I Tried To Get A Job At Mcdonald’s And 4 Other Fast Food Places, But The Automated Process And Chatbots Made It Impossible For Me To Get Hired

Businesses are having a hard time getting people to work for them, and pay is part of the problem. But pay isn’t the only reason why it’s hard for companies to keep employees. Another possible reason is artificial intelligence.

I’ve applied for work at Crumbl Cookies, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Hardee’s, and Waffle House over the past few months. I got a part-time job as a server at Waffle House, which was the only one where I could talk to a real person during the application process.

I used the Waffle House website to apply for a job, and almost right away I got a call from the person in charge of hiring to set up an in-person interview. After that interview, I had to wait 48 hours before I could start my first training job.

Unfortunately, the jobs I applied for that used AI chatbots made me feel frustrated and unsure.

How McDonald’s hires people
McDonald’s automates its hiring process with AI chatbots, but this has made things more difficult.

I applied for a job at McDonald’s and answered the questions Olivia, the robot, asked me. Most of them were screening questions, like “What is your name?” “Are you legally allowed to work in the United States?” and “When are you available to work?” The chatbot was meant to set up an interview for me once it decided I was qualified, but it didn’t.

Instead of setting up an interview, the robot asked how it could help me more. This didn’t make sense to me. I asked it again how to get a job at McDonald’s, and it gave me a generic company email address as an answer.

AI programmes are just starting out. Even though they should help people through the process, they still have problems, and not everyone knows how to use AI. I can only imagine how an applicant who doesn’t know much about technology or who doesn’t speak English as their first language might feel in a similar situation.

How Wendy’s hires people
The Wendy’s robot didn’t have any trouble setting up an interview for me.

When I got to Wendy’s interview, I found that the robot hadn’t told the hiring manager that I was free. At this place, they were only looking for people for the weekend breakfast job. I was looking for an evening job.

It was planned that the talk would last 30 minutes. It went on for five. The person in charge of hiring me asked me more than once if I was sure I couldn’t work on Saturday mornings. I was certain. Before I left, he wrote down my phone number and said he would call me if something came up. He didn’t call.

How Crumbl Cookies hires people
Even though Crumbl Cookies’ automated application process seems fast, it wasn’t easy.

I applied for a job at Crumbl Cookies as a cook. This job application was the fastest of all the ones I filled out. It only had three parts, and the application portal only asked for my contact information and when I was available.

Many online forms for jobs are hard to understand, so this was a relief.

Even though it wasn’t very long, it wasn’t as easy as I had thought. I got an email telling me to text a phone number after I filled out the form. When I did that, I got a link to another application to fill out.

A lot of the places I applied to, like Crumbl, use a third-party website to find people to work there. The second application asked me to make a general profile and fill out other forms, including a video cover letter for the recruiting platform.

I thought I was done when I sent in my second application, but I wasn’t. I got a message in my email telling me I needed to register my “applicant profile.”

At first, the process was easy, but as I went along, it got more difficult. I was surprised when I got a third email with more requirements, such as working at least 18 hours a week for $9.50 an hour plus tips.

At no point in the application process was I told about these requirements, and I had to agree to them before I could be given an interview. If I had known sooner, I wouldn’t have spent my time filling out the application.

After applying for the job for about 30 minutes, I chose not to move on to the interview.

How Hardee hired people
I applied for a job at Hardee’s, which, like Wendy’s and McDonald’s, uses an AI robot.

At first, the Hardee’s AI set up an interview for me on a Friday afternoon. On the day of the interview, I got a reminder from the computer with the chance to change the time. I wanted to know what that would be like, so I changed the time of my interview.

I changed the date of the interview to the next Monday, which was Memorial Day. I was surprised that I could redo an interview whenever I wanted, even on a holiday.

I had a feeling that the hiring manager wouldn’t be at the place. I wasn’t wrong.

A worker told me when I got there that the boss wouldn’t be back until Wednesday. The worker didn’t check the chatbot’s booking system or her manager’s schedule. Instead, she just told me to come back on Wednesday at 10 a.m.

I couldn’t confirm a new interview time with anyone besides the robot. I decided that it wasn’t worth my time to go back and hope that the boss would be there.

Automation seems like a good answer to many problems, but that doesn’t mean it’s always the right answer.
The real problem with the national labour shortage is that there aren’t enough jobs for the people who want to work. AI chatbots don’t always solve this problem, though.

To be fair, AI chatbots can make it easy to screen applicants and set up interviews. But the robots I met made it harder for me to schedule a good interview and even harder for me to get the job. I didn’t know what was going on with three job applications at three different places, which doesn’t help managers.

One way to solve the problem could be to have more human contact, not less. Or at least make it simpler for people to apply for jobs.