Adapting to Increasing Demand

Due to new products and increasing demand, we recently announced the creation of 61 new positions at our Siem Reap factory. This caused 240 applicants to show up at our gates last week, all wanting to join the Pactics community! After checking documents to ensure they are eighteen years or older, we offer each applicant the opportunity to be tested in the skill set they apply for the following week.

The Introduction Process

In rounds of about ten people, we invite them into our testing facility and explain to them what Pactics does, the kind of company we are, and how we get our work done. Just by showing up, they’ve had the chance to see our environmentally responsible factory design, but we further describe the layout and its functions so that they can imagine the way they will be working. We also want to teach them about our work ethic and corporate social responsibility, and do so by explaining our absolute rejection of discrimination, forced labor, child labor, and excessive overtime. To exemplify our dedication to health and safety, we discuss our training program, our healthy lunches, our requirements that they wear motorbike helmets while commuting to and from work, and our insistence that they wear rubber shoes at the factory. Of course, we also describe the reasonable wages and our health and accident insurance plans. It is important to us that the applicants fully understand what they are signing up for by working with us.

Qualifications & Questionnaires

After a lengthy lesson about Pactics, it’s time to get down to business. First, we distribute a written exam with seven short-answer questions to see what they know, how they think, and what their skills are. Some questions are designed simply to help us understand them as an individual, such as “What is your goal and why? How can you reach your goal?” Others are more strategic, like “What can you do to be a good employee of Pactics?” and “What are your strongest skills?” Some of our applicants are illiterate, so we make sure to sit with them separately and help write the answers as they vocalize them. The same questions are asked of all of the applicants, regardless of what specific skill set they apply to work in. 

Practical Testing & Time Trials

After collecting the exams, the fun really gets started. For these particular recruits, practical, hands-on testing is focused on inserting the cord, flat sewing, machine sewing, or quality control. First, our resident master of the skill shows applicants how to correctly perform the task. They then get one trial round to make sure they fully understand it. When everyone’s ready, the time trial begins! This is not only to see how fast they work, but also what level of quality they will produce. For example, while studying the applicants for jobs in inserting the cord, we give them six minutes to insert the cord into nine bags. For machine sowing applicants, we give them three minutes to sew six bags. After the time is up, we count how many bags they managed to finish and examine the quality of the product. We remind them that quality is certainly more important than the speed it is produced!

Throughout the entire process, a professional yet friendly atmosphere is maintained. We want the applicants to feel comfortable and welcome to Pactics while making sure only the best, most determined recruits are chosen. Everyone should enjoy the recruitment process as much as we do. The results are tallied and analyzed immediately so that we can hire the eager applicants fast. If possible, some will start working the next day!