Too old, too fat?

[WoofWoofMooWoof]

I need somewhere to rant. I went for a job interview today at my DC's school - they know me there. I do what I can to help the school out whenever I am able. It is an Ofsted outstanding school and I've always had the biggest respect for the teachers there.

There are two positions and they only interviewed three people. It was an 'interview day' where we had a tour of the school, met the team etc, and were then interviewed separately. The whole thing took three hours. Me and another lady did the interview day together and the third lady was interviewed later, after school, so I didn't get to meet her. The other lady and I had quite a bit of time alone together in the staff room and we chatted a lot. She owned a restaurant which she sold to open a wine bar, and she only wanted the job so she wouldn't be bored during the day when the bar isn't open. She's never even been to the school before. I am a single mother desperate to find a job so I can feed my kids who are pupils at the school.

However, I am 51 and fat, and she's in her 40s, pretty and slender.

I thought the interview went very well (despite me having bad side effects from my second Covid booster earlier in the week).

Got a phone call from the head teacher this evening saying that I am employable, but I was unsuccessful because the other candidates were stronger and had experience working in a school. This despite the fact that I have 32 years admin experience and the other lady owns a bloody wine bar!

AIBU to be totally pissed off at him blatantly lying to me? To me it's very obvious they've decided to hire the younger, prettier model?

AIBU to have lost all respect for the school and the head?

Wow, just wow.

My being fat has nothing whatsoever to do with overeating. In fact I hardly ever get hungry - I actually haven't even eaten anything all day. My being fat has to do with a very abusive ex and other personal reasons I'm not going to explain.

OP could you ask for more detailed feedback?
I wonder if you are over qualified when they actually want someone content to churn out a few mundane tasks.

Yes, I am going to ask for detailed feedback.

Leobynature reported.

It definitely does

In dh’s profession by the time you get to mid 40s for a woman and early 50s for a man you will struggle getting another job.

We have a few female and male friends in the profession who on hitting their mid 40s (women) early 50s (men) they might as well give up.

One woman we knew who had a fantastic CV and got the job she was in just 3 years before with relative ease. Found it impossible to get another job. (She was moving with her Dh to a new area)

Ended up setting up her own professional company

We know so many who have had to find alternate employment as doing the career they were qualified in was not going to happen.

Thank you.

I'm glad about that. Hopefully it will help.

This is laughable. I sound “bitter” and “jealous of my daughter”? You sound nasty, and that is beyond bad form.

I’m not jealous of my beautiful daughter. I’m proud of her accomplishments and character, which I value more than her looks. I have, however found it very eye-opening observing the reactions of others around her. It has made me realise that looks are indeed an influential factor in many interactions. I was sharing my observations and experience to validate the feelings of the OP that an attractive job seeker may have had a competitive advantage based solely on her looks.

I do think only interviewing 3 candidates is odd. I recently had an interview, didn’t get the job, and there were far more than 3 people interviewed for one position. I lost out to an internal candidate who could impress with more ‘ buzz words’ and I was peed off initially. I also thought I had done really well and the feedback said that I had.
Sone of the feedback seemed odd and I disagreed with but they operate a points system and certain key phrases had to be said to score the points.
Some employers do employ the person they most fancy, it is a fact of life.
Sometimes it could be due to the senario like the one I had.
It could be the successful candidate went down the route they were looking for.
It’s a difficult one. Keep trying op.

I think you come across as cocky and entitled. Maybe that’s why you didn’t get the job. You assumed the job was yours.

Someone upthread falling into the bear-trap of every day sexism!

A woman being confident about their skills - cocky and assuming the job was their's

A man being confident about their skills - self-assured, driven and ambitious.

It's not confidence in own skill. It's the "confidence" in own skill because the other woman can't possibly have them.

Man would also be cocky.in this case. He would probably be called an arrogant twat behind his back.

I interview people all the time. The candidates are already screened by the time they sit in front of me so have relevant skills and experience. I tend to select people who I want to work with and can be a good fit for the team. I don’t think I select based on looks and weight, but having said that there are around 100 people in my department and not one of us are overweight not even slightly, so maybe there is some truth in it.

Denying the existence of 'pretty privilege' is not a blow for feminism. It's actually at best naive, and at worst a denial of the unfair challenges faced by some women who don't have it.
Attractive people, men and women, are generally better regarded by both sexes, and all other things being equal, will enjoy more of the successes of life. And by that, I'm not talking about the stunningly beautiful outliers, who iften face a back lash, merely those considered attractive, as oppose to those who are not.
Acknowledgement of that is entirely different from saying that attractive women have only succeeded because of their looks (though the OP does stray into this, which is unfair). Nor is it saying that non attractive women are doomed to failure. Its simply acknowledgement of a bias that absolutely exists, whether we like it or not. Just as bias against fat people exists whether we like it or not.

OP didn’t say a great deal about her skills though. She seemed to think she was more deserving of the role as a single mother, that the other candidate didn’t want it as much as she did and she also has been dismissive of of the other candidate’s business skills.

I expect if a man had come on and said he should have got the job because he had a family to support but it was given to a woman because she was pretty he would have been roundly and quite rightly criticised.

I do think that there is sub conscious bias in the world of recruiting, it would be silly to say otherwise. But in this case, I doubt it and I mainly feel uncomfortable with the way OP has spoken about the other candidate.

Whilst a bias against fat and ugly people may exist, the assumption that this is the cause of all rejections is ludicrous. Being ill and brain foggy and therefore not on top form is likely to have affected your interview performance more than you think. Also, schools always seem to let interview candidates spend a lot of time together, chatting and getting to know each other in between interview activities, so the idea the Headteacher would deliberately lie about another candidate’s background to the person who didn’t get the job is ridiculous, as they know you will have been chatting together all day. As for there only being 3 candidates for the job, for those who commented on this - this is not surprising, as school jobs are atrociously badly paid for the level and amount of work actually expected, so the number of appropriate candidates for interview can be limited.

@WoofWoofMooWoof - I’m sorry you didn’t get the job, I can see why you are so disappointed as it would have been perfect for your circumstances. Unfortunately, though, the school will have recruited the person they think is most suited to the role, not the person who most needs it. It’s not fair, therefore, to have lost respect for the school for having offered the role to someone who appears to need the job less than you do.

I hope you are feeling better soon.

OP - it sounds like one or both of your children are (or should be) involved with the pastoral team at this school. In which case, it would be entirely inappropriate for you to work for that team.
And your answer about disagreeing with a manager probably reinforced the interviewer's opinion on this.

THAT is more than likely why you were not offered the job - nothing to do with looks/weight/experience

Laralei that’s interesting. Are you sure that non of the men would be deemed fatter or are you giving them a pass?
Thinking about where I work now and where I’ve worked in the past there are and have always been people who I would not call slim.
Do you work in a glamorous work place or one which employs predominantly people under 50?
I also think the definition of overweight has dramatically changed. Just look at old programmes from day the 1970s. People are much fatter now (on the whole).