Great Expectations, Tough Odds in Rush for Horton Plaza Jobs
The applicant for one of the estimated 2,000 jobs at the Horton Plaza retail and entertainment complex sat nervously before the interviewer, slouched in his chair and fidgeting with his hands.
“Tell me a little bit about yourself. What are some of your major accomplishments?” the interviewer asked.
“I can’t think of any,” the young man replied, laughing.
“What are your goals for the future?” the interviewer asked.
“Umm . . . None,” the applicant answered.
The next words in this dialogue were not, “OK, you’re hired.”
Fortunately for the young man, however, this was not an actual job interview, but a mock interview conducted at a workshop designed to help prepare him for the real thing. After several job-training specialists critiqued his performance--a process that, in his case, took longer than the mock interview itself--the young man remarked, “I made a lot of mistakes, huh?”
“Yes, but it’s better to make the mistakes here than in the real interview,” replied Donna Urdiales, youth program coordinator at the Center for Employment Training in Golden Hill. “This is practice. The next time, it counts!”
The program, financed by a $185,000 federal grant and directed by the Downtown Jobs Training Center, is aimed at helping unemployed and low-income people qualify for jobs being created by the revitalization of downtown.
Operated by the San Diego Private Industry Council and the State Job Service of the Employment Development Department, the center has, over the last seven weeks, recruited and screened nearly 6,800 applicants for the jobs that will be created when the $140-million Horton Plaza complex opens next month. The center also has referred economically disadvantaged people to other job-creating downtown projects, including renovation of the U.S. Grant Hotel.
At the time the jobs plan was unveiled, Mayor Roger Hedgecock emphasized that targeting the program toward minority youths and the unemployed would help ensure that the benefits of downtown redevelopment “will be known to all of the people of the city.”
“A big part of the success story of Horton Plaza, and downtown redevelopment in general, will be the thousands of jobs created,” Hedgecock said.
While political and business leaders hope that many of those jobs will be filled by the so-called hard-core unemployed, they also realize that statistics alone illustrate the tough odds faced by applicants seeking the estimated 2,000 sales, clerical and other positions to be created by the four major department stores--Robinson’s, The Broadway, Nordstrom and Mervyn’s--and nearly 160 small shops, restaurants and theaters in Horton Plaza.
Robinson’s, Nordstrom and Mervyn’s are already engaged in interviewing prospective job applicants, and expect to make hiring decisions by the end of the month. The Broadway is not scheduled to open until October, and may not begin hiring until late summer or early fall.
In addition to the nearly 6,800 people who have contacted the training center to date to express at least initial interest in applying for the jobs, thousands of other applications from the general public are expected.
“The competition is going to be very intense, with maybe five or more applicants for every job,” said Frank Martinez, director of the Center for Employment Training in Golden Hill. “The bottom line is that Horton Plaza is not going to be the answer to everyone’s job problem.”
Beyond the numerical obstacles, many of the would-be Horton Plaza employees who pass through the training center’s program also are seriously hampered by the fact that they have limited or no work experience. To frame the issue bluntly, someone whose only other job involved grilling hamburgers at a fast-food restaurant is unlikely to be hired to sell suits at Nordstrom--regardless of how many one-day workshops he attends.
However, some of those grim realities are brushed aside at the workshops, where a rah-rah atmosphere dominates and a central theme is that perseverance in job-hunting--”Make those phone calls, knock on those doors,” one instructor said--will be rewarded.
Officials contend that the workshops are designed primarily to boost the sagging self-confidence of the unemployed, and say they are not worried that the program perhaps might cause some applicants to have unrealistically high expectations about their chances for securing a job at the downtown center.
“This program can’t guarantee anyone a job,” said Bill Burris, the Employment Development Department’s director of the downtown jobs center. “But it can make people more competitive and give them a better chance. If you take people who have been down on their luck and give them a little hope, you might be surprised by what they can do.”
However, the techniques used in the program appear to occasionally come close to crossing the thin line that separates confidence-boosting tactics from disingenuous expressions of optimism.
For example, at one recent workshop, instructor Richard Kingsley left his dozen students with these words: “I’m very impressed with this group. I think you all will get jobs.” Kingsley made that remark, however, to a group that included the young man who said he had no future plans, a woman who wanted a retail sales job “because it will get me out of my shyness” and several other less-than-certain hirees.
Under the program, individuals who contact the downtown center are screened to determine whether the one-day workshops’ emphasis on successful job application techniques could improve their chances of being hired at Horton Plaza or elsewhere.
While many of the 6,800 people who contacted the center had sufficient work experience to make the workshop unnecessary, about 2,300 were encouraged to attend the one-day seminars. Of that group, about 1,300 had completed the eight-hour workshop as of last week, according to Binh Le, manager of the downtown training center.
“These people aren’t being paid to be here, so we view their attendance as a sign of their motivation,” Martinez said.
At the workshops, applicants receive extremely basic information about retail sales opportunities at Horton Plaza, job interview training and advice on successful application techniques. However, much of the advice is so routine--tips included dressing neatly, being on time for the job interview, and taking care with proper spelling on the application--that it appears to be of limited value.
“Most of this is just common sense--I haven’t learned anything I didn’t know before coming here,” complained Vonzinna Johnson, who hopes to land a retail sales job at one of Horton Plaza’s department stores. “I don’t see how this is going to help us get jobs.”
Other advice that the applicants received included:
- Tips on ways to avoid embarrassment at the workplace. Kingsley told the applicants, for example, that they should not “do dumb things like borrowing your lunch money from the cash register.” The instructor also encouraged his students to “clear up any legal problems you might have” before starting a new job.
“You don’t ever want to be arrested on your job--that’s a real negative,” he said.
- Constant reminders about using proper grammar and pronunciation during the job interview. Students with a tendency to drop the final “g” from words, as in “runnin’ ” or “tryin’,” received frequent rebukes from Urdiales, while Kingsley told the job-seekers to “get rid of the ‘I be’s.” (As in, “I be wonderin’ . . . “)
- Methods of disguising deficiencies in skills or background on one’s application. One young woman, for example, was told to avoid mentioning that mathematics had been her least favorite subject in school, because such an admission might raise questions about her ability to handle a cash register.
While several other students, like Johnson, questioned the worth of such “training,” some of the applicants said they found the program useful.
“I thought it was pretty helpful, especially the stuff about how to dress,” said Ray Hollingsworth, who was told that it would be a good idea to leave his white shoes in his closet when he goes for his interview for a stock room job. “Now I’m more enthusiastic. Now when I go to the actual interview, I’ll be dressed right, talk right and won’t be as nervous as I usually get.”
“I picked up quite a bit,” added Craig Smith, who hopes to be hired for a jewelry sales job. “I learned that you have to be extra careful with the application. If the application isn’t good, your chances aren’t good.”
State official Burris also pointed out that “even simple, common sense advice can be helpful” for applicants with limited or no work experience.
“It’s difficult for people who work to understand how someone might not understand how to dress for an interview,” Burris said, adding that he has heard stories about applicants who wore T-shirts or brought sandwiches with them to interviews. “But what is common sense to someone with long experience in the world of work may be foreign to people without jobs.”
Linda Harbert, a business consultant who monitors the local workshops, added: “Yes, this is very basic, but I believe it does help. I’ve probably done more than 2,000 interviews, and I’ve eliminated more than half of those people because of silly mistakes about things they should have known, like proper apparel or answers to questions.”
Despite the limited work experience of the workshops’ participants, Burris contended that he believes that it is “realistic to think that we might place 1,000 to 1,200 people” in Horton Plaza’s estimated 2,000 jobs. One factor that figures heavily in that rather optimistic projection is that, because many of the workshop students come from low-income families, companies that hire them qualify for sizable tax credits during their first two years of employment.
Burris conceded, however, that even that financial incentive cannot eliminate the inevitable disappointment that awaits many of the jobs program’s participants.
“In one day, you can’t turn a high-school dropout . . . into an Ivy League graduate,” Burris said. “All we can do is to try and make sure that these people don’t go in there with 2 1/2 strikes against them.”
