might have had to deal with them EVERY DAY.

I'm in the same business as you. Get your union card and this sort of thing stops happening.

I've been offered jobs that I had to decline because my BS-o-meter was off the scale during the interview. Life's too short to waste time & energy working for people/companies like that.

Yeah, I did something dumb last year: took a job even though my internal BS meter was buzzing during the second interview. It bit me, too. Won't do that again.

Yep. Went in for an interview for a company that talked up having "concierges" to take care of your personal tasks during the day at work. It was cool at first, but then I thought about what that meant in terms of expectations, and I stopped trying during the interview. Later, I found out that my wife was friends with the hiring manager's wife, and that said hiring manager was going through a separation because of his workaholism. Pass.

Curmudgeon wrote: Yeah, I did something dumb last year: took a job even though my internal BS meter was buzzing during the second interview. It bit me, too. Won't do that again.

No kidding. I was dumb enough to take a $10K / 2 year signing bonus - about a month into the job I realized my "gut reaction" was correct.

Life experience is an education in reverse - the test comes first and you get the lesson later

Once, 3/4 through a really long interview I just upped and left.

I once was flown out to Idaho for an interview. The first guy I met seemed like a great guy and he was going to be my supervisor, but the particular job also had a lot of interaction with that guys boss as well. After meeting with the guy and getting a brief tour and asking a lot of questions about the job, I thought it was a pretty good fit for me. Then we went in to meet the big boss and he was a man I had met before when we were both in the Navy. After about 3 minutes into the 30 minute interview I knew there was no way in hell I was going to work for or with that man. I played along to get through the interview, but really had not much enthusiasm for it. When I got a call a week or so later that they hired an internal candidate I was relieved. I really didn't want that job at all. It was my happiest rejection ever.

I was a barback at a high volume bar in Atlanta for 5 years and decided to try and move on to another bar barbacking. The manager of the bar I was "interviewing for" a complete shiny happy person and was treating me like I was a moron. Talking down to me, yelling at me when I would stop to get some water, and stuff like that. At the end of the night, one of the owners and some of the bartenders were asking me if I was cool with coming in the following weekend. They had not given me my money yet so I was playing along saying "yep, I'll be here". My ass, I got my money and.and left. I texted the bartender that brought me in the next day and told him I was rejecting the job offer. He asked why and I told him his manager was an shiny happy person.

I have twice gotten 'stuck' in interviews where it became obvious to me pretty quickly that no way in hell would I work for this person but I couldn't just get up and walk. That's because in the car business people talk back and forth, you never know who knows who and you damn sure don't want someone badmouthing you on the streets. Damn, I hated that.

No lie, I had a interview with two guys I swear were the models for these characters:

They didn't hire me. I didn't care. However, in my recent round of interviews it seems like this has become the rule rather than the exception. Antagonistic interviews with lots of way-out-there hypothetical questions and the occasional "personality profile" written tests. Whatever happened to looking at my skills and history and asking basic questions to determine if I'm an assclown or not?

fifty wrote: Life experience is an education in reverse - the test comes first and you get the lesson later

that's say what? material right there

ddavidv wrote: Whatever happened to looking at my skills and history and asking basic questions to determine if I'm an assclown or not?

Business school, I suspect. I don't know what these Corporate types are looking for.

I take that back, they're looking for better robots so they can fire everyone and not pay any wages at all. I still recall the first time I applied for an internal position at my old place, and there were Business types instead of industry people doing the interview. When it was over, I walked out thinking, "..are they from Mars?" I used to read "Dilbert" and wonder what on Earth they were talking about. Now I think it's the funniest thing in the paper.

I think it's called the STAR interview process. You're exactly right that it is less about what you know and more about how you react to stress and get along with people.

well, the STAR system seems kind of silly... but so does that whole casino. I have been heading about some serious nightmares about that place.

Their event centre is supposedly "state of the art" even though they can't afford to buy any real equipment.. they as simply a road house for now. Well, they do have a sound system, right, left, and center clusters.. all hung at.. wait for it.. 60 feet from the floor... as in.. there is 60 feet of air from the bottom of the bottom cabinent to the floor.

Anybody who has seen a touring show knows they only ever hang two or 4 clusters.. never an odd number and never a centre cluster. Also, they are too high and they are DEAD hung.. meaning no motors to raise or lower them.

They were warned by several people that no road show will want the centre cluster and that they will want the speakers lower. Management responded with that the road shows will not have a choice about wether they like it or not.. they will have to use it.

Well, Beyonce was first in.. their sound tech looked at it (ahead of time) and told them that they wanted the middle cluster out of there and the right and left lowered to 30 feet.. management balked... until the tour manager stated that in their 7 million dollar contract there is a no back out clause.. They get paid wether Beyonce goes on stage or not..

Revel coughed up $100,000 to quickly re-engineer the system.

Point is.. they "know better" than everyone else. Granted, the other casinos are not exactly shining stars of management excellance or even innovation.. they are really stuck in their ruts.. but some things work the way they do because that is what works... sometimes you shouldn't try to re-engineer the wheel.

It's also been noted that there is almost nobody over 40 working in the place.. most of their employees are in their late 20s and early 30s.. people they can train and mold into the perfect little koolaid powered bots

I was going to post about my current situation, but I'm going to pass until it I am more certain of what I'm doing. In any case, it is a good position to be in for someone graduating college in a week. The quick and short of it is half of me really hopes I get an offer; the other half really hopes I don't get it--but not for any reasons relating to THAT job or company itself.

I interviewed at a biotech place for an instrumentation design gig some years ago. I go there at 10:30, saw the guy, that guy sent someone else in, and so on and so on. Eventually an administrative type came in and asked if I wanted something to eat. What appeared to be a leftover meeting catering sandwich was provided along with another person to interrogate me while I stuffed the ubiquitous turkey wrap-thing in my pie hole. Then another, and another and another...

Eventually I'd spoken with the seemingly everyone in the company aside from the cleaning crew and the CEO. It was nearly 4:00 when I got out of the parking lot.

I followed up with an email, and heard nothing. Eventually I called the contact and left a voice mail, and followed up with an email.

Nothing. And this was a job for a really odd specific niche skill set which I had 100% covered with recent home-run success.

I recently saw the listing for the online auction liquidation of their assets.

A job best not taken.

fifty wrote: Life experience is an education in reverse - the test comes first and you get the lesson later

indeed.

FWIW, I just interviewew for a job I would love - sort of a lateral move within the organization I already work for - but don't think I have a chance of getting the gig.

I applied for a job at Eckerds (a CVS type store) back when I was a teenager. They offered to "Interview" me on the spot. The first "Interview" was a really long multiple choice test that was designed to see what it would take to get you to steal money from the company. The early questions were variations on "Would you take money from the register if you knew you would get caught?". They progressed to "You need money to pay you electric bill. Would you take money from the register if you knew you would loose your job but not go to jail?" By the time I was 3/4 of the way through and they were hitting me with variations of "Your best friend/Mom/etc... have cancer and you could take the money and have it back without anyone knowing..." type questions I had had enough. I pretty much said I would take money from the register to buy Girl Scout Cookies because they were yummy at that point.

^^ I remember those tests, IIRC they were popular in the late 80's. They were designed to trip you up.

There was one question that went along the lines of if all you could get was a minimum wage job was it OK to steal bread for your family. Really.

I interveiwed for two jobs with the state's environmental agency. Both times I was told almost first thing they were looking to fill the job with a black female. So why did you call my lily white pecker packing self in?

Years later I was inteveiwing for a different job with the same agency,. When I was getting on the elevator to go up for the interview, two 300 pound female minorities were getting on the elevator with me. One said to the other, " I'm going back to my desk and I'm not going to do a damn thing the rest of the day". It was lunch time. I was unemployeed at the time. It made me so mad that I absolutely blew the interview. The interviewer asked how I would like to work for the state and I totally blanked out. I did not get that job either, but at least I earned that no-hire.