Employment question: Can they discriminate based on travel?

[knitter4democracy]

I applied for a travelling sales job (yarn rep for a yarn company for the state of Michigan, going around to all the yarn shops in the state at least four times a year to sell the new season lines), and I made it to the final two. I heard at our monthly guild meeting on Wednesday night that another gal in our guild got the job instead of me (great way to find out *sigh*). When I talked with her, it became apparent that she's had little experience in the field and didn't even seem to understand some of the basics of the job. I thought that was odd, but since I'm not the boss and haven't read her resume, who am I to say?

So, I e-mailed the manager who had interviewed me over the phone, and in his response, he said that it was a hard decision but that they decided she would have an easier time with the travel than I would. He then gave the usual thing of saying that they'd keep my resume, yadda-yadda.

When I told some knitting friends on a knitting board, they said that it was illegal for them to base their decision on that. She's retired and doesn't have any kids at home, while I'm a stay-at-home mom of two elementary-aged children. I remember telling him in the interview that we were working out the scheduling and that it was going to work out fine (he'd asked what my current job was, and I had been honest and told him that I was a stay-at-home mom).

So, I was stupid, apparently, to tell him I was a mom. Was it wrong for them to not give me a job because of that? I have a feeling I might be getting a phone call in a year or so when the other gal decides it's way more work than she'd realized or whatever, but I'm not sure about working for them anyway. They picked someone with no experience over someone with a decent amount of experience and knowledge of the industry just because I'm a mom?

[trotsky]

1. Contact an employment lawyer.

They'll know the laws and situation better than just about anyone on DU.

[SteelPenguin]

2. I'm not sure they broke the law

If they asked questions regarding it before you volunteered the information, depending on what they asked, they could have broken the law, but if you volunteered the information and talked about it, then I don't know that anything illegal happened.

As far as discrimination based on travel, I believe they can, particularly if it's a core component of a job. If they felt, based on talking to you, that the travel component could be an issue, then it's their perogative to base a decision on it. Perhaps you didn't 'sell' the fact that it wouldn't be a problem. If you told them that you were still working on the scheduling and that it would all work out, you're still asking them to take a risk by hiring you over someone else. Why should they trust you to do so?

I've interviewed people in the past for various jobs, and if they talk like that about a situation that raises red flags for me. If I were to ask someone "we're going to need you to be traveling about 60%, is that a problem?", I would be much happier to hear "not a problem at all." rather than "well we're working on getting that worked out, it should be fine."

[knitter4democracy]

3. That was my thinking, too. I just wondered from what others had said.

I don't know how to feel about it. I mean, I'm kicking myself that I didn't sell myself better for the job on the phone and explain that I'm not worried about the travel, but I do think it's weird that they went with someone with a lot less experience and knowledge base simply because of that one factor. In other words, they'd rather have someone hitting the shops enough who can't answer questions and doesn't know how to sell the product than someone who will still get to the shops, work with the owners on the phone and know how to sell the product. Odd.

[SteelPenguin]

4. It's hard for me to say

I know that you can't judge someone by their resume, and I don't know how you came off to them. I know that sometimes people just don't like you, or trust you, for no real good reason. I've worked with clients before I had to pass off because they just...didn't like me. Same with having clients sent to me to deal with. Different personalities contrast in weird ways sometimes and it just doesn't jive.

Maybe this person just didn't jive with you. If that's the case no resume of experience is going to make up for it.

I remember one time I interviewed for a position, and the resume looked great, but the person was throwing off all sorts of flags. Fidgity, rarely made good eye contact, had a couple red flag answers. I wouldn't have said they weren't a nice person, or didnt' know what they were doing, but I ended up hiring someone else. Sometimes it's just that little subconsious thing and it's really no fault of you or the other person. Just luck of the draw.

Or maybe you pissed them off when you showed up dressed like a clown and kept throwing confetti on them during the interview and honking your horn. Hard to say. I wasn't there. ;)

[knitter4democracy]

5. Oooohhhhh. I might have ticked them off.

No, it wasn't the clown costume. ;) I did have some big reservations about their lines and how they'd sell in Michigan, so I shared with them some of my market research and told them a line I think they should offer (no one else does, so there'd be no competition). That might have been it. Thanks!