Invited to NS Recruitment Session...

Hello,

I have been invited to a Norfolk Southern recruitment session and would like to know what can I expect besides staying all day. With regards to testing, is there any way to prepare? Also what kind of test. Sorry about the dumb questions but I would like to at least be semi-prepared. Any advice any of you guys could give me would help a lot. Have a great one!

Rod

As long as you dont want to have a life , be my guest and apply ive went to a few of them for NS, CSX, and UP and there all the same. theyll talk to you for a solid hour on the downsides of the job and never once tell you your pay, but they will keep telling you about the benifites. Hopefully your single , becouse when i went to the UP session, they actually took pride in saying they had and 80% divorce rate. Im not trying to discourage you but they do a good job in discouraging. Good Luck

PS NS training is done in Georgia, you have to pay your own way there and back, and also pay food and lodging, your pay is 5.50/hr while your down there and for the first year youll have to travel there 2 to 3 times for training , thats what i remember from the NS session I went to in Newark last year.

im sure this has been discussed already elsewhere, but the testing is a personality test, and a reading/math skills test. You cannot study for the personality test, and the skills test are basic things hopefully you know already. Simple addition and subtraction, etc. The sessions are painfully boring, which gets you used to the railroad life, "Hurry up and wait." They did mine in rounds. You complete an application, they make a cut. They test and boom another cut. This was the old hiring session way, before you had to go online and be reviewed there by HR people. However, the testing and cuts are still the same. If you make it through all this, you are invited to interview with the panel that same night. Generally they will make you an offer right there or call you in two days. I interviewed on a friday night, and was called monday morning.
NS will pay for lodging and food while in GA. They will reimburse you for mileage. Good luck

Read the article by Mr Santucci linked on rr.net's homepage, its very true and helpful.

I went to an NS cattle call a few years back. The woman who ran the show talked down to us...as if we were retarded puppies. Geez I love that. I remember thinking maybe that flies down south where the only jobs are Wal-mart, the slaughterhouse, or the railroad, but it won't fly in New Jersey, Sister. Apparently NS is still doing business here, though. : )

I get a feeling they run hiring sessions in this manner to shake loose the railfans that think they'll be playing with trains all day. From what I've seen and heard, it seems to work.

KFC Jones wrote: I remember thinking maybe that flies down south where the only jobs are Wal-mart, the slaughterhouse, or the railroad,

Yet another misinformed post from the intellectual northeast! (Read damned yankee) I'm surprised they can survive down there with such limited employment.

I went to a hiring session for NS in the summer of 2000. Out of the 20 guys that went, they offered invites for interviews to 2 guys who weren't even interested in working for them. My co-worker is a former NS man, and from the horror stories he told me, I can understand why they are constantly hiring. I mean, NS must have one hell of a turnover rate.

I used to work for NS. It was not a bad job as a conductor. The only problems that I saw with the company was the trainmasters were always out to get the employees. they would go out of there way to watch you while you worked and then try to get you fired for the littles thing, and if they could not they marked you for the rest of your career. And as a young guy, I got lucky and landed a 5 day a week local (H09) evening job in Campbell Hall NY on the Southern Tier. The only problem with being a new hire is you get bumped around a lot. I eventually got bumped and worked in Suffern (H56) and then down in Croxton. If you get the job, good luck and watch out for what we called the weed weasals (trainmasters).