Getting tired of being turned down for jobs

[Pippa]

I am getting frustrated about being turned down for jobs that I am over qualified for.

Prior to my redundancy nearly two years ago, I was a Senior Trading Standards Officer.  Now I can't even get an interview for a basic TSO post.  I am massivley overqualified for most of the jobs I apply for but all I get is rejection after rejection.  I can see no reason for these rejections other than straightforward discrimination. 

It seems you can have all the equality rights in the world but when you cannot prove the discrimination you're stuffed.

Hear comes bankruptcy

[Lesley_Roberta]

I suppose you have to have noticed the irony though of being trained to be someone that enforces fair play, being subjected to potential bias.

I hope you find out it is at least not based on discrimination though. That might be easier to sort out.

[Anna++]

It might not be discrimination... I've heard of companies turning down overqualified people because you would expect to be paid more or maybe you would get bored at the lack of challenge.  I did a quick google search, and plenty of articles pop up discussing hiring overqualified people.

I wish you the best of luck with the job hunt!  It's rough out there

[Jess42]

I agree that "more qualified" translates out to more pay for the individual and less profit for the company. It is an employer's market with so many people on unemployed and looking for work. Maybe try leaving some stuff out of your resume' and see if that helps.

[Brooke777]

I have a similar issue when looking for work. I am way overqualified for the majority of positions out there. With my experience and training, I should be management but, I do not have a 4 year degree which is deemed necessary. Even prior to transition, I was turned down for jobs because of being overqualified. For the same reasons that Anna M and Jess42 listed. It may have nothing to do with discrimination. I wish you the best of luck.

[FTMDiaries]

Like everyone else seems to be saying, it could just be that your particular field is oversubscribed at the moment. Mine is too, and I've applied for plenty of jobs for which I'm a perfect candidate but haven't even received a response, let alone a rejection. There's no way for them to know I'm trans at the application stage so they're not discriminating on that basis.

I'll confess that I tailor my CV/resume to each individual job application. I try to figure out what they're looking for in a candidate, and I fine-tune my CV & cover letter to highlight those particular skills & play down the less relevant stuff.

Good luck & hang in there. It is a difficult market at the moment.

[Anna++]

There is always this person's solution:

[SilentArchitect]

There is hope out there, I just got promoted a few weeks back.

Be positive and the right Job / Interviewer will come along x

[Mohini]

I could actually be both being transgender, AND the economy. I do not know where everyone else lives, but in Canada our economy is still in the shiz. So many people are looking for jobs, but the actual amount of them is quite small. Demand is high, supply is low.

And despite my country's general overall acceptance of transgender and transsexual peoples, there is still a long way to go in terms of tolerance and acceptance. I've known people who've transitioned and thus lost their jobs because of the stigma, despite medical letters and recognition.

I got fired a few months ago for some unrelated things (although I did report my manager twice about my transsexual issue to the head office before), and getting back on my feet is harder than I thought! 

[Pippa]

As a foot note, I recently applied for a job in my male name.  I have an interview next week.  Same day, I applied for an equivalent post elsewhere clearly stating my female identity and that I was in transition. I was turned down flat.  Speaking to an employment agency, they have confirmedthat there is a shortage of qualified TSO's and everyone is scrambling to find staff after the Horsemeat fiasco.

[Brooke777]

As a foot note, I recently applied for a job in my male name.  I have an interview next week.  Same day, I applied for an equivalent post elsewhere clearly stating my female identity and that I was in transition. I was turned down flat.  Speaking to an employment agency, they have confirmedthat there is a shortage of qualified TSO's and everyone is scrambling to find staff after the Horsemeat fiasco.

That's great about the interview, good luck!

As for the other one, if I were a hiring manager, and someone applied for a position and clearly stated they are in transition, I would not interview them. To me, that shows that it is an issue for them. I would only want an employee that can concentrate on work, and one that shows they have an issue in there personal life is not that person. I don't think the fact that someone is in transition is relevent to their job. It only matters when it comes to changing their name, and using the appropriate facilities. Aside from that, your employer has no reason to care. Just my thoughts on it.

[lisa r]

I've just started looking for a job after going through legal changes and FFS and I see signs of the same thing.

An example: I'm pretty well know in my field (under my former name) and get emails now and then asking me to come interview for jobs I haven't applied for. I got one the other day for a company I used to work for and for a position working for a VP who I used to work closely with. I sent off a note saying I would love to come in, but my name had changed (based on the new name my gender change was pretty obvious). I also sent a quick coming out note to the VP just so he wasn't blindsided. No reply from either and the come in for an interview thing seems to have evaporated.

I'm rethinking things a little and I think in the next set of things I send out I'll make my resume more generic and not mention my former name (and implied gender transition) and see what happens.

[gennee]

I've been through it myself, Pippa. It's frustrating but I just keep on plugging away.
Had an interview on Monday (3/11).

[Pippa]

Bear in ind I'm in the UK where the Equalities Act makes it illegal to discriminate on candidate selection because of transgender status

[Brooke777]

Yesterday I found out that come the end of the month I will be out of work. So, I will soon find out if people in the Seattle area are going to have an issue with me being trans. I am full time with my name legally changed. However, due to past employment, I will never be stealth. It should be interesting as I have a very unique resume and have already had one interview, and turned down another job, so I know at least I am a good candidate for many positions.

[Jess42]

Bear in ind I'm in the UK where the Equalities Act makes it illegal to discriminate on candidate selection because of transgender status

I don't know exactly how it is in the UK but proving discrimination in the US is an extremely hard thing to do unless you fit in with certain groups that the politicians and activists cater to. Liken it to the old phrase of the sqeaky wheel gets the grease. I have faced discrimination because of the way I look because of nothing more than long hair. I have been more than qualified for the jobs and have been told to get a haircut and they will reconsider. I just refuse, tell them thank you for your time and that their company is nothing more than dog sh$# on my shoe. Here, what I see is a lot of activism and pandering to the LGB of the LGBT comunity and a lot of times the T's are thrown to the wolves or it seems that way. This is only my opinion though.

The antidiscrimination laws in my opinion are a waste of effort, because it's hard to fight an endless money machine and they can pretty much make up a number of different excuses as to why they didn't hire you, believe me the list is endless and usually stands up in court.

[spacial]

I don't know exactly how it is in the UK

I short, they are seen as obstacles to overcome. That applies to all of them.

Many years ago I spoke to a lawyer friend who said that, while he sympathised with their objectives, every one from the 1965 Race Relations Act, employment, sex discrimination, to the rent act, (This was the late 70s when I had my conversation), essentially is a waste of time, since they each end up being a set of guidelines for when people can discriminate. Work arounds if you like.

My time in the NHS particularly reinforced that. The standard defense by managers, for anything, was patient safety. When that wasn't part of an issue, it was so galling.

The problem is each of these essentially comes from the Labour party who frankly, couldn't give a dam about any of the issues and use each to attract publicity.

(Reading through this I've managed to criticise race, sex, landlords and politics. I amaze myself sometimes! But if I were really good I'd find a way to work religion in  ).

[michelle]

Antidiscrimination laws are important, if the government sends out clear messages consistently that that they will be enforced and their is a public record that supports this.  When laws are first passed it is the most difficult time because many employers still do not respect the new discrimination law and there is no history of successful enforcement.   As with many civil rights laws, it is up to individuals to file complaints with the proper authorities and do every thing they can to follow up on and push these cases.    Yes, civil rights cases against single individuals are difficult to prove unless the employer has done something entirely outrages.   

Having a Master's Degree in Elementary Education and thirty years experience in teaching has over qualified me for many of the jobs that I did when I was in my twenties such as dish washing and working as day construction labor.   I had this problem even when I still felt that I could push my body to do these jobs.  At 66 years old and having diabetes with a Master's degree limits my job possibilities as much as being a transgender female.    Of course unemployment being at  7.6 % and above for the last five years hasn't helped.   I have worked one month for the Census in the last five years so I don't even have any references.   

I am lucky I made it to 62 so I could take early Social Security.   Teaching is a field that weeds out people over the years so that just a few  teachers who have networked their community well are still teaching, but for many people their teaching career is over in their early fifties.   I just drug mine out subbing for four years.   

Being on the frontier of transgender liberation is not easy.   Everything we do is not just for ourselves it is also for all of those transgender children, young people, and young adults for they have to know that they have a future and some day will be senior citizens who can have  descent retirement funds even if is just from middle income Social Security benefits.   So stick in there and dream of a future where it doesn't matter what your gender presentation is.

[FTMDiaries]

Many years ago I spoke to a lawyer friend who said that, while he sympathised with their objectives, every one from the 1965 Race Relations Act, employment, sex discrimination, to the rent act, (This was the late 70s when I had my conversation), essentially is a waste of time, since they each end up being a set of guidelines for when people can discriminate. Work arounds if you like.

I wholeheartedly agree... and they can also be sops that organisations can wheel out when they want to say that they have an 'Equal Opportunities Policy'. It's a way of covering their backsides and it can be at complete odds with the actual mindset of the organisation.

Just because a company has a nice piece of paper saying they don't discriminate against anyone, doesn't mean they actually don't discriminate against anyone. It just means that they have to be more sly when they want to discriminate against someone. Then they can point to their policy if anyone accuses them of discrimination... and the victim's position is weakened by the presence of the policy.

They're similar to the 'zero tolerance to bullying' policies that we have in our schools: if any bullying occurs, the school points to the policy to cover their backsides rather than fixing the actual problem. If they have a policy, they can pretend it didn't happen.

All-in-all, it's very gaslighty.