Job Fair, Is It Fair?
After being a stay-home mom for more than six months, I started to look for a job in the Washington State. It shouldn’t be too difficult I thought. At least there are more businesses in the great Seattle area and the city looks more diversified. However, the truth is as an alien, job searching becomes to be a weird situation especially when my background in education and marketing is not really counted as “a company’s irreplaceable asset”.
“Are you eligible to work in the United States?” I usually have to think about the answer. If I say “no”, there will be a conclusion like what we can see in the Law & Order, “No further questions, you honor.” The statement usually put me on the stand wondering what I have been doing wrong. If I yes to the question, I probably can hope for a better situation such as “Your resume has been reviewed by our internal professionals. We will inform you if you are selected. If not, your resume will be put into our database for future consideration.” However, saying yes does not guarantee they will consider you as an alien equally to a citizen. There is a ground that so many US citizens are against the government issuing H1Bs.
I went to a job fair yesterday. There were lines waiting for registration. One line specifically for Engineering and Technology positions only accepted people with citizenship. Ha, for the first time I was happy that I am not in that category. However, my happiness did not last too long. “Oh, I don’t know you are not a citizen. I am sorry but we need people with citizenship for the positions.” I thanked to the HR representatives with fake smiles and turned away without having a second thought.
People always suggest me “You just have to keep trying.” I am not against trying hard. But is trying hard paid off? If you go to online job boards, there are thousands of employers claiming they are EOE, Equal Opportunity Employer. How many of them are truly EOE? Maybe it is not a question I am interested in asking. What I really want to know is in what degree Americans would like to be fair to each individual living in the United States. Shouldn’t each living individual have the right to work and to pursuit a better living quality?
How weird is that an individual is allowed to live and spend in the United State but not allowed to earn their living in the States?
6 comments September 21st, 2005