To think this is utterly humiliating

[merricat]

So, I live in a reasonably quiet Scottish village. We moved here two years ago after my husband got a job at [neighbouring city's university].

I know I'm overqualified for normal jobs - I have a PhD - but I want and need a job. Such jobs keep becoming available at our local Co-op shop. I would be fine and good at it, reliable etc. I have no commitments and could work any hours they wanted (which they said was a plus the first time I applied). I have now applied three times for a part time job on the tills. It is getting embarrassing. I will not apply again, but this evening I went in and noticed signs up saying they were recruiting. Every time I go in, the manager makes a point of ignoring me - he has my application on file and I've spoken to him about it previously, but can't keep doing so. I'm here, local, willing, and able. I cannot seem to get this shop job, despite the fact that they've been advertising consistently since I moved here, and despite having my application on file.

What is wrong with me? Why won't they even interview me? What can I do? How can I manage to get a job in a shop?

It's really started to depress me. Whenever I go in there, the manage very concertedly avoids eye contact. It's humiliating!

I have had people applying for cleaner jobs when are newly qualified and have a degree, and are upset at not being interviewed. But why would I appoint someone who has no experience of commercial cleaning because they have a degree, over someone who has many years experience of cleaning and good references?

monkey where the hell in Scotland do you live?

Any high street in the outer Hebrides has an English person behind the till. I have lived in several rural places and small towns and have English family members and don't recognise the picture you paint.

You didn't put your phd on your application form/cv did you?

If you did you're really not very smart.

If they can they'll employ someone they can pay the under 22 rate of nmw.

And I wouldn't expect them to employ someone with no previous experience in retail or customer service.

look around at the average age of other workers in there. it may well be, as others have pointed out, that they unofficially only want to employ those young enough not to qualify for minimum wage (and also those who the manager can feel sufficiently superior to).

i agree with soupdragon about some of the comments on the thread and what attitudes they reflect which may be shared by the manager.

i did tons of retail, hospitality etc jobs through teens and later uni as it was a different job market and students and teens were the ones who tended to be available really for those kind of lowest pay, no benefits, unsocial hours type jobs and no you don't need experience but common sense. i was however sometimes treated fucking awfully by uppity little men in cheap burtons suits with 'assistant manager' and a hourly rate 20pence higher than mine. i doubt that reverse snobbery or... insecurity has changed that much.

monkeymamma I echo everything Vatersay said.

Our local Co-Op employs English people as do several of the other shops in my small and very rural town.

Someone looking at a cv for a job like retail is going to see your phd and immediately know you are just doing it for stopgap. As soon as anything better comes along you are going to be out the door. If you take off your qualifications you'd probably have better luck.

Thanks for the replies. It's been illuminating. Just a few things to clear up:

• no CV was involved, as the Co-op have their own forms and everything goes onto that.

• I'm aware of the problem of mentioning my education and looking horrendously overqualified. There are a few complicating factors: I don't have many school qualifications (I was homeschooled), so I tend to have to mention at least my BA just to have something to show for myself. I also worry that leaving off the PhD will make it look like I have a five-year gap in my life in which I did nothing (but I suppose that's still better than having a PhD). I actually sought advice from the assistant manager the first time I applied for the job, and she told me to put my qualifications down, but explain why I wanted the job and was committed to it, etc. So I followed that advice, but it doesn't seem to have got me anywhere.

• I was chatty and friendly with the manager, but now it's just really awkward. I go in there a lot as it's my local shop. Every few weeks, new ads come up saying they are recruiting. The first three times this happened, I applied. I will be taking everyone's advice on here and not putting myself through the embarrassment anymore, of course. But it rankles: I can do the job (have worked in retail before, quite a while back but it's like riding a bike - you don't forget how to do it and it isn't difficult); I badly need the money (not their problem obviously, but it stings); I know very well that I'm not about to scarper as soon as 'something better' turns up - employers are not exactly clamouring to hire me. The manager just blanks me whenever I'm there, it's really crap.

• They seem to be struggling to fill posts, hence the jobs being constantly readvertised. And yet they still won't even give me an interview or acknowledge that I've applied multiple times. It seems they would rather be short staffed than take me.

• There's quite a lot of English accents in the village, because the nearest city employs a lot of English people (oil, airport, etc). I don't think it's my accent that's the problem, though I do take the point that I'm not seen as a 'local'.

I already know that I'll just have to give up, but it's bloody annoying and, because of the manager's behaviour, quite humiliating. Some people have mentioned the age thing - yes, it had occurred to me that they want to pay staff as little as possible and it makes sense for them to hire teenagers. New recruits, I have noticed, are young. But there are plenty of people older than me who work there too...

I think the manager would be very relieved if I simply stopped shopping there, at this stage.

(And to people who seem to think I'm entitled to a job just because I have a PhD: quite the opposite. The PhD is an albatross around my neck and does me no favours. It doesn't entitle me to anything and I know that. That's why I mentioned it as a problem: I certainly don't crow about it).

I come from a small Scottish town and a lot of times the jobs were already filled by family or friends before they were advertised. It's a case of "it's not what you know but who you know" I'm afraid...

I don't understand why you don't just ask him for some feedback. You don't need to make a big drama out of it just mention that you've applied a few times and been unsuccessful and you wondered if he could give you some feedback that might help you? Where's the harm in asking?

The Co Op pay more than minimum wage and don't pay their staff according to age.

I'm going to get slated for this as everyone on mumsnet tends to be holier than thou and says you must never ever lie at work or on a cv but I used to work in senior recruitment and op in your position I would invent some fairly standard secondary qualifications such as the standard 5 gcses and leave off the ba / phd. No one is going to check what gcses you had but they will show them you are capable but not over qualified.

I'd also create some little volunteer job such as helping your sister / aunt / imaginary friend out on their own market stall / movable business venture so you have some sort of selling experience. You can use a friend as the reference for this.

Sure it's not ethical or right but very little in the world of work is. You're not lying about having a medical degree or pretending to be an experienced surgeon!

Also consider temping to build up experience and ask everyone you do anything for to give you an open written reference you can use.

Co op scotmid pay equal and dont employ under 18s usually because of selling booze and cigarettes so its probably not that. Op did you put any experience in they are probably looking for that more than qualifications

It is a PITA to employ under 18s in supermarkets. My DS got his job in the Co Op because his mate worked there and put a word in.

Fairylea
I'm not holier than thou, I've done thought about altering my cv ever so slightly

Seconding another poster...co-op staff are paid above minimum wage in 'bands' that are nothing to do with age. Age is only taken into consideration for redundancy payments. And under 18s are problematic as a very large portion of their customers buy fags or booze.

I also think that if management weren't giving OP the job because he's earmarked it for someone he knows, that person would be in the job by now.

OP, there's every chance that the RM is the one who conducts interviews rather than this store manager, and that the RM hasn't been around for a while.

But equally, I'm going to guess that either you do intimidate him somehow, that your retail experience isn't recent enough, or that you simply haven't come across well somehow.

Ok, I didn't know that about the Co-op not paying young people less. That was the one last thing I had to cling onto to salvage any dignity at all from this It really is me then. (Btw, when I said teenagers I meant 18/19).

Fairylea that's excellent advice, thank you. It's never occurred to me to actually invent GCSEs and jobs before - but you're right. I wouldn't be lying about having a medical degree. I'd be saying that in 2001 I could use fractions well enough to get a B in Maths.

As to why I haven't asked for feedback - okay, I suppose I will. It's just that whenever I enter the shop, the manager either scurries through the staff only door, or if he has to be out on the shop floor, makes such a show of avoiding eye contact that to actually approach him and ask him about it would seem kind of aggressive. Part of me thinks that if he is okay with being that rude to me, I'm not going to get a helpful answer out of him anyway, and I'm just going to embarrass myself further.

Not just anyone can work in retail,and yes experience is a must these days.

It is because you are incomers. IMO.

Sorry posted too soon.

I am being trained for a more senior position in the shop I work in and have sat in on the interviews this past week. Its the first time I have ever watched the interview process and it is fascinating. People trying to sell themselves,looking bright and enthusiastic but sometimes their body language says the complete opposite. I know sometimes people are nervous and unsure.

Also, having experienced village life for myself, you might find that you are viewed as having a 'well off' husband and therefore not in need of a job.
Or they might have already classified you as 'not like us'.
Are you Scottish?

I would say the manager is scared you will take his job.

He is clearly not very good at it going on what you have said.

Do you have to live there?

I've experienced similar over the years and wish I'd bitten the bullet and moved somewhere with better job opps.

Could be that you are over qualified, and they knwo that you will not want the job for long - that it is something in the meantime whilst you wait for a position in your career path

laughing my tits off here at posters claiming what hard work and a difficult job retail is! Are you having a laugh?

Maybe not mentally difficult but on your feet all day, being spoken too like shit from the public for minimum wage is no picnic!

Argh! why is my bold thingy not working