by SlotCanyoneer
I’ve been applying to every railroad around me, and some far away, for close to two years now. FINALLY got a nibble on one of my applications with CSX this past July. Got invited to an interview. Arrived on time and dressed neat. No three piece suit but a nice pair of slacks with dress shoes and a polo shirt. I thought it went fairly well. I mean I don’t think I blew the socks off the three guys that interviewed me but I held my own Not long after received the official “thanks but no thanks” email. Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Got an unknown call on my cell. I let it go to voicemail since I’m usually weary of those unknown calls. Then I see that there is a voicemail message. Turns out it’s Human Resources from Amtrak of all people!! They wanted to know if I was still interested in a position I applied for. This was not even an asst. conductor or passenger engineer job. It was for a “motor equipment Operator”. Basically a shop laborer that operates forklifts, adds sand to and cleans locomotives, does snow removal and general maintenance. I figured this would be right up my alley since I have quite a bit of forklift experience. Jump to yesterday. The big day of the interview at 10:30 am in the big city. Put on my best leather shoes, khaki dockers, tucked in long sleeve collared shirt with a belt. Braved an hour and 50 minutes of horrid rush hour traffic and still arrived 10 minutes early. Got asked a myriad of situational questions at a three person panel interview. Some weren’t necessarily the easiest of questions to answer but I handled it with grace. At least in my opinion. Wasn’t even 5 yet when I got the familiar email notification on my IPhone. Another “thanks but no thanks” Oh well! One day I’ll learn the secret of breaking through. I have a super solid work history. Been with the federal government for the past 11 years. I especially thought Amtrak would be impressed by that. The only other thing I can think of is that I did hire on with a local class 2 railroad 14+ years ago as a conductor. I beat myself up for it everyday, but at the time I didn’t want to do the on call thing. This never even came up in any interviews however. Any thoughts from anyone? I know there are a lot of posts like this. I guess the only thing to do is simply keep applying.