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Comment by WarOnPrivacy | Hacker News Reader

> The business loses employees to Walmart etc. despite the factory having higher pay and significantly better benefits.

Q: Do you ever use an online job service to advertise jobs and collect applications?

Asking because my 5 sons all learned that job portals auto-trash applications w/o a job history (1st time job seekers).

Other viable but never-seen applicants: Minimal or sporadic job history, the most minimal of criminal records, the wrong zip code.

Seen but never hired: Fully qualified people who are awful at job interviews.

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> job portals auto-trash applications w/o a job history (1st time job seekers).

It rather feels lately like civilization is the project of putting up as many catch-22's as we can.

I have no involvement with the plant directly. My understanding is the best luck they had was getting in good graces with local probation officers & craigslist classifieds. Job portals were pretty useless from my understanding.

> the best luck they had was getting in good graces with local probation officers & craigslist classifieds.

I appreciate the answer. And I understand that you may not have more-granular info than this.

But I am wondering what how jobs were advertised prior to utilizing ProbOff/CL. Maybe the answer is this. There was no avenue to get job listings in front of the most likely eyeballs.

Companies go to ManPower or other job staffing agencies when they need X number of low level employees or temps

> Companies go to ManPower or other job staffing agencies

Son #1 got employed there early but it turned out that a small group had a deal with management and got 100% of the work. New hires went out on one job immediately and then never again.

Also they’ll do local job fairs on site, at local community colleges. You’d be surprised how many people still listen to FM in their car so ads go up there too locally.

Uh... The newspaper.

I don't understand why Craigslist is being framed as a some step down here (while probation clearly is). Craiglist is exactly where you instantly have many eyes on your ad and people will send in resumes without the bullshit filtering of the various portals.

Outside of an urban area, you won't necessary be overwhelmed with resumes. If you portray your job realistically, you'll get people realistically interested in your job.

> There was no avenue to get job listings in front of the most likely eyeballs

Bit of an aside, but if anyone else is in this position and trying to reach the eyeballs of jobseekers who aren't actively using portals, I really can't recommend local Facebook groups enough.

A post from a real account (not the business) saying "Gizmo Plastics are hiring line workers for $18/h, anyone interested?" will get some guaranteed traction. In my small town Ontario groups, I've never seen a post looking for laborers go ignored.

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