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canuckledragger

(1,635 posts)
9. I agree & can speak from experience
Wed Jun 6, 2012, 12:52 PM
Jun 2012

At least for the company website bit.

I applied once to a local call center that had recently changed it's polices to accept only online applications, & required answering a questionnaire (the 1-5 sliding scale "I strongly agree - I strongly disagree type) on top of supplying a resume, work history, etc.

I answered the questionnaire as honestly as I could, just to get an automated email later saying I didn't meet their requirements.

Being the technically inclined guy I am (Fix & build PC's for a living, used to finding workarounds) I figured out the apps were tied to email addresses, submitted a new application but this time giving out the 'gung-ho' I strongly agree answers, & later got an email saying I passed the app & would be getting a call for an interview soon.

The online work application was based on a pre-set of answers & automatically rejected you if you did not meet up with the gung ho attitude they were looking for...I doubt previous experience, expertise, references, etc played any part in the hiring process..

..Just a cold non-human program that merciless dump anyone with honesty, integrity, etc.

I believe they had only 2 H.R. people there..for a building that housed 500-600 employees at any given time..the program did most of the work for them..freeing them up to do pretty much...nothing.

Any real issues or grievances that were brought before them by the front-line agents (the people manning the phones, that did the real work, everything else is just support, really) resulted in them taking the company side pretty much all the time. The center tried to unionize to combat the unjust firings, etc, just to have that squashed due to intimidation & other methods (also threats to 'move elsewhere' if a union was formed)..along with an ineffectual labor board.

I put in a year & 1/2 before I decided to call it quits..after watching too many brown-nosers promoted to potions they couldn't handle, (due to too much time getting OUT of real work in various ways.. resulting in less real knowledge & experience doing the job) & watching various people getting fired for whatever reasons they could justify.

It's a common practice at most call centers..it keeps wages & salaries from getting too high..another trick being moving campaigns to other locations & setting everyone back to zero again, getting paid much less for the 'new' campaign. Of course you have the 'option' of moving to the new location to keep your old job...but the locations were usually pretty far away..as in the other side of the country or another country completely.

The company in question was named StarTek...whose client at the site I worked at was...T-Mobile.

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