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.
HR types are primarily focused on seeing things that will disqualify candidates. It's a negativity-based process designed to weed out people and reduce the number of applicants being considered. When you want to see problems, you see problems, even where they don't exist. The only 21st Century railroad interview for me that turned into a job offer was with a group of people with whom I would be working, with no HR people involved.
Assuming you keep trying, best of luck in the future.