KOHL’S

On Friday, our youngest daughter got a call from her new employer, Kohl’s. She’ll start working part-time the first of December. The job is for the Christmas season. If she wants to continue working, she has to reapply after the season. Although our daughter is still a senior in high school, now that band is over, she wanted to get started on earning money to pay for her part of her college education. She has the Bright Futures Scholarship award and we will help. The rest will be left to her.

Our daughter has found out that even for seasonal work the job market is tough. She put in many applications but Kohl’s is the only place to call back. Part of the problem is that there are so many people who need jobs who have experience. Lack of work experience seemed to overshadow my daughter’s application. However, there is one thing that helps offset lack of experience: A good recommendation.

One of our oldest daughter’s best friends has worked at the local Kohl’s store for quite a few years. I happened to be in the store the day after the online application process kicked our younger daughter’s application out; I suppose for lack of experience. I saw the friend and asked her about it. She said it does that sometimes and gave me a paper application to give our daughter. She then said for my daughter to return the application to her personally and she will see that it gets to the right people. Our daughter did her part and I suppose the friend did her part. From the vast sea of applications, at least Kohl’s got someone that has a personal reference from a current Kohl’s employee.

Of course, Kohl’s will downsize again after the holidays but this will be a great opportunity for our daughter to get some work experience and it will give Kohl’s an opportunity to see if they like our daughter. Who knows, this may be a foot in the door for her.