janicedean164

Really after some help as I have been applying for alot of jobs that back in the UK i would have walked into. Sadly my 15 years experience seems to count for nothing with most company's who would rather some one fresh out of college. Now for some careers I could understand this but sales I mean really. Every time I would take someone with proven experience over someone with just a piece of paper. I have applied for 2 jobs in particular this week were they have told me I need to have at least a Bachelor's Degree to be considered even though my experience is very impressive. This is doubly frustrating as my 3 years of experience in Childcare & my qualifications in that field do not translate over here.

Luckily my wife has degrees including her Masters in Special Ed with English Literacy & is American so has walked into a job, As we are living with my Father-in-Law money isn't as tight as it could be but I am climbing the walls.

I was just wondering what other people's experience's have been & if there is any way round this. I will be going to be college as I would like to retrain but this will not be for a few years.

Bob

How are you applying? Online via the company or a third party job site?

You need to bypass all that shit and go straight to the hiring manager, LinkedIn is a good tool for that, plenty of threads going into how to use that for this purpose.

You have to do that because you don't have the tick for degree so you are automatically being thrown in the bin in the first round, by the software. Simply because they are probably getting hundreds if not thousands of applications for that one position so they stick in arbitrary internal requirements.

You by pass that and you might get eye balls on CV.

janicedean164

That's the thing, I have actually spoken to 2 people this week who I sent my cv to via email. They both agreed I would be able to do the job with my eyes shut but that they were really looking for someone with a Bachelor's Degree, experience wasn't as important. I really don't see how but I have also been going to people in person & being told the same thing. Its becoming quite soul destroying I can tell you.

Bob

Not much difference to once you do find a job then

Have you localised your CV into Letter sized, American spelled, Resume style guff? Made the experiences bland and removed as much of the UK specific stuff as you can?

Could be a case of a lot of places seeing foreign experience and thinking you'll need a visa so going straight in the bin. If you're work authorised, it's worth stating that up top in the summary of the resume.

And network.

janicedean164

Yep all done already. I have had my wife, my sister in law & my dad's lady friend all go over with it. It's so Americanised it almost put's me asleep, lol!

naomi

You might want to pay for a professional company/service to look at your resume. When I lost my job a few years ago my ex-employer paid for a company to review/rewrite our resumes. I had much better success after improving my resume.
Best of luck.
Naomi.

janicedean164

That's not the issue though, I am being told both my resume & experience is really good, it's the fact I don't have a Bachelor's Degree that's the issue.
A 4 year degree that in sales would help diddly squat but leave me in a ton of debt & not show that I could sell at all. Any day of the week I would hire someone with experience in sales over someone with a piece of paper.

scrubbedexpat099

Welcome to America.

The problem is that the High School level has been so dumbed down that a Degree is now the minimum education level for many Companies.

N1cky

Unfortunately most companies are only interested in that bit of paper, the insistence on the degree for jobs that don't need them is infuriating but something lots of places won't budge on.

Have you got any UK qualifications at all that will translate over here? I'm currently doing my Bachelors here, I translated a load of credits from my accountancy courses, it left me with only 10 units to do, 9 of which are general ed, I'm doing the course online and so far its pretty easy.

Try not to get too disheartened, it took me over 6 months and 200 applications to get my job out here, and looking at the people I work for I'm still amazed they gave me the job over people with qualifications they knew about. Someone will give you a chance eventually, just keep making the calls and seeing people rather than relying purely on your resume.

ian-mstm

While I wouldn't normally suggest this, I'll point out that it's not illegal to enhance your resume sufficiently to get an interview. At the interview, you'll be talking to someone who can actually decide that a degree isn't required... something the front-line HR personnel can't do. Once someone is ready to offer you a job... that's when you come clean. Remember, it's always easier to get forgiveness than it is to get permission.

At this point, I'm putting on my flame-retardant suit... because I expect a lot of flack from my comment.

Ian

Ethelred_the_Unready

I'm running into the same problems.
College is such a big thing over here. Employers are even asking for a BA for a $12 an hour Accounts Payable job. IMO, it's just plain wrong given the cost of college here.

Ethelred_the_Unready

Funny because the company I work for takes on a lot of people fresh out of college because they have a special piece of paper. Oh yeah, the funny part is that most of them are ****ing idiots, many of whom I'm surprised can even tie their own shoelaces. I never did the whole university thing, but I'm constantly asked here in the colonies what college I went to.

Sorry I didn't pay $40,000 for a stupid piece of paper. My American wife already owes her soul to Sallie Mae. I don't plan on joining her, even if it means working manual labour.

janicedean164

Spot on, the cost of college is beyond a joke, We need no reminding of that as my wife's time at college means we are paying back around $80,000 in total for a course that she was on for 2 years, it doesn't help that just 1 text book would cost as much as $800 either & she needed a ton for her chosen course.
Its beyond a joke & to be honest college can wait as at the costs they want to charge it just wouldn't be financial viable.
It certainly has been a wake up call the cost of everything over here, health insurance, college, petrol, though at least the cost of housing, food & general items along with cars are all not badly priced.
And this is all bearing in my mind my wife is American & in the 2 years she has been away how much petrol & health insurance has skyrocketed but oh well onwards & upwards & I am being told to maybe look into joining a headhunter or something to help me find the right job!

Ethelred_the_Unready

I feel for you...$80k is a lot of money. I have always wondered WHY it's so expensive here. Is it some sort of conspiracy to have millions of people in unforgivable debt (because student loans are exempt from bankruptcy), so that those people are more easily controlled by potential employers? It's like life is "panned" in America. You graduate high school, go to college, then stop having fun, marry a wife and a job and buy a house in the suburbs and breed children who will repeat the same and will be equally as boring as their parents. Perhaps that notion of the American dream is slipping away now though. But still, it feels like those who deviate from the norm are outcasted as losers and failures. I'm sure in the eyes of most Americans who bought into the "dream", that's exactly what I am.

scrubbedexpat099

Community College is a LOT cheaper.