Once I went to apply for a job at a new deli lunch place downtown. It had been advertised in the paper, and we were in the midst of a recession, so there were quite a few others applying for the same small handful of jobs. But I was fairly confident; I’d worked as a busboy in several restaurants and stood a good chance, at least for an interview.
I went up to the deli counter and they gave me an application form to fill out. Sitting down at one of the deli’s many diminutive tables among numerous other late-teens who were doing the exact same thing I was, I proceeded to complete the application. After double-checking everything to make sure it looked good, I got up to leave. “Is this where I leave my application?” I asked the gentleman sitting at another, slightly larger table. He seemed to pause for a second, then answered, “uh, YEA!” I handed him my application, thanked him politely, and left.
I internally congratulated myself on a job well done: I had accomplished the sometimes-intimidating chore of applying for employment. And they seemed nice! Maybe I’d get to work there.
It was sometime during the bus ride home that I realized that the guy I had left my application with was probably not an employee of the business. I had given my completed application to a fellow applicant.
I never did receive an interview, and in fact I never heard from anyone affiliated with that establishment again. But experience is a valuable teacher, and I always try to pass along this pearl of job search wisdom to others:
Always make sure to give your completed application to someone who actually works at the place you‘re applying to, not to one of your competitors.