Subversive Career Research
Sep. 24th, 2008 03:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebOne thing I do at work is train staff around campus how to use the degree audit system. I just got called to train someone new who's in a job I applied for (and did not get, and did not even interview for).
Heh, time for subversive research. These trainings are one-on-one, so I always start out by assessing their current knowledge so that I know where to start from. This means I ask questions like whether they've used the degree audit system before and whether they've been an adviser before. Here is a chance to learn about what's better than me about the person they picked.
I asked about experience with the degree audit system: no experience with the mainframe. How about the online version? No. Has she been an adviser? No. Is she familiar with our course numbering system? No. For training purposes, that meant I had to start at the very beginning, which I rarely do, and which I particularly did not expect for an adviser in one of the few departments that does their own overrides. I couldn't quite figure out a way to ask her why she got hired or what her qualifications were.
So basically my plan failed utterly. I could not figure out what was better about her than about me for this position. It most shocked me that she hadn't been an adviser. She has one less degree than I have, too, so it's not that either.
Unbelievable. I cannot figure it out. Why didn't they even want to interview me?
Did they consider me overqualified? Is that even possible?
Less unlikely: Did they never get my resume? I walked it over
there. They would have had to have lost it between the front desk and the person's mailbox. Or maybe it accidentally got paper-clipped to the back of a resume they didn't like and set aside.
Age discrimination? Assuming I graduated from high school at age 18, then went to college 4 years and grad school 1 year and then worked the 18 years shown, that makes me a minimum of 43 years old. I don't think that's scary, but maybe they want someone young they can hope to hang on to for a while. (Can't be gender discrimination--she's my same gender.)
Or maybe the fact that I have no clue what they even want is a sign that I am the wrong person for the job. Or maybe thinking that I don't know what they want is a sign of paranoia. (And who wants to hire a paranoid?)
Anyway, I'm just going to continue with the conclusion that I should apply for jobs that I think I can do, regardless of what I think (or read) they're looking for.
Heh, time for subversive research. These trainings are one-on-one, so I always start out by assessing their current knowledge so that I know where to start from. This means I ask questions like whether they've used the degree audit system before and whether they've been an adviser before. Here is a chance to learn about what's better than me about the person they picked.
I asked about experience with the degree audit system: no experience with the mainframe. How about the online version? No. Has she been an adviser? No. Is she familiar with our course numbering system? No. For training purposes, that meant I had to start at the very beginning, which I rarely do, and which I particularly did not expect for an adviser in one of the few departments that does their own overrides. I couldn't quite figure out a way to ask her why she got hired or what her qualifications were.
So basically my plan failed utterly. I could not figure out what was better about her than about me for this position. It most shocked me that she hadn't been an adviser. She has one less degree than I have, too, so it's not that either.
Unbelievable. I cannot figure it out. Why didn't they even want to interview me?
Did they consider me overqualified? Is that even possible?
Less unlikely: Did they never get my resume? I walked it over
there. They would have had to have lost it between the front desk and the person's mailbox. Or maybe it accidentally got paper-clipped to the back of a resume they didn't like and set aside.
Age discrimination? Assuming I graduated from high school at age 18, then went to college 4 years and grad school 1 year and then worked the 18 years shown, that makes me a minimum of 43 years old. I don't think that's scary, but maybe they want someone young they can hope to hang on to for a while. (Can't be gender discrimination--she's my same gender.)
Or maybe the fact that I have no clue what they even want is a sign that I am the wrong person for the job. Or maybe thinking that I don't know what they want is a sign of paranoia. (And who wants to hire a paranoid?)
Anyway, I'm just going to continue with the conclusion that I should apply for jobs that I think I can do, regardless of what I think (or read) they're looking for.
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no subject
on 2008-09-24 11:43 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-09-24 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-09-25 12:01 am (UTC)no subject
on 2008-09-25 01:04 pm (UTC)I'm just making this up basically, but I sometimes think it's difficult to make the transition from tech position to what is presumably a very people-oriented position, especially in the same organization. If your workplace is anything like my last one, no internal candidate for any position isn't pretty thoroughly scoped out prior to the interview stage. If you have a rep as a tech type, it might be especially hard to convince them that you are serious about wanting to work with people or that you have the background/skills to do it. So I would guess that it's less a function of age than of work history and perhaps reputation. But what do I know?
Did you find out if she was an internal hire also? It's common enough to have a person lined up for the job but to open it for applications merely as cover.
I also suspect that to get good information in a situation like this, not only do you have to ask the relevant questions, but it helps to pretend that you are the kind of person who would ask a new acquaintance about herself out of some genuine interest in other people. Not that I would know this from my extensive personal experience, of course.
But I'm glad you're going to keep applying. Good luck!
sally
no subject
on 2008-09-26 04:17 am (UTC)My workplace has over 10,000 employees. I didn't actually recognize any names very closely connected with this opening.
But I like the point about looking technical, which I do on paper. I definitely should highlight my people-interaction tasks better. There is definitely a bias towards that with this sort of position.
The whole genuine interest thing works better for me with people who are overly talkative than with regular people like the one I was training.