More Lessons from Me

Part of my job at Target is to go through all the applications that we receive and separate them into "potential" or "turndown". Pretty sure those are self explanatory. We get probably 50-75 a day, so this can be a huge task. They come from people who come in and fill out a handwritten application (which I then get to manually enter into the computer) or people who come in and fill them out on the computers in our store or from people who fill them out online. Not too long ago, I wrote an entry about Lessons for Shoppers, so today I am going to write some lessons from Human Resources.
1 - If you are filling out an application, please actually read the application. Different words have different meanings. The words "Country" and "County" are two different words. I cannot tell you how many applications I have gotten where the address line says Country and the applicant will put whatever random county they live in.

2-Please realize that there are certain things on your application that will send you directly to the turndown file. We are a retail company that is open from 8 am to 10 pm, except during the holidays, when we are open until 11 pm. If your availability is Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 2pm - 5 pm, you are probably wasting your time filling out the application. And, you're wasting my time making me read and file your application. Especially when it comes to holiday staffing, we are looking for the people who can work the most often. You need to be able to work at some point during the weekend.

3-Be open on your application. If you have some sort of criminal record, please put what it is on your application. If I see you have a record, but in the explanation area you put "I would rather explain this to you in person" or "I was at the wrong place at the wrong time", I'm going to assume that for the first one you need to come up with a creative way to spin whatever it was that you did or for the second one that you still haven't owned up to the crime you committed, so you are going to be turned down.

4-Once you have filled out an application, if you would like to call to check on the status, do so during the day. Saturday night is a very busy time in the retail world and is probably not the best time to call to see about your application. Odds are the person you need to talk to about it will be there during the day and available to at least look it up. At night or on the weekends, even if the person is there, he or she is too busy to go look up an application. Also, please don't call every twenty minutes or we will be tempted to turn you down just so we don't have to deal with you.

5- Once you have been hired and come for orientation, please check all your paperwork and make sure your name, address, any other pertinent information is correct. It takes like a second to fix it at orientation and like 6 weeks to fix it after orientation. Don't know why that is, but it is. And, yes, it's very important that it is correct. The last people you want to aggrevate is the Department of Homeland Security.

Anyway, that's about it. As the Christmas season gets going, we begin hiring seasonal people and these issues come up more and more. Just some helpful information!