Age Discrimination???

I think resume is the key .

Right, but this is for an entry level job, first one out of school for this field.


Wow, it blows my mind to hear people say marks don't matter. So what, it was enough that someone gets into a college, but once you're there no employer cares if you barely scraped by.

Seriously, if that's the case, why do any college students or parents of the student stress over their exams and grades. What does it matter when the "C" recent graduate looks just as good as the "A" recent graduate, when all each of them have done is work at the mall or mcd's?

I could continue that train of thought with saying why bother with the expense, time and stress of college at all if the employer doesn't care if the graduate did well or not.

Believe me, I'm not arguing the fact that for someone who has been out of school for a couple of years, and has experience under their belt, the GPA shouldn't be on the resume. It just seems that if you're new in the workplace, and in this case maintained a 4.0, all A's, it's doesn't seem like it would be bad to mention it.

Chai: I worked HR for a while....all hired can't be alphas ...it wouldn't work . Sometimes they're looking for "fillers".

We cross posted...

Yeah, this is some kind of world where you're expect to go to college, indeed, can't even apply for many jobs unless you've been, but you could have been a total **** up or idiot or both all while you were there, and your resume is viewed equally with someone who really did well and worked hard.

Honestly? It makes my stomach hurt.

Iffn' I had gone ahead and had a kid, and knew this is how the world worked, I would have told them to forget college and become mechanic, funeral director or elevator installer if that's what they liked.

I'll tell you one God Damn thing. There's no way I'd contribute a penny of my money to someone's education where the only advantage seems to be that they let my kid walk into the classroom, but getting good grades wasn't going to translate to increased chances of getting a particular job.

Funny and so right. My husband works with some chemists that gave up on their field and went into finance( they couldn't pay the bills as chemists). ....sure all had degrees but....I guess you have to seize the opportunity.

I wasn't trying to be funny this time. I'm dead serious.

I don't know where and when we became so stupid and such sheep to do something that costs so much and takes up years of your time, when it doesn't make a ****'s worth of difference if we learned a goddamn thing.

Oh sure there's as soz used to say "the college experience" That particular one made me want to puke. If someone wants knowledge for knowledge sakes (and I consider that a very high calling) You don't need to pay tuition, you can learn yourself or with like minded small groups.

If you want to get a degree to earn that extra average of $1 million over your working lifetime (minus the student debt), **** just enroll and skate by since you'll get a job getting D's just as fast the the A student.

This is totally fucked.

This society has been attacking standards since the day I was born, and it pretty much started with the Universities (student movement/riots of the late sixties).......stop acting shocked, it is embarrassing.

By funny...I meant ironic .

So be embarrassed for me, I don't care.

Gotcha.
Thanks.

oh chickenhawk, stop talking about your pervy sex life. That's really embarrassing.

Well, people do try for better grades in order to get into better schools. Love or hate 'em (and there are a lot of 'em here in Mass.), Harvard and MIT grads get better opportunities. Even later in life.

Plus better grades are often a prerequisite to getting or keeping a scholarship. Good grades can mean a major difference in after-graduation debt. That can color your life for the first decade or so out of college.

For the class I just finished, I tell you, the gulf between the people who got As and the people who got Bs (you need a B average to stay in grad school; anyone who was doing worse dropped the course - about, I'd say, a third of the initial group) was yawningly wide. We got to read each others' essays and see each others' video presentations. There are people who can barely string two sentences together, verbally or in writing. There are those who cannot read and interpret simple analytics. There are those who don't draw conclusions. There are those who don't answer the professor's questions.

Employers may even think they want the B-list crowd when they hire, but this is a reputationally-based business (social media marketing and communications). Errors and missteps can be mighty costly, and recovery from them can take months or years (just Google Walmart RV blog and you'll see what I mean, first search result). The B-list crowd will cost employers serious money.

Damn straight.

I agree better schools, better opportunities....may be due to societal influences. George Bush attended Yale and Harvard and he could barely speak.

Oh God, now you're really making my stomach hurt.

There's been a new development. My wife's big hope was that her favorite of the hospitals that she rotated through would eventually post a job opening. This was one of the local VAs. She had been sent there around the middle of her rotations. Her class had had some say in where they went for their final rotation and my wife asked to be, and was, sent back to the VA. She liked the people a lot and said that the veterans were extremely polite and never complained. She had been back there a couple of times since graduating to visit the people and bring them cookies and brownies. Finally, a month ago, she saw that this VA was about to post four job openings for the med tech profession she has a degree in. Several of the real techs texted her cell phone to tell her that she should apply and promised to put in a good word for her. One tech phoned her to suggest that she apply. As soon as the job appeared, she submitted her application, now with a slightly improved resume. She heard nothing for a month. Then today she received a form e-mail rejecting her, saying that she was qualified but not the best applicant. Remember that she has a 4.00 gradepoint average and a 95% on the national certification exam, not to mention excellent letters of recommendation, none of which has ever been seen by a prospective employer, since you need to have an interview before you are asked for references. She has never succeeded in getting an interview.

My wife texted one of the techs who had texted to tell her to apply to say that she had been rejected and thank the tech for trying. The tech texted back, saying that it wasn't my wife's fault, that she was an excellent worker, but that the system is a corrupt old boy's network. My wife certainly wouldn't ask for such a thing, but the tech said in the text that she would ask the hiring manager why he thought my wife wasn't one of the best candidates. The tech said that she was sure that she'd simply be lied to but was mad enough that she wanted to say something. There is now no place withing about 30 miles that my wife hasn't applied to and been rejected by.

I'm sorry to read that, Brandon.

So, my wife did get a job, but not without being tortured a little more. A nearby hospital had a job fair, so she attended. They expressed great interest in her and representatives of several departments got together at the fair and told her that they'd like to get other med techs to give her a peer review. They put a little star at the top of her resume and told her that they hadn't done that for any other applicant. They actually tried to arrange several simultaneous peer reviews (for the different departments that were interested in her) right there at the fair, but the logistics were impossible, so the head person told my wife to go home and that they would call her in the next few hours to arrange a time. My wife went home, but they didn't call. Days turned into weeks and they didn't contact her.

My wife then applied for a job at one of the big commercial chain diagnostic centers (not a hospital). Normally, such jobs are considered unobtainable by new graduates, but my wife got a tip from the instructor at a hospital she had rotated through for clinicals - not a contact at the place, just a tip that they were interviewing. The conventional wisdom says that new graduates in my wife's field have to take their first job at a hospital, because the private diagnostic centers don't have the luxury of mentoring someone new. Nonetheless, my wife went to the interview. It was a full time job with benefits. Almost all of the people who graduated with my wife are part time, because that's what they could get. My wife didn't get the job. They phoned her and said that they couldn't hire her with no work experience, but that they liked her a lot and wanted her to apply for a part time opening at another location. My wife went to that interview and was eventually contacted and told to go have a drug test to clear her for the job. She did that and after a week or two, they told her to report to HR to fill out forms. Interestingly, they never said, "you're hired," but soon told her to report for training. She has been actually working for almost a month. She is a floater, being assigned to different locations of this company on a week by week basis. They say that part time employees have the first pick of the permanent positions.

So, after receiving no response to 95% of her applications and being rejected by the others without an interview as they hired much younger fellow graduates, finally she has a job which is probably superior to that of her colleagues. She doesn't have to wheel in-patients around hospital corridors, do heavy lifting, deal with stoned and uncooperative patients in an ER, or work a graveyard shift. She only had to test cooperative out-patients from 8 AM to 5 pm.

The final note is that after she had been working for two weeks, almost two months after they had told her to go home and wait for a call in the next hour or two, the hospital which had had the job fair called her back about an interview. My wife, of course, told them that she already had a job.

That's good news.

Congrats to Mrs. Brandon.

Good to hear. All right!

Signed, former California long time licensed lab technologist, Osso.
(I switched fields after 15 licensed years, but kept the license up and the continuing education conferences up even after I was a licensed land arch, until I moved along.)
Say hi to your wife, please, with a smile from me, if she knows about your posting here, natch.