McJobs Are on the Menu on National Hiring Day

They filed into McDonald’s on Tuesday looking for something other than two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.

The nation’s second-largest food chain—recently overtaken by Subway—held a National Hiring Day with the focus on putting people to work.

About 200 applied inside the restaurant in Rancho Santa Margarita, where it hopes to serve up jobs to 25 people.

They came from at least as far away as Long Beach. About half were high school kids, said store manager Jairo Moran, a resident of RSM.

“We’ve seen a lot of older people today, retired people,” he said. “I saw people who explained that for two years they didn’t have a job, and at this point, they really had to find a job.”

Ken Bishop, 30, of Long Beach, had already been to four other restaurants filling out paperwork by the time he reached the corner of El Paseo and Santa Margarita Parkway. He had designs on getting to three more before the day ended. His parents live in Rancho and he spends a lot of time visiting.

Wearing a suit and tie, and with a 14-year background in customer service, Bishop has been unemployed since March 9. He was a greeter for Verizon Wireless, and he has filled out 30-40 job applications since.

“It’s very tough, actually,” he said of the job search. “I’m just looking for a starting point somewhere in the customer services field. That’s where my strength is.

“My long-term goal is to apply for a position, move up, go back to school and get into human resources. … Anything you can use as a starting point to move from point A to B to C to D. Everyone has to start somewhere.”

That was the case for Chelsea Mark of Mission Viejo. A week shy of her 16th birthday, the Capistrano Valley High sophomore said she’s excited about maybe getting her first paying job.

“I’m just starting out,” said the aspiring journalist. “I need experience.”

Greg Healy, 17, of RSM, is looking for gas money. “Yeah, that’s a big one,” he said.

A senior at Santa Margarita Catholic, his previous experience was assembling shelves for a Target store in La Mirada. He knew the owner of the company that had the construction job.

Nationally, networking—knowing someone—is one of the best ways to get employed. In that sense, everyone has a relationship with McDonald’s, and Tuesday some of the millions served were trying to take that relationship a step further.

“Most places are just not looking for people or business is so slow,” said Healy, who is on the wait listd to attend the University of Colorado and is grateful for the opportunity that McDonald’s is providing.

It doesn’t matter to him that working at McDonald’s is often the punchline to a late-night joke on television or stereotyped as the low rung of the vocational ladder.

“I don’t really care,” Healy said, “as long as I get money.”

The RSM store is under the same ownership as the restaurants in Ladera Ranch and in Mission Viejo across from Trabuco Hills High.

Jairo, the store manager, is himself a success story for McDonald’s. He makes a livable wage and lives in the city he works.

“I started cleaning the lobby 10 years ago at the Portola Plaza restaurant,” he said. “That’s why people use McDonald’s. It provides a good opportunity to grow, especially in this economy.”