GETTING MORE TALE #441: Help Wanted!

Back in the Record Store Days, hiring seemed to go in waves, with the students.  Periodically we’d lose some of our best people as they moved on to further their educations.  We’d go on hiring binges, looking for 3-4 good solid new people.  This was done by putting out ads.

Paraphrasing our old print ads, we would advertise that we were looking for the following:

• Hours: 15 hours a week, evenings & weekends.  Looking for long-term commitment, not a seasonal position.  Duties include buying and selling of used CDs.  Retail experience is helpful but not required.  Superior musical knowledge a plus.  Apply in person only.

Then we would have set hours for them to apply (usually between 2 and 7), during which I (and other managers) would be working.  People didn’t always like that “apply in person only” part, but it was there for a reason.  It was so the store manager (me) could gauge whether you were flaky or not.  Even though store managers were not involved in hiring, we could at least offer our impressions of the applicants when they came in to apply.  Were they polite?  Were they dicks?  Were they high?

Like anywhere, we occasionally ended up with a few bad apples.  If I were to make an “honest” hiring ad based on the number of times we’d been burned before, here is what it would probably look like.

Don’t get me wrong – we hired lots and lots and lots of great people with the standard ads.  But I think mine is better!

More:

RECORD STORE TALES Part 94:  Staffing
RECORD STORE TALES Part 185:  Staffing 2.0