My experience seemed to have started off on a good note and with nothing but enthusiasm...
I originally received a call from an administrative recruiter I guess. It is still not very clear who exactly this person was and the real nature of the position she held. She scheduled another phone call interview the very next day that I assumed was going to be about my work history, back ground education, and hands on experience. I was instead asked a short series of questions that only related in personal experience with working with someone.
Please describe a time in your career when you had a disagreement with a co-worker and how you resolved it...
Please describe a time in your career when you were unable to make a repair and how you handled it with a customer...
At no time or point in the interview was any of my technical expertise or training along with any reference to my resume even referred to or remarked on. Just to clarify, there was at no time any sort of APTITUDE test, summary, or evaluation given or offered. I was interviewed for what could be considered a technical position by a non industry educated individual who used a summarized version of a poor psychological questionnaire to make the decision of this type.
At the conclusion of the phone interview, I was told in almost this same verse... "WOW! You definitely have the PASSION and know how, and years of experience that we seek in our staff here at UTI."
I was told that my information gathered at the interview would be passed to someone in that department and be contacted again via telephone to continue with the interview process...
Two business days later I received a simple form letter that read EXACTLY the following...
"Thank you for taking the time to speak with me. At this time, we have decided to pursue other candidates whose qualifications more closely match those of the position. We encourage you to review other open positions at www.uti.edu. We wish you all the best in your career search."
I don't recall at any point during the interview where ANY of my attributes or skills that include, Research & Development, fabrication, working in Detroit with engineers and so on...
Somehow in 3-4 simple questions of almost non related useless information, someone who better fit the description and qualifications was chosen as a better match for the position...
Sadly UTI claims that 4 out of 5 of their students enjoys a career in the automotive field... it can easily be proven that this is not true since GM and Chrysler have laid off over 20,000 qualified and skilled technicians alone in just the last 2 years. Local and private shops are closing at an even higher rate daily and yet the schools continue to pump out students as fast as their money can be absorbed into the system. In fact, a couple of years ago, I thought about attending UTI to gain more education and certifications when I was greeted by an overly enthusiastic recruiter who claimed that as many as 9 of here students alone would be taking up full time work at a local high end dealership. How can you argue with that?!?!? Easy, I know the dealership well and have had a close working relationship with the not only the service manager, but several technicians there. Not only did they not have anyone currently working there from UTI, they did not have 9 new technicians starting work on the following Monday as stated... The recruiter declined to respond to any E-mails of calls after that...
As disappointing as the automotive industry has become, it's almost more disappointing to know that peoples lives, careers, and educations are now pre-screened to save the hassle of true experience or expertise ever becoming into question...