Archive for July 7th, 2003
by Tom on Jul.07, 2003, under Uncategorized
As expected, the job that I interviewed for twice (and if I do say so myself, I nailed them both) went to someone else. I got word today, and although it’s extremely disappointing, it’s not totally unexpected. It’s not that I didn’t think that I was qualified for the job, but just that I’ve gotten to be so negative regarding employment that I refuse to think things otherwise until I’m actually filling out a W-4.
This one I thought was a given. My last four jobs all worked to my advantage for this job, as all gave me valuable experience for the job that I was being interviewed for. This job didn’t fall into one of the usual “toruble” areas that I run into with other jobs like this, which are:
Overqualified - Employers may feel that hiring me for the position won’t fill it for a long period of time, since I would likely move onto a better position once one opened up. The “overqualified” term can also be a negative when it comes to salary. A college graduate makes more than a high school graduate, and a college graduate with job experience may seem too “pricey” for potential employers, who wish to fill a position with a less qualified employee to justify a lower wage.
Underqualified - Probably better described as “lacking experience”, while I have job experience, I don’t necessarily have the number of years doing one particular thing that some employers look for to fill a position. Over the past few years, jobs have had me doing help desk, computer maintinence, human resources, data entry, writing documentation, retail management, non-retail management, among other things. Why a person is more attractive who does data entry for five years than a person who can obviously do more than that is beyond me, but I’m not a hiring manager (obviously).
Too young - The fact that I’m under 30 scares off a lot of employers in regards to management positions. People (especially those who have been working at jobs “lower on the ladder” for an extended period of time) tend to be less “supportive” of coworkers put in a position of authority when that authority figure is younger than them. Regardless of education or job experience (I had 8 employees under me at the age of 20), this still scares off employers.
Too old - So-called “entry level” positions are generally lower paying, but provide the opportunity for a company to develop a young person right out of college in that company’s “style”, making that employee someone they can develop towards years of future employment. The person generally hired to fill this position is fresh out of college, 21-23 years of age. Being closer to 30 than I am to 20 (and actually having job experience), I’m not as easily developable (if that’s even a word) and not an “entry-level” guy.
So, none of thse were the case, and I still didn’t get the job. What the hell else can I do? Who knows.
For the record, we got stomped in our softball game tonight. I only got technically one at-bat, thanks to the mercy rule coming up and the final out being made on a stolen base attempt as I had two strikes on me. I think we got three hits total, and I wasn’t one of them (although I didn’t strike out, which I can’t say for most of the rest of the team. So, that puts my line like this for the season:
G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG2 4 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .250 .250 .250
