Applying online for a job definitely has its problems

[BowserKoopa1]

So I lost my last job, and I have had to take a job delivering pizzas. Dam good money for just a few hours of work, but murder on my brand new Dodge Challenger that I bought back in May.
The delivery job is temporary until I find something better. Home Depot is a place I would love to work. I applied a month ago, and the hiring manager said she is in desperate need of cashiers. I haven't even had so much as a job interview neverthless. Why you ask?
The way they do it is they set up a phone interview and you answer a few questions. Then they tell you what store wants you. I have put down for the 2 closest stores to where I live, as the others are too far away to drive, and I will be guzzling up gas driving to and from work. I might as well deliver pizzas if I'm forced to drive that far to work.
3 times I have been called for a phone interview, and 3 times they have offered me a job at a store located way out of the way from where I live. I've talked to everyone I can and went back into the online site to change my preferred locations about 2 or 3 times. I have even told the hiring manager that I could start ASAP, especially since she needs cashiers. But she says there's nothing she can do
Today was the 3rd attempt, and I am really getting frustrated. Delivering is good in some ways, but I still want out, or at least have a 2nd job to go with it if Home Depot cannot give me enough hours. Feels like by the time they take care of this problem, all the cashier positions will be filled.

[Megg]

If it is this difficult to get the position, perhaps the Universe is telling you it wasn't meant to be. Or maybe the timing just isn't right. Good luck, try to stay positive. I hope things work out for you and you find the perfect job for you.

[Food Lady]

I know that has to be frustrating. As a person who has a car that needs a $1700 repair, I can tell you that driving that far to cashier isn't worth the wear and tear on your car. Pizza delivery isn't either, but at least it's closer and temporary. Maybe you will make more doing this because of tips.

[silverstaff]

Online job applications are a joke, and a bad one.

I came to the conclusion long ago that it's mostly a system for places to be able to ignore job applications.

Years ago I spent 6 months searching for work, I put in over 300 online applications to different jobs. It went nowhere. When I finally got a job, it involved turning in an actual physical application to a physical place.

[Coconut]

Online applications are awful, period. I've applied for oodles of jobs online and gotten nowhere.

The funniest one asked me for my full social... on a website that wasn't even secure. Um, no.

[Dreamstalker]

Coconut, I've run into that a lot. (I wonder whether these places would be at all interested in hearing from an applicant how insecure the application process/site is...they'd probably accuse the person of trying to 'hack' it themselves)

I actually applied online for my current job a full six months before I was hired (what got me the job was when I showed up one morning and ASM happened to be there). I never did figure out what happened, but I suspect something in the online process kicked it into a black hole (the application itself is a mess). My store used to have a terminal in the corner to fill out applications, it's gone now.

[ADeMartino]

In addition to all this, the information gathered from online applications (particularly through those 'job hunt' sites) tend to end up in the wrong hands. Telemarketers, scam artists, student loan brokers, you name it. Haven't had a single online application actually result in a job, but boy do I get junk mail (both the electronic and physical type), and lots of phone calls about 'guaranteed' student loans. I've come to find out that even some legitimate company websites often harvest and sell your electronically-submitted information - whether this is actually legal or not, I don't know. Probably not, but that's what lawyers are for, right?

[Dreamstalker]

This is why I no longer use Monster for job searches; many moons back, I had that suspicion about the site and posted a 'resume' with an email that I set up for this experiment and a known-bad phone number (just in case).

Boom, 12 hours later I started getting spam. Eventually, my real phone started getting hammered with for-profit college recruiters and car warranty scams...how the hell did they get that number?

ADM, the laws on that kind of stuff are convoluted, but I don't think it should be legal (you are entrusting Site X with your information and have a reasonable expectation it not end up anywhere else). I like to control where my info goes, but unfortunately people are being expected not to care anymore.

[sms001]

Despite telling tech support numerous times, my wife gets only applications for store 854, and they get hers, store 137. Pretty easy fix, but no one can be bothered.

[ADeMartino]

Boom, 12 hours later I started getting spam. Eventually, my real phone started getting hammered with for-profit college recruiters and car warranty scams...how the hell did they get that number?

There are probably a half-dozen ways to get a phone number, even unlisted.

I imagine once one of the telemarketing agencies tried the bogus number and determined it was no good, they flagged the file for 'research'. 'Research' is basically scanning other databases to find a match for your name and address.
Those 'other' databases can be from a number of sources - some legitimate, some not so much. For example, if a telemarketer called you in, say, 2008, even if you declined their offer, they still gain, because they have a 'live' number that they can sell to other telemarketing companies. Those lists get recompiled and resold all the time, and they circulate for years.

Last year when I submitted my resume and application on a job news website, I started getting calls offering student loans within the hour.

On a SUNDAY.

Never again.

[Dreamstalker]

I imagine once one of the telemarketing agencies tried the bogus number and determined it was no good, they flagged the file for 'research'. 'Research' is basically scanning other databases to find a match for your name and address.
Those 'other' databases can be from a number of sources - some legitimate, some not so much.

Most of those public sites seem to aggregate 'social network' information...according to a couple of them I make 7 figures and own a mansion in Nevada with a pool (oh really?)

I use a gaming character alias for any non-critical purposes. The name and address look good, but the only info that would come up in a search is the disinformation I've already used. The only thing I have not been able to do is seed Facebook...I tried, but they managed to link one--which was never actually used beyond that test--to my real name and I can't delete it.

I know when my mom had to declare bankruptcy, we got a new phone number. Within days she was getting calls from sketchy 'bankruptcy/debt relief' services...and three years later, we're still getting them. I can't block unknown callers as there are one or two legitimate callers that block their numbers (why in the hell would my credit card show up as 'private caller'?)...now if it can be done by CID listing that would get rid of most of them. Telescammers are persistent, but generally uncreative.