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WorkSource Whidbey Partners With Oak Harbor Home Depot
The late April grand opening of Home Depot’s new store in Oak Harbor provided an opportunity for WorkSource Whidbey staff to demonstrate their capabilities to the giant retailer. Home Depot received literally thousands of applications for the 140 positions to be filled and many of those applications were completed with WorkSource help.


 		 Since Home Depot’s application process is primarily electronic, applicants without home computers quickly recognized WorkSource Whidbey as their One-Stop job application resource. WorkSource Whidbey’s location almost directly across the street from the new store eased this process. Home Depot staff quickly realized that the Whidbey Center had the time, capacity and, most especially, the keen desire, to help applicants through the process, and began to refer all job seekers to the Center to complete their applications.
Step Two in the process was interviewing and once again the Center was able to provide a solution. On two occasions Home Depot brought in teams of interviewers and invited literally hundreds of applicants to WorkSource for formal interviews. The resource lobby was filled to overflowing and every possible private area was partitioned off to provide interview space. It’s safe to say that the office had never seen such numbers. In the end, both hiring events were deemed to have been a great success. Home Depot got the employees necessary to staff its grand opening and WorkSource further cemented its reputation as a partner to business and as the destination of choice for job seekers.

The final piece of the puzzle involved training the new Home Depot staff. Taking advantage of the two new training rooms the Whidbey Center opened earlier this year and with some very judicious rescheduling of the Job Hunter, Life Skills and other Center classes, WorkSource was able to accommodate Home Depot’s needs for class space that in most cases was for a minimum of a week and in one case lasted a full month. In effect, the Center was over scheduled for most of April, but with patience and flexibility on the part of all concerned, WorkSource was able to carry on its internal training and Home Depot got the trained staff necessary to meet the demand anticipated from its huge customer base.

The bottom line is that the Oak Harbor area has a much-needed major new employer and WorkSource Whidbey further burnished its credentials. Having successfully passed the Home Depot test, WorkSource Whidbey staff will aggressively offer their services to the next employer in need.

 
 
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Updated 1//04