Before the Big Opening, a Hiring Blitz

D.C.'s First Target Store Is Working With City to Fill About 320 Jobs by March

Audrey Epperson of the Greater Washington Urban League watched the steady flow of eager and serious applicants who attended her agency's job fair yesterday for the District's new Target store.

"These are people who want to work, who need to work," said Epperson, the league's director of education, employment and training.

They were people such as Cathy Harling, 47, of Southeast Washington, a former cashier who has been unemployed for a year and said simply: "I need a job." With her was her brother, Walter Harling, 65, a retired truck driver. He is interested in the overnight unloading and stocking shift Target offers because "it is easier" to work while everyone else sleeps, he said.

The giant retailer is opening its first store in the District on March 9 in Columbia Heights, at 3100 14th St. NW. In the meantime, there are about 320 jobs to fill, including cashiers, truck unloaders and shelf stockers, said Karen McCargo, a human resources executive with Target.

"What we're looking for is a friendly attitude and team players," she said.

For the past month, McCargo has been operating out of a makeshift office in the basement of the Latin American Youth Center, sifting through "tons and tons" of applications and working with the D.C. Department of Employment Services to hold job fairs throughout the city. So far, 15 department managers have been hired. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Target managers plan to interview about 500 applicants each day for other positions.

The company does criminal and credit checks, and drug testing is mandatory. But no work experience is required. "We have a wonderful training program," McCargo said, adding that pay is "flexible."

Certain jobs require that an employee be 18, but Target is "student-friendly," she said, allowing students to get off work earlier and arrange special schedules. McCargo said she has noticed that a larger percentage of D.C. applicants are youths compared with other stores she has worked with in Virginia and elsewhere.

At the D.C. store, the largest number of employees, 75, will belong to what is called "the overnight logistics team," McCargo said, which stocks the store when it is closed, from 10 p.m. until 6 a.m. Those positions are popular as second jobs and with parents who want to be home with their children during the day, she said.

That prospect was attractive to Mildred Henson, a mother of four who recently resigned as a teacher's aide for special education students. Henson, 41, a Southeast resident, was among 100 people filling out application forms and taking a psychological test at the job fair yesterday. An additional 50 filled out applications at the Latin American Youth Center.

"One of my girlfriends called me this morning and told me about this job fair," she said. "I need to change careers and do something totally different. I don't want anything as stressful anymore."