Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Return of the phone call: why I spent Monday worrying about my future

Of the two phone calls I made on Monday, I got one return call.  The recruiter from the multinational corporation called me back with disappointing news.  This is the kind of company that requires you to fill out an extensive and overly personal application on their website.  THEIR website... it's their program.  Bear this is mind when you hear what she told me.  "Well, we didn't call you because you have a Master's in Psychology, and we are looking for somebody with more tech experience."  So, of course I explained that I have an MLIS, and my BA is in Psych.  This is when she went on to explain that the resume comes through as a text file and can be hard to decipher.  Really?  A company that wants tech experience created their own online application that doesn't work?  On the one hand, this proves that it can be helpful to call.  The reason a company doesn't call you for an interview could be as simple as them misreading your resume!  On the other hand, what hope is there for the kinds of places that don't accept or return phone calls?  All those universities that rely on digital applications; what if their programs are misinterpreting my resume as well?
Ok, so we got that cleared up, and she started to go through my resume a little more extensively to see what else she might have gotten wrong.  This is when she stated that my undergraduate GPA wasn't acceptable to them.  "Really?" I asked.  "It was nearly a decade ago, and it's a completely unrelated degree.  I would think that my 3.7 GPA in a relevant degree would count for more.  "Oh no, we require a 3.5 or higher in all of our employees' degrees.  Ouch.  She completed the phone call by thanking me for my pro-activeness, and I somehow managed not to throw my iPhone across the room.  Goodness knows I wouldn't be able to pay for a new one.  Its a little hard to recover from that kind of phone call.  Logically, I know that I would not enjoy working for that kind of company anyway, but emotionally, I cannot fathom that they wouldn't even interview me because I had a rough time in college.  So, response time..  What do you all think?  Should we be penalized for bad grades even if we rallied and proved competence in our chosen careers?  Moreover, should I be made to feel like a loser by a company that can't even use their own application system competently?

2 comments:

  1. I didn't even know that companies ask for GPAs. It really doesn't seem fair to penalize you for something that occurred almost a decade ago. Not to mention the fact that you did meet all of the standards and requirements that Rutgers set in order to obtain a degree! How is an undergrad GPA relevant to your career now?

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  2. Your first mistake was in not going to Harvard. Nobody does grade inflation better than they do.

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