Quite honestly, I appreciate if the company sends me back a letter of refusal, maybe stating why they didn't take me. But eventually common sense tells me that this might not be exactly all there is to it, and that I might not even want to know the exact reason.
One of my collegues in the office here is constantly on the phone enquiring about new employees, and the reason why a person doesn't get the job are among others "too ugly, we need someone representative for that reception job" or "horrible accent and bad manners", "she quits her jobs too often", "she seemed a bit slow in understanding" or whatever else... however, they will all get the letter stating "Dear Sir or Madam, despite the excellent quality of your dossier... " or maybe "we unfortunately need someone with xx years of experience in the field etc"
I strongly believe an employer has to the right to employ whoever they want for whatever reasons, and I cringe at the prospect of introducing the American/Australian/don't know where else- system of suing yourself into a job because of "discrimination". We love our little qualification papers here in Switzerland, but saying 2 people with the same qualifications are automatically identically good employees who deserve the same salary is nonsense in my humble opinion.
But then again I'm a liberal in the European sense of the word.
This lesson from breaking the Rule No.2 I have learnt hard way in my young impetuous and boisterous years when I had had an opportunity to work for a "micky-mouse company XX" on a small town niche market in my field. The rumours of making faux pas in final encounter with my ex-boss and company's owner spread very quickly (despite the fact he was true as....l and it could be confirmed by other coemployees concerned) and to cut the long story short... I was jobless, luckily and happily studying further on my hard grafted money, for past 2 years
Well it makes perfect sense in India, Singapore or elsewhere, but introducing English as the business language in a country where the vast majority have but a basic understanding of the lanuage is absurd.
Not saying that it isn't desirable to some point, just not realistic or debatable at the moment.
Nonsense. It's not a Swiss company, there are subsidiaries all over the world which makes it a multinational company. Has nothing to do with the lingua franca. But face it, there is little to no need for all those employees all over the world to speak English locally when those subsidiaries are largely independant up to the highest management.
It also makes sense where most employees aren't English-speakers
I agree. And I didnt touch the OP's point. Mine was just an associated rant. [/quote]
Are those seriously the reasons that you have heard for people not being given a job? You see, being used to the Aussie system, I cringe at the though of this being how prejudiced a system can be. I feel that it's only acceptable here because the Swiss don't know it any different.
You are a bit incorrect in one of your asumptions, we don't use the system to sue our way into a possition, it just goes to making it much harder for scenarios like you described to happen. And I think that's a good thing!! Don't you?
As I said, really not at all! As an employer I want to be able to employ whoever I want! And yes of course, those comments are all quotes from my colleague, she can't hire an ugly receptionist for a prestigious company entrance, and neither can she tell that to the applicant. There is always the true reason for a refusal and the stated one.
There is no right for a job, so I don't see how you can sue an employer for not getting it. It definetely is a matter of different cultures, but I am quite glad we have a longer cancellation period required by law, but no such discrimination laws as in the US/Aus.
Actually it's positive about living here, that even in the very shaky situation on the job market as it is right now, there are still favourable laws at place to protect employees and facilitate them to make a new move whenever necessary e.g. in situation when one needs to change a job there is quite a long period of notice binding both parties. I am not quite familiar with worker's unions representing individual's interests but "touch of socialism" in Switzerland is quite favourable, compare to other environements, where I had an opportunity to work and people were completely unprotected by such in a sense that they could get fired on the spot as the bosses please.
happens in the uk, and everywhere else too, your just not allowed to say it out loud! I used to work for the most sexist man on the planet, his criteria for a secretary was shocking even for me!!
In the UK I worked for the HR dept of a newspaper and the lady that did the recruitment was fired for the notes she kept which helped remind her of the dozens of candidates she interviewed on a monthly basis.
They found her notes which described candidates as "looks and talks like Bianca from Eastenders" or "reminds me of Ian Botham" or "similar type of attitudes to the wife of our postman" or "talks like he was born with plums in his mouth" and other such comments.
None of the comments was particularly inflammatory but the paper was terrified of anyone getting hold of them and using them in a court case if they didn't get the job.
Their grounds for firing her was it was a breach of data protection (?).
Things I notice in this thread.... I had to read the OP's rant a couple of times to really understand what the problem is/was I see a Swedish person got a job teaching Swedish without being a teacher - but do think finding a Swedish teacher for Migros KS is harder than an English one Not having formal qualification like TEFL but having experience would not count - the market for qualified English teachers I'm sure is not "dry" In reply to the fact that the potential employer "could not see any qualifications related to teaching adults", the OP state that she "had taught adults but did not hold a qualification to state this"; both are saying the same thing! Whilst gloating about the email mistakes of the potential employer, the OP refers to a "letter" which I assume is a mistaken reference to an email? It is also possible to be over-qualified for a job . I would not employ someone whom I thought was over-qualified for a job unless I knew I could grow them into another position. Why? Because they will quickly become bored or leave All-in-all, I don't think there is any advantage to rant in public like this. Yes, it's annoying being passed over but it does not seem to be without reason.
Get the TEFL or some equivalent and then apply again.
And I bet an online translation service was used at some point
Nobody is talking here of suing. A mere info on why the applicant did not make the cut would suffice, although I completely agree it is their good will to provide it, pushing it is pointless.
I am not sure what a liberal in the European sense means, since in Europe where I am from it is what a person actually can do matters the most. Experience is valid. Don't get me wrong, a degree gets you far, that's why I am grinding my teeth at the moment pushing for another one, but I have met too many ignorant douche-bags with shiny academic degrees, that were pleasant looking, had no foreign accents, good manners, but could do nothing. A degree does not ensure you will work well, just merely states you went through school and completed a program.
Two of my friends work in international companies and told me that they try not to hire Swiss. I don't like this discrimination either, just want to show it works both ways. They said Swiss applicants are prepared only on paper and are not flexible, too slow, worry only about their vacations and never put more effort than what's expected. It is hard for me to believe and I think it is just their isolated experience plus it really might just be a flukey time now in the industry.
In terms of op's complaint, she applied for conversation teaching position which usually requires higher level of language acquisition, so the grammar explanation should be done in English, no? It might just have been the initial job application was not written overly politely which is the way here. It is always good to be OTT polite when job searching. Especially withouth the right paper
I completely agree with you there MusicChick, and with "love our little qualification papers" I meant to say just that; that to me personally they don't hold as much real value as most Swiss think. That's why I wouldn't want people considered merely based on their paper qualifications (ie. degree, years of experience, languages spoken).
And if a company doesn't want to hire Swiss I find that quite alright, I'm sure they have their reasons, and if they aren't valid it's their own loss. With liberal I meant economically and socially liberal in a political sense, meaning that both Individuals and companies should in principle be quite free to do as they please, as long as they're not bothering anyone else. Liberal/a Libbie seems to indicate a leftie in the States, hence in the European sense. Hope that explains it!
On the subject of having to speak the local language when teaching English, I have to disagree with some other posters on this thread: It is perfectly possible to teach English without speaking a word of the students' language, and several thousand teachers are busy doing exactly that in schools all around world, even as I type.
It is, of course, desirable to understand something of the grammatical structure of the students' language, to have some knowledge of the possible phonetic problems a student may encounter, and, if one really wants to get into it, the relationship of the students' language to other languages (whether they be closely related to English or not). There are books to help with this understanding (Swan & Smith's Learner English springs to mind, but there are probably others), but you can't beat a personal knowledge of the language, especially when earned the hard way by being a student of a foreign language yourself.
This, of course, has no bearing on the desirability to be able to communicate with your colleagues and superiors in their own language - but I do think the myth that one must speak the students' language in order to be able to teach them English should be put to bed once and for all.
You're quite right there DB, but as far as I know the English students at Migros Klubschule aren't exactly experts at the language (at least my co-worker 2 years ago wasn't, she never learnt English in school at all), which must be the reason why they initially asked for some German proficiency, and that I believe is the point here.
There are lots of English teachers all over the world who don't speak the local language, but telling a school that their German language requirements are rubbish is silly, the very reason why the OP got critizised by many.
Quite right, take all ugly people out and have em shot! And the fat ones, and the coloured, females, over fifties and gays. Anyone else I have forgotten?
IT'S NOT A SUEING THING, sheesh, don't you read ugly peoples' posts properly either?
Whether people admit it or not, discrimination about such things DOES also happen in the US, they just come up with plenty of smoke and mirrors to hide it in order to make suing the company much more difficult.