So, the other day I applied for a position with a county agency, specifically a county community college district. To be completely forth coming I applied for two positions, one that matched my experience although I was short the college degree that I will have in a few months, and the other was a much lesser job for which I was very overqualified. Anyway, I get called in for an interview for the lesser of the two positions. Oh wait, first I had to go take a test for the position that involved looking at a picture of Microsoft Office (2003 edition) toolbars and identifying the icons. That was the qualification for this position apparently, being able to identify an icon in a blurry photo. Ten years in the IT field, mostly as an administrator, and that was the first time I ever had to pick an icon out of a lineup.
I go to this interview because frankly the town I live in isn’t exactly a hotspot for IT so I try to leave as many options open as possible. I show up for the interview early and am informed that at a specific time I will be handed the list of questions that I will be asked in the interview by the “selection committee”. Did I mention I showed up early? So what did I get for doing that? A district employee standing over me with the questionnaire in hand just waiting for the clock to strike the magical hour. Tax dollars hard at work there I’m sure. Plus I get to have a wonderful conversation with another candidate that decided to show up almost an hour early to their interview. Wonderful!!
Once the magic hour struck, I was handed a sheet of paper with ten questions, two of which weren’t even questions or were they? The first was something like “What do you know about California Title V?” The last question listed said “Do you have any questions for the committee?” To reiterate, I was handed a sheet of paper with 8 legit questions for this interview which will be important in a moment.
When my time came to go before the “committee” I was shocked to find the committee consisted of 6 people that would take turns reading the questions to me; the same questions I had been handed earlier. Now I am not an efficiency expert but I am pretty sure it does not take 6 government employees to read 10 (8) questions. Even if the entire committee were Polish it still would seem bizarre. Although that might be a funny joke, have to work on that one. Anyway, I felt I did fine in the interview, as fine as one can when speaking to a group of robots that can’t ask follow up questions. (What’s up with that anyway? What is the point of an interview anyway if the interviewer cannot ask follow up questions? Why not do the whole process by email or something then?) Needless to say I did not get the job.
This was not the first job I had applied to for some type of government work. Each time the process is nearly the same, read questions off a sheet of paper, stare blankly at me as I answer said questions, and then thank me for time, we’ll call you. Each time I have been overqualified for the positions I apply for and each time I am overlooked for the job. My interview skills with private employers has led to a fairly high success rate once I reach the interview process. So why can’t I land a government job? Sadly the only conclusion I can come to is government employees are mandated to be racist. I look great on paper, I test well, but once they see the color of my skin, I am automatically dinged points for being a certain ethnicity. Has this happened to you? Have you been discriminated against because you look different than the type of individual government employers are looking for? Oh, did I mention that I am white? That’s right, white as a saltine cracker, well maybe a Ritz, I do have a nice tan. Either way, I am a cracker that can’t beat the government’s desire to hire minorities. I am not arguing that a white should be hired over a minority, by no means am I implying that. I have no problem losing out on a job to anyone that is more qualified, regardless of their skin color. I am just saying that I feel that I do not receive a fair shake because of the color of my skin. Oh did I mention that I am a male also? Yeah, a white male that is currently suffering from reverse discrimination or what the government likes to call “affirmative action”.