1,400 apply: "I was the lucky one"

One job. And so many applicants, they had to rent out the Tacoma Dome for the testing.

If there is a single barometer for how desperate the regional job front has become, it has to be the meter-reader position advertised by the city of Tacoma's public-utility department.

Some 1,400 people flooded the utility with online applications in the two weeks the job was open in January. That's about 100 a day, and from every corner of the employment pool.

"We got a little bit of everybody," said Roberta Peters, human-resources analyst for Tacoma. "I was surprised at the types of people and their backgrounds. These are people we don't typically see."

Former firefighters. Restaurant workers. An RV maintenance person. Midlevel management from Intel and other tech companies.

After just one week and 700 applications, Peters was hoping the queries would trickle off. But they kept coming, right up to the last day the job was open.

"Every day, I'd come in, almost afraid to look at the numbers," Peters said. "I was caught off-guard."

Since meter reader is a civil-service position, Peters had to invite everyone who met the minimum qualifications (high-school diploma and one year of general customer-service experience) to test for the job. Some 1,300 people qualified.

For years, the city has rented out the nearby American Veterans Hall for employment testing; the place can hold 200 people at a time.

"But clearly, I needed a backup plan," Peters said.

She had no choice but to rent out the Tacoma Dome Exhibition Hall, which also meant renting tables and chairs. Applicants had to pay $8 to park.

All this for one meter-reader position that starts at $17.75 an hour for temporary workers and tops out at $49,000 annually for permanent hires.

"It was a crazy day," Peters said.

On the morning of the testing, Mike Sorum, customer-services supervisor for Tacoma Public Utilities (TPU), stepped outside to size up the crowd he would be picking from. Two lines of some 400 people each stretched across the plaza and out to the street.

Only half of them would pass the test. Of those, 117 people were grouped according to their score.

Only one person placed in the top group. Four people made it into the second group and 22 in the third.

The test scores gave Sorum a sense of whether applicants could perform a basic function: Read a meter.

But it couldn't tell him whether they were physically able to do the job. Meter readers — who track usage on both water and power meters — walk between five and 14 miles a day.

"It's one of those jobs where you definitely have to be self-motivated," Sorum said. "You have to be energetic. And you have to be somebody who, through life experience, shows an ability to deal with animals and people. Not necessarily in that order."

You're also out in the community in a TPU uniform and truck, "as a representative of the city," Peters said. "Those are things you can't test for."

Sorum decided to interview the 27 people in the top three groups.

He brought a unique approach to the process: 21 years ago, Sorum interviewed for a meter-reader job. At that time, he competed with 695 people — four times the average number of 170 applicants.

"The end of the '80s was not an economically stable time, either," Sorum said. He started by telling interviewees how far they had come, and that he would be hiring six people — one permanent and five temporary workers — from the finalists.

"They're doing the math in their head, and they're figuring out that the odds of getting a job are better," Sorum said. "It becomes clear that they made it somewhere, that they accomplished something."

In the end, the job that 1,400 people wanted went to Scott Hoover, a 39-year-old father of three who had been working for Sorum as a temporary meter reader for the past 10 months. He was the one who had the best test score.

"I just wanted to read meters," Hoover said, "But it became a bit more than that."

Hoover had to go through the application process, which included joining the throng at the Tacoma Dome.

"It was quite a shock," he said. "But it was a sure sign of the economy. I could not believe how many people were there.

"It really weighed on my mind, and I had to keep my nerves," he said. "But I saw it as a personal challenge to do my best. And it probably pushed me a little harder."

A few weeks later, as meter readers gathered before their rounds, Sorum pulled Hoover aside and offered him the permanent position.

"After I closed my mouth, it surprised me," Hoover said. "I knew there was a lot of competition out there, a lot of qualified people.

"So to be the one who was chosen was a really big shock to me, it really was," he said. "I didn't want to get my hopes up."

What has gone up? The way people view him and his job.

"It gives us a little more prestige," Hoover said. "We constantly have people coming up to us on the street and asking about the job. People say they saw it on the news, and ask if we're still hiring."

Only one person asked Hoover if TPU had hired someone for that meter-reader job that made the news.

"I said, 'Yes, I was the lucky one,' " he said. "It puts a little spring in my step."

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Tuesday and Friday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

What's your backup plan?