I’m a 911 dispatcher, basically every dispatch center in the country is always hiring. There’s a lot of turnover, obviously it’s not a job everyone is cut out for and people get burned out, but also people use it as a stepping stone or career builder to move onto other things, a couple of my coworkers want to be cops and this looks good on that application, one went to work for FEMA, a couple have gone to be the dispatchers at local stations, people get promoted or transfer to other county positions (my agency is part of our county department of public safety, in some areas it might be part of your sheriff’s department, local PD, etc) or just go chasing higher paychecks or dream jobs (pay varies a lot around the country, we make decent enough money where I am, but some places really pay peanuts)

I saw an ad on social media somewhere that they had a hiring event going on, so I went. I was working in a warehouse at the time, and a job where I could sit down in the air conditioning sounded really attractive.

Civil service type jobs were already on my radar, I looked into becoming a park ranger for a while, and I’m an eagle scout, so I had a solid grounding on first aid and such.

I showed up, filled out an application, took their aptitude test (we, and a lot of other agencies use something called criticall if you want to get an idea what that test was like. Some typing, reading comprehension, map reading, listening to some sample calls and answering questions about them, etc.)

I passed the test, so as part of the hiring event I got an interview on the spot. If I applied outside of that, I probably would have had to schedule separate times for the test and interview.

I did alright in the interview so they scheduled me for a job shadow to come in and sit in the room to listen to calls and radio dispatch for a couple hours.

Then a while later I got my conditional offer. I had to get a hearing, vision, and drug test, and schedule a psych eval with the county psychologist.

You all know what hearing and vision tests are like I hope, for the drug test they did a hair test. I shave my head, so I was expecting them to take some beard hair, but apparently their policy is to do underarms if that’s the case.

The psych eval wasn’t anything too in depth, sat down with him for a few minutes, chatted about my mental health (no real issues there) then I got handed a very long test booklet to go fill out, lots of multiple choice questions that seemed to basically be gauging if I can play well with others.

And I assume at some point in there they ran background checks and such. Some places get really in depth with that, interviews with the sheriff, polygraph tests, etc. but mine was all pretty out of sight and out of mind.

Then class started. About a week into it we had to go to the county detectives office to be fingerprinted. But otherwise after that it was just all training.

Requirements here are pretty minimal, clean background check, high school diploma/GED, ability to pass all the pre employment screening, etc. At my agency past drug use isn’t necessarily a disqualifier, as long as you can pass the drug test to get hired and don’t get caught lying about anything you have done. Some other places are of course more strict about that.

If anyone thinks they may want to pursue a dispatch job, your local agency may list the job under a couple different names, dispatcher, calltaker, telecommunicator, etc.

Boss left the company we both worked at. About nine months later, I hated my new boss and wanted to quit; he offered me a job.

I’ve risen through the ranks since then.

I did a phone interview at 11 am and told them I needed a determination by 3 pm. They hired me at 1 pm. I don’t know why I did that, and I don’t know why it worked, but here I am.

They needed more people where my sister worked, so I agreed to work there.

My previous job was via linkedin. I think this one was as well.

Graduated around 2008 as the economy was crashing, and struggled to find anything. Eventually got hired at a call center for a large company (about a year after I had applied for it). After a few years of that I was able to transfer into a different department where I didn’t have to deal with customers directly, then kept getting promoted to different positions until I found one I was really comfortable in.

Old guy checking in. I was a computer science major, graduating in 1985. My goal at the time was to go into computer animation (note that Toy story, the first full length computer animated movie, wasn’t released until ten years later). But there was a big computer animated project that was canceled or tabled just before my last semester, so the market was flooded with out of work animators and I decided I’d better do something different. I was getting married, and I needed a job.

I had good grades, but I didn’t think there was much that made my resume stand out from my classmates, each of whom was making 100+ copies of theirs and applying to every software job they could find. So instead, I asked everyone I knew if they knew anyone who worked at a place that hired software people, and asked if they could get me a name of a hiring manager. I got seven or eight of those, and I sent each of them a letter with my resume, mentioning who pointed me their direction. Out of that I got three interviews and two job offers. My first job ended up being writing control software for the space shuttle main engines, and I stayed at the company almost 40 years. I just retired in January.

Well, my first real job, meaning not a temporary thing in fast food with plans to GTFO ASAP, was as a nurse’s assistant.

My high soul school had a class for health care work prep. I had the goal then of being an RN. So I figured some of the basics might be nice ahead of time. Medical terminology, chances to have professionals in various branches of healthcare do talks, etc.

The last year, the program allowed you to take the state test to be an NA, and if you passed at over 95%, you could get the certification no matter your age. It involved also doing clinicals, at a wide range of facilities. One of the facilities was a nursing home, and it turned out that not only was I physically right for carrying patients, but I had a knack for helping the worst off patients cope with being helped. A lot of dementia patients can’t process what’s going on at all.

For whatever reason, I could kinda slip through their confusion and talk to them, and they’d be less combative, or more able to cooperate with what was going on. By the time clinicals at that facility was over, the director of nursing had contacted the instructor and I had a job waiting as soon as the state processed everything. So that’s what I did for the next twenty years as my main job, though I left that facility, and eventually all facility work within three years. I did go back to school for my RN, and life interfered. Then I went back for my bachelor’s in psychology, and that ended before I could finish.

But, as you may or may not know, nurse’s assistants get paid shit. And not just the literal shit we have to clean up, the pay rate is horrible.

So I had side gigs.

My most stable side gig was working as a bouncer, which led to security work in other ways.

I mostly worked for two guys. They each owned multiple bars. One guy had mostly LGBTQ focused bars, oxidizing including the drag club that was my main and favorite place to work of his. The other guy ran mostly strip clubs, which was not as much fun as you’d think, but I still enjoyed as a bouncer.

Anyway, the first guy was the one that got me into bouncing. My best friend is gay, and by the time I was old enough to get into bars and clubs, so were almost all of my friends. I just like the community. But we were at the club for a drag show. It may help to know that back in high school I had started power lifting, and had been picking up 400lb people out of showers for a good while at this point. I was a big ol boy lol.

So, you know how weekend drag shows can get. Everyone and their sister crowded in, trying to dance, get laid, and enjoy the show. Spats happen.

Well, one of them started getting bad. The staff was trying to get in and break it up, but it was wall to wall people.

One of the more inebriated patrons took it from just screaming and shoving into serious territory, grabbing a bottle and starting to swing with it.

I picked him up and shook him a little. He dropped the bottle and started crying and hugging me. So, since me doing that had kinda stopped the show and the crowd was now watching us I carried the dude over my shoulder to the bar and sat him down, while the bouncers on staff (one of whom later on saved my life a few times) made their way to us.

The owner was there that night, and saw it go down. Had the head of security ask me to come into his office. He gave me a blast of hell for risking my neck, and then offered me a job lol. I would work weekends here and there, some weeknights.

The other guy and him were friends since they didn’t really compete much, and I got introduced that way, and would work for either of them as needed for the rest of the nineties and into the naughties.

Between them, I also ended up doing some low grade security work too. Mostly escorting bar owners to make deposits at the end of the night, or being visible muscle when interacting with unfamiliar fellow business owners. Which had its benefits. I got a chance to talk to some interesting people that way, since once everyone was chill, the muscle tended to be superfluous, and just sit around drinking coffee, bullshitting. I got offered a job doing celebrity work, but didn’t want to travel like that. Closest I came to that was taking a few trips to other cities with some of the better known Queens that weren’t as friendly to the community.

Anyway, I pretty much fell into both jobs unintentionally. They weren’t the only jobs I did, but they were the consistent ones, and the ones that I miss.

After 8 months of filling out job applications and going to first, second and third interviews (even ones where they flew me in), only to be told I was one of two finalists for the position or that the position had been cancelled, I cold pitched myself via LinkedIn to the people in the department of a company I wanted to work in. THEN I filled out a job application. Did this at three separate places and they all had offers for me within a week of each other, and I took the one I liked the best.

Copypasting my answer from the previous thread:

My current specific employment: A coworker of mine was laid off from my former employer, and joined the competition instead. Turns out that they needed what I do, and were willing to pay whatever it took, so they poached me with an offer I couldn’t refuse.

My job: Covid happened, and cuts were made among the field crew. I landed a role in the support structure instead, where I’ve been ever since.

My career: No fucking idea what happened. In 2008 I applied for a job and I had no idea what it was, and for which I was severely under qualified. I got it anyway. Turns out that being used to heavy machinery, computers/linux, and jury rigging was exactly what they were looking for, depsite wanting all sorts of degrees.

Applied on Indeed, had an interview with 3 managers, one of the managers extended me an offer