It’s an enviable problem to have: more than 22,000 applicants for 1,000 new jobs.

That’s the situation Subaru of Indiana Automotive, Inc. (SIA) in Lafayette faced earlier this year when the company added a production line for Toyota Camry sedans to its plant.

It marked the largest single job creation initiative in Greater Lafayette in nearly 20 years. The company is investing approximately $230 million to install Camry manufacturing processes on an existing production line, which will be capable of producing nearly 100,000 vehicles annually. SIA is the only Subaru auto assembly plant in the United States.

ACT’s WorkKeys played a significant role in the process of identifying qualified workers for the new jobs and in filling openings at other companies that lost employees to SIA.

“We needed to find highly motivated people with a good work ethic,” said Brad Rhorer, employment group leader for SIA. “We build a premium vehicle, which requires a very high standard of quality, so we had to find a match to that standard in our future associates.”

Rhorer said SIA was expecting about 10,000 to 15,000 applicants for the positions. But the company wasn’t all that surprised by the huge response, considering the reasons prospects give for applying: salary and benefits, career opportunities, excellent work environment, and stable reputation of the company.

Those are among the reasons Darrel Wilson applied for the new jobs. He said it “feels pretty good” to be selected out of the thousands of people who applied for the positions. He thought WorkKeys accurately assessed his skills.

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