Updating
one’s resume is a good tool for self-evaluation, so after adding mine a few
cent’s worth, I re-uploaded it on a job search site. Before I log out, a tab
which read Job Matches tempted me, and I gave in. I’m not really actively
seeking for a job at the moment, so I thought I could just go on salary
checking.
But lo and
behold, I found a pain in the eyes.
A
multinational and a leading company in its field (as it claims) is looking for
a Marketing Officer. I scanned through the requirements. 3 years experience in
Marketing? I have that. With a driver’s license? Just renewed mine. Pleasing
personality? A big check. But I got to the bottom and all of the preceding
three qualifications I know I have became garbage.
On the last
line it read: REQUIRED SCHOOL: UP,
ATENEO, LA SALLE.
I lingered
on that line for a bit before I closed the window. Then, I opened a new Word
document and started typing. So many cry out against racial and religious discrimination,
even gender biases. Someone should write about this too.
This is also
D-I-S-C-R-I-M-I-N-A-T-I-O-N. Here is a silent crowd being singled out by Human
Resource practitioners or maybe even business executives of top companies. Here
are applicants who may be the best, but second-guesses if they should hit the
apply button because they are not from Ateneo, La Salle or UP.
I am one of
them.
I knew this sick
reality does exist, but companies before were a bit discreet. A candidate may still
get a shot for an interview, and if the recruiter finds out that he or she is
not from the ‘Big Three’, that’s the time the papers go to the shredder. But
today, it was so easy to splatter biased words on a job search site. “Required”
School? They didn’t even have the tact to use “Preferred”!
The
University I graduated from is not perfect. But so are UP, Ateneo, La Salle and
all other colleges. In fact, no school is. There will always be broken chairs,
leaking aircons, terror professors, misplaced records, and inexplicable tuition
fees. Even top-ranked universities and international schools have their own
flaws. That’s what I thought of when I was in college. I didn’t dwell more on
what my school can offer me, instead I worked hard to prove that I have
something to offer my school – my talents, capabilities and values. For what
would happen to a student who makes it to Harvard, but haphazardly studies
because he thinks being in the best school in the world is enough? He would be
a sore failure, both in grades and in life.
Bottom lines?
Being in the best school is not good enough for the following reasons: 1.) That
school does not exist. 2.) We all should know that it is not the school that
solely maps out a student’s future.
I review
that job ad over and over in my mind and this scenario comes to life: a
recruiter telling an eager, talented, and highly qualified applicant “Just wait for our call”, but at the
back of his head are the words “You are
perfect for this position, if only you were from UP, Ateneo or La Salle”.
Or perhaps: “Where on earth is this
college? You’re education’s irrelevant if you didn’t graduate from the Big
Three. And the worst: “Sorry loser,
your parents can’t afford sending you to prominent schools, so get out of here”.
It is very ironic that we are so vigilant to demand an apology from some foreign TV host who said Filipinas are domestic helpers or from a best-selling author who wrote that Manila is the gate to hell - but here we are as a people, discriminating each other.
Reality
slaps. But it’s high time that students from the “Other” universities make that
slap real hard on all biased employers. I am putting out a call. Fellow
graduates from universities and colleges branded as “Others”, let us show the workforce
that we are equally capable and equipped. Let us make them realize that it is
not the school name that makes or breaks an aspiring professional; it is what
the student has in his mind and heart, that he will use to bring about positive
change in the organization he wishes to be part of.
Though we
come from schools tagged as “others”, let us prove the corporate world that we
are not just among “the others” whose papers go to the shredder, because we
too, can be the perfect hires.
