This Guy Beat Out 1,400 Others for a Job

April 22, 2009— -- Scott Hoover is one lucky guy.

Talk about some long odds.

"It was pretty nerve-racking to think of that amount of competition and all the highly-qualified individuals that were applying for the job," Hoover said. "I had hoped but I didn't want to get my hopes up too high."

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Earlier this year, the city of Tacoma, Wash. advertised an opening for a water and electricity meter reader in its utility department. Applications immediately started to flood the utility. More than 100 a day were submitted. All these people would need to take civil service tests.

Almost immediately, customer service supervisor Mike Sorum said, "we knew we were going to need a bigger building."

Instead of the local veterans hall, which can hold up to 200, the utility turned to the Tacoma Dome Exhibition Hall, a much larger space that also required the rental of tables and chairs. Job seekers had to pay $8 to park. The utility did not respond to requests about the cost of renting the hall, but the space can rent out for up to $15,000 a day, plus another $3,000 to use the parking lot.

The job pays $37,000 to $49,000 a year. That means the city might have spent almost six months' salary on its search. That's a lot of effort just to fill one job.

"It is," Sorum said. "We do these tests about every two years and the numbers fluctuate depending on the economy obviously."

Two years ago the utility only had 600 applicants.

It is a scene being played out all across the country and job fairs are swamped by those looking for employment.

Since the recession began in December 2007, 5.1 million American jobs have been lost, including 3.3 million in just the last five months. March alone saw 663,000 jobs cut.

In Tacoma, Sorum and the other employees in charge of filling the position started preparing to weed through the applicants. First came the exam. Anybody who had a high-school diploma and at least one year of general customer-service experience was allowed to test. That was all but 100 of the applicants.