Applying for jobs as a hobby

by Natasha
(Oregon)

Hi friends,

3 days ago I got a text message saying there was a good job fit for me as an Amtrak conductor assistant. Sort of a 24/7 on all any shift but 40 hour a week job.

The first 9 weeks is a training in Delaware. I fought my way through their Amtrak unique online application process, and was very full of myself for accomplishing that.

What an interesting data collection process they have! It takes pertinent information from your pdf resume and has you renter it into their formatted data base. Redundant for the applicant but then Amtrak can sort by fields.

Then I got a couple more texts from this sort of platform employment agency telling me to be ready to text or go visibly online on Wednesday between the hours of 9-12.

So I installed zoom on my laptop, got dressed up on Wednesday and sat at my desk Wednesday expecting another text or e-mail telling me to log into zoom. Well about an hour later nothing had happened. I found the old text on my phone and replied that I was waiting.

Then I received an e-mail saying to go to a particular site, change a setting to ‘available’ and join a group.

For a while I tried to figure out what that meant. The site was very full of icons and pictures of Amtrak people working in different jobs. I finally guessed and tapped a picture labeled conductor assistant.

Whoa- up pops a message saying that I am 13th in line to chat with 1 of 2 Amtrak associates.

Wait wait staring at the screen for an hour and up pops a greeting. We said hello and a message popped up saying we had 5 minutes more.

The chat lady’s question to me was: Do you have any questions I can answer. I remembered reading an article advising to respond thus ‘Are there any particular concerns that I might address to get to the next phase of screening?’

She said to put salary at $24/hour (I had entered $30/hour. And she said to emphasize customer service. Then the computer abruptly said session terminated.

I went back into Amtrak profile, but it had not retained anything about salary. I tweaked my resume and cover letter, saying $24, and emphasized my customer service.

I might have already been screened out on salary- darned if I could find any reference to money in my Amtrak profile. I tried the Amtrak employee help chat but it just kept asking me what tickets I wanted to buy.

Anyway it was an adventure.

Later that day I started giggling - who would want a 71-year-old when they have so many choices.

But you know what? I had fun experiencing the technology. I might just make applying for jobs into a hobby. 😃

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