Do railroads have recruiting departments or do they simply pick out the best among those who apply? The reason I ask: in trucking recruiting (i…e. going out and FINDING suitable candidates) is a key function…Some carriers have entire departments that do nothing but send recruiters out to find qualified drivers. if we simply waited for people to apply many of us would be out of business for lack of workers. We rarely receive unsolicited resumes for anything other than administrative or management postions. Not sure why that is… the work is hard but the pay is generally better than average. I get the impression that the railroads have piles of applications from wannabe conductors and engineers, and that the hiring people sift through those without the need to go out on the road to recruit.
The answer is “yes”.
Like many good businesses they do keep a certain number of applicantions and resume’s on file for a certain amount of time. But there also seems to be a geographical/economic recruitment program from time to time. One month A will be recuriting conductors in City but last month they were looking for operators in Town. It could be seasonal, it could be new business, it could be retirements of personell, differs from day to day, railroad to railroad, location to location, job to job. Sharp HR programs know who they want, where they are, and when they will be available.
Norfolk Southern (for one) holds “Career Open Houses” at hotels in or near its key terminals and advertises them in the paper and on the Internet to inform and solicit candidates. One that I attended in mid-Dec. - and I got the impression they were doing 2 or 3 of them a week in a “road show” format - had about 200 people show up “off the street” plus about 25 invited from previous resume submittals for 20 openings locally (all Conductor Trainees), and was run by 3 HR staff with titles like Recruiter and Senior Recruiter (plus a PR guy, a TM, and a YM).
- Paul North.