Originally posted by supafatty:
Is there any real way of overcoming blatant favouritism during job selection?
Consider the scenario of A & B.
A - better results, work experience, excellent school and employer references
B - poorer results, no work experience, no school/employer references
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A is a guy, and B is a girl. Both don't look ugly, but neither are good looking either.
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A & B apply for a job at the same time.
It is a no interview, submit your paper qualifications and photo only.
B gets offered one, whilst A not only does not get offered one, does not receive a rejection.
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Is there anyway to overcome such blatant discrimination? or to explain it at least?
I can't really give you an answer base on the above scenario, but I can tell you a real life incident.
I've got a friend who is sort of having slight physical defect at birth and her body is slightly shorter than of normal person. She's working in this company now which gave her comfortable salary but she isn't happy working there due to some work reasons. I've always encourage her to find another job, a new surrounding which might be good for her future too. What blaffed me initially is that she keep saying she's sick of the job and yet she refused to change job. It's only later that I realised that due to her defects and her low esteem, she didn't dare to go apply for anoher job.
I do admit that certain boss does show favouritsm but not all. Of course boss will still have their reasons to who they choose to employ in the end. For any job that requires sales whereby you'll have to meet clients. physical appearance and presentations are important (maybe more important than qualifactions). Knowledge can always be upgraded but looks are hard to upgrade. Most bosses will rather employ someone who has a better presentation than someone who is academically qualified but doesn't look presentable enough. But for a job that requires more of your brain (usually backend positions), boss will rather go for qualifications and experience than to be bother by how you look physically.
Another kind of boss is, they want fresh people with relavant qualification but zero work experience. Reason? It's easier to train them to work as what the company requires them especially in those engineering line. This is told to me by my boss when he's selecting applications. It's harder to get a person with working experience to follow the company's working style. They are too used to the ex-company and it'll take them a longer time to adjust to the current company they apply for. Short to say, it's easier to bend a young tree then to wait till it's tall and sturdy.