by Dallas Spires

Created on: October 02, 2009

When I moved to Norcross, GA, a few years ago, it was with Dollar Tree. I transferred to a store up there that needed an assistant manager who would actually work. Unfortunately, I was only there for a week (after being with the company for 3 years at the time). Needless to say, I had to find a job. I discovered quickly that few employers in the metro-Atlanta area took paper applications or talked to applicants in person (some not even for the interview).

The inability to speak to a real person or shake hands - in other words, the inability to use charm to influence someone's decision - was one of my motivations to move back to Middle Georgia. At the time, very few employers in the area used internet applications. It was still common practice to want to meet applicants face-to-face at different points in the process - when they pick up the application, when they turn it in, when they follow up in person, and for the interview. Only really big companies, like Wal Mart and GEICO, used computer applications. Wal-Mart, Kroger, and other companies like them, had computers set up in their stores where applicants could come in and fill out the applications in front of staff, still fulfilling the first stage of applicant screening (remember, meeting them when they pick up and turn in the application).

Oh, how things have changed.

In the course of just a few years, paper applications have all but disappeared. There are still a few places that use them, but most companies are using the internet now, and many of them do not have computer access in-store for their applicants. I'm not going to address all of my concerns about changing the focus of this kind of applicant pre-screening (they can't turn in applications if they don't have internet access?) except to say that it's more than a little bothersome.

Applicants today must rely on their ability to snow employers over with resumes, cover letters, and what they get to say in their online job applications. This hurts people like me, people who rely on meeting the employer face-to-face and charming them, because many of these applications do not reveal the location (and some, not even the name) of the business. For many employers, on the other hand, this can be a good thing. Employers no longer have to waste their time with random people off the street hassling them for work the way the homeless may hassle people for money. Who really has the time to meet that many people who are not spending their money in your store? I mean, really.

Something tells me we're missing the point here. It seems that we're continuing to use technology to further separate ourselves from each other. We're allowing ourselves to be convinced we don't have time to meet new people on a daily basis. If you're in customer service, this idea of no-time-to-meet-folks represents a conflict of interest. If you don't have time for people, you'r juste not doing something right.

Face to Face

A district manager at a clothing store recently told me he screened the applicants for his managers before reading the applications because sometimes people who look good on paper didn't turn out to be the right person for the job once they showed up in person. He also said that some people who did not look good on paper turned out to be good at the job. (Unfortunately for me, he was really hung up on the fact that my last job was not in retail.)

This goes beyond looking for jobs. This involves a much bigger issue, and that is our disconnection from our neighbors and from the real world as a whole, through the use of technology.

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