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Old 07-24-2011, 05:20 PM
 
10 posts, read 27,373 times
Reputation: 20

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Here's my story, hope someone can help
I decided to move to the dallas area , probably mckinney, or at least near there.
My main employment background has been 8 years worth of sales/customer service/tech support and supervisor work in a call center for a cable company up north.
I have an additional year and a half as a general office worker/secretary at a health care company , nothing fancy.

Ive been applying from listings Ive seen on indeed.com for about 3 weeks straight and I am just not hearing anything back

I'm trying to be proactive and have a job lined up before i drive 20 some hours across America haha

So i guess i took the long way of asking this, can anyone point me in the direction of an employer I should apply for, if nothing else, just to get my foot in the door until i can get a "career" job?

If anyone reading this has a entry level job, or call center, or some kind of office work or retailer, even if you are not a big fan of where you work, but you know i wouldnt have to jump thru a bunch of hoops to get hired

any help will be appreciated
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Old 07-24-2011, 06:15 PM
 
333 posts, read 1,018,815 times
Reputation: 192
More than likely those type of jobs are going to local applicants....you might have better luck after you move here (sounds like you already made the decision to move?)
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Old 07-24-2011, 06:35 PM
 
Location: Simmering in DFW
6,952 posts, read 22,617,183 times
Reputation: 7295
how do you expect to be hired before you have a personal interview? I don't know anyone who get a job on the telephone.....
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Old 07-24-2011, 07:26 PM
 
6,578 posts, read 25,391,829 times
Reputation: 3249
Did you look at the Adecco website? It's a staffing firm that does some staffing for call centers.
CALL CENTER REPS - CAT Job in Plano, Texas - by Adecco USA
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Old 07-24-2011, 08:35 PM
 
37,315 posts, read 59,562,903 times
Reputation: 25335
check the Texas Workforce Commission site

https://wit.twc.state.tx.us/WORKINTE...SEARCH&clear=1

all the jobs listed there are real jobs--unlike some listings on Monster and Career Builder sites that just reappear over and over

I don't think with your skill set that most companies with vacancies will really be interested in a long distance hire
but there are some large call centers in the DFW area--don't know about McKinney per se but this is link to all jobs posted with TWC in McKinney area
https://wit.twc.state.tx.us/WORKINTE..._BROWSE_SEARCH

you might have to register with the TWC to have access to some job/employment info

lots of insurance companies around here and I think they usually have call centers
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Old 07-25-2011, 06:12 AM
 
574 posts, read 1,634,660 times
Reputation: 486
Quote:
Originally Posted by clarrissawwe View Post
Here's my story, hope someone can help
I decided to move to the dallas area , probably mckinney, or at least near there.
My main employment background has been 8 years worth of sales/customer service/tech support and supervisor work in a call center for a cable company up north.
I have an additional year and a half as a general office worker/secretary at a health care company , nothing fancy.

Ive been applying from listings Ive seen on indeed.com for about 3 weeks straight and I am just not hearing anything back

I'm trying to be proactive and have a job lined up before i drive 20 some hours across America haha

So i guess i took the long way of asking this, can anyone point me in the direction of an employer I should apply for, if nothing else, just to get my foot in the door until i can get a "career" job?

If anyone reading this has a entry level job, or call center, or some kind of office work or retailer, even if you are not a big fan of where you work, but you know i wouldnt have to jump thru a bunch of hoops to get hired

any help will be appreciated
As previously stated many of the career boards are displaying jobs that are non-existent or the positions have already been filled and they just list them to draw applicants in. Some of these recruiting and staffing agencies are just collecting resumes and lining up prospects for when they do get contracts from employers. If you read the job descriptions from some of these recruiting/staffing agencies they are strikingly similar. That is because they are the same job. One of the games they play is to pull ads from each other, and from companies, to post on their sites. When they get an applicant for the job their recruiters then go to the company and offer to hire them on either as temps or permanent for a fee.

Now for the main part of your background, and one of your target areas, is call center work. Call centers are leaving the DFW area in large numbers. They are fleeing to other lower cost areas and areas with higher unemployment. This gives them the ability to hire at much lower wages and possibly even less benefits. Those that are not moving to these other areas are outsourcing to overseas operations. Citibank is a good example of this. They used to have a major call center in Irving and now use a lot of overseas contracts for their call centers. If you are familiar with EDS (Ross Perot's former company) they too have done this.

Very few call centers are remaining and these are smaller operations with more specific requirements for employment. Many of those are also advertising as "Bi-lingual preferred" which translates to "Bi-lingual required". Insurance agencies were mentioned here and they do have some operations yet in this area. However they are heavy on the "Bi-lingual preferred" end and are weeding out people without a degree of some type. Having a degree is not a requirement to do the job but it is a way for them to weed out what they consider to be the low class riff-raff.

Call center jobs in this area are starting around $10 - $12 per hour after their training and your probationary period ends. Anything above that is most likely either a heavy mix of inbound and outbound (sales) work or the pay they quote includes your extra bonus for sales that you make. The base pay for many of those sales type call centers is around $10/hour and if you don't sell you don't last long.

As for the other positions you mentioned, secretarial and retail, they do not pay very much and will be given to those in this area with a heavy emphasis on referrals from inside the company first. Don't let anyone fool you as the employment situation here for the level of job you are looking for is bleak! Many employers are only hiring part time to prevent having to pay benefits and will hire two people for one job.

It is a sad economy out there and people need to be really sure they want to move and have plenty of funds on hand for a long job search. You also need to take into account being able to rent a place without a job in hand. Rentals are skyrocketing not only in occupancies but also costs because of the drop in real estate sales even here. Landlords can be very choosy who they rent to unless you are ready to rent in the much less desirable areas.
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Old 07-25-2011, 07:19 AM
 
Location: Kaufman County, Texas
11,819 posts, read 26,698,662 times
Reputation: 10541
I don't mean to burst your bubble about Texas, but I do want to be realistic...

Remember that the unemployment rate in DFW is about 8%, but the less education you have, the higher it goes. The rate for people without a high school diploma is currently about 14%. So, there are NOT abundant entry-level postions in DFW! At the hospital where I work, we usually get 1-2 applicants a day looking for administrative work, and I have no such positions available. You are competing against MANY other people with similar skill sets, and those people are local and can interview tomorrow and start the next day. Most employers do not want to have to wait for someone to move across the country to start an entry-level job.

As JBiggs said, call centers are leaving DFW and going to smaller towns where they can pay less rent and lower salaries. The positions on Texas Workforce are just like the ones on the career boards; they may or may not actually exist, and they are certainly getting hundreds of applicants for each listing.

Good luck with your job search.
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Old 07-25-2011, 04:53 PM
 
10 posts, read 27,373 times
Reputation: 20
thanks a lot for your help everyone that replied, I needed some straight talk on the matter. I was thinking the same thing in regards to employers not really wanting to bother with someone in my situation unless i was at least already a resident .

I guess Ill keep looking until I either hit a brick wall , or get lucky , thanks a bunch
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