There is a way to get even even by boycotting everything. You can also trash these companies on a site called Glass Door where you sign up anonymously and post all the rotten dirty secrets about a company, or the interview. I would name names. Can't be good for their online reputation.

There is another site called Rip Off Report where you can report bad products.

I was told by one employer that I failed to sell myself. Another hiring mgr, took one look @ me & asked if I was sure I was even fit for the job as it was labor intensive. I told her I was layed off from a more labor intensive job than the one I was applying for, but as the interview progressed, I realized I didn't even like her or want to work for her. She was not a nice person. I thanked her anyway and wrote her a follow up letter just to part ways nicely.

I am frankly just sick of all this. Since 2008 I have been hopping from one contract position to another to keep food on the table and the bills paid. Then I am judged for being a "Job Hopper". What?! Seriously? I even note it on my resume that it was a contract position. Then I had a position that I was about to get hired on for and I fell and sprained my ankle off site. It was a nasty sprain and I had to be on crutches for 6 weeks. Their company policy didn't allow me to come to work on crutches- so they let me go. I hate the "disposable people" mindset. I am a good person, a good employee and a hard worker with a lot to offer. I am so sick of this crap I almost would rather just work at Target - but you know what - even they haven't called me!!! I feel like I am just not right for anyone.

What's funny to me, is that the same companies that won't hire us are the same companies that will depend on us purchasing their products/services in the future. I don't know about you, but the places that I've interviewed for have left a bad taste in my mouth.

On another note, how do the expect us to spend money when the starting salaries are insulting. The highest salary I've been offered was less than half of what I paid for my education. Not to mention the fact that I have a child that is not yet school age and daycare is ridiculous. I've had to turn down job offers because the salary would ONLY cover my daycare expenses.

I'd rather be at home with my little one BROKE than work 40 hours a week and still be BROKE.

I don't mean to be difficult here, but...

As someone who has done a lot of phone and in-person interviews, I can tell you that age rarely has anything to do with it. Instead, we're looking for a particular skill set and a good fit.

If you have too many skills, you're not going to be a good fit, because you'll always be looking for a better job; our investment in you is unlikely to be returned. If you don't have enough skills, we're going to spend a lot of time training you and in a time when people routinely change jobs, we don't want to put a lot of work into that.

Let's talk about fit. How well you fit into a company/organizational culture is affected by your age in terms of experience or if the company is young as a whole. Otherwise, age has little to do with it. We're looking for that skill set and fit, not age. I would advise you to look at your skill set; are you proficient in Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access)? Have you done this type of work before? My experience is that when older people are passed over, it's usually because of a perceived lack of particular skills, not age.

Remember, there are a lot of people out of work, so there's a lot of competition for every job. All things being equal, an employer is going to choose the person with the best fit for the job. That means that similar experiences, which normally are fine, won't be right now.

For recent grads who are finding themselves overqualified: take some of your education off your resume! Your resume does not have to be all-inclusive. In fact, it should contain ONLY pertinent information. If your MBA over-qualifies you for a position as an A/P clerk, don't mention it!

For college kids: internships are great, but they're now a dime a dozen. Get a job in the summer in the field in which you're interested. Make sure you don't graduate without relevant, paid experience.

Generally speaking, working after obtaining an undergraduate degree is best. Somewhere between 2 and 5 years of experience is helpful when obtaining the graduate degree, and it is the best way to ensure the correct amount of education AND experience.

Seriously? Companies don't want to hire educated and intelligent people? They'd rather hire a dumbass as long as they stay when the economy gets better? This article, and the people that believe it and are whining in the comments section are clueless. I swear, I have never seen a more "entitlement-minded" generation than the "Y" generation. The truth, even if it hurts your little feelers is this.....If you go to an interview, and you don't get the job.....YOU WEREN'T THE MOST QUALIFIED. Deal with it, and move on instead of throwing yourself a little pitty party because you KNOW that you were the best because that's what your mommy and daddy have been telling you your whole life. Come on!

As an interviewer I will tell you a few things to never do:

1. Write "See resume" and attach to empty application.
2. Leave ANY section empty on an application.
3. Leave errors on an application.
4. Wear street clothes to an interview or job.
5. Make any kind of demand at an interview.
6. Use referenes that call you by "Mrs" or "Mr."
7. Use references that label you as "Extremly Confident."

I was turned down several times because I was "over educated" and "not realistic" about wanting a job that didn't necessarily require such a degree.

The next job I applied for, I filled out the application twice - once with my full name and education, and once with my nickname and partial education. Each application went to a different HR Rep at the same company. End result, two rejection phone calls: one because I was over-educated and a flight risk, one because I was under-educated and could have used just a little more learning to be the right candidate.

When I clued the second Rep to what I'd done, she had no answer as to how to explain that they were contradicting one another.

Also been turned down after a 3 interview attempt. According to HR: was great candidate to get the job done, but they wanted someone who would be more "fun" and could learn the job.

1. Attitude
2. Appearance
3. Expectations

As a former hiring manager, I'll be happy to share my reasons for avoiding Gen Y potential hires. I hired several and in each instance it was the same. They didn't show up for work on time. They didn't dress appropriately- one girl showed up in pajama bottoms. They didn't make proper use of their time at work. They didn't return from lunch on time. They called in sick more often than older workers. The list went on and on. There was absolutely no work ethic and no sense of give and take. To them, it was all about what the employer could do for them and nothing about what they would do for an employer. After firing the last one (and then finding a notebook that she had written page after page of her soon-to-be married name, practicing her signature plus her research on how to sue the company for making her work) I decided that unless the candidate was stellar and could prove a solid work ethic in an interview I probably would pass on another Gen Y hire.

For family companies, you have to offer a personal nitche for the family. i.e. babysit the boss daughter or coach baseball batting for owners son. I have noticed this in family businesses thru the years. find out what you can offer the family. I know one guy who has a woodshop for hobbycrafts and does home woodworking for the family in charge. For gov jobs, move to Louisianna and get to know personally a Judge or Lawyer out there. They will make the necessary contacts to get you on with the Parrish Gov payroll, not much work either. If you can work these angels, it might help. Also in the deep south, join a church and do some kind of free services there. There is always an advantage in private companies for this type of strategy. This sending out e-mail ressies blinding into the cold dark computer space has never worked for me or anyone else I know of.

How many of you have taken a close look at your resume? You would be surprised at how awful some resumes are. Most people can tell you what they do and how qualified they are, but what they say verbally does not match their resume. You do not have to pay hundreds of dollars to get a decent resume, but please, look it over carefully and buy a book on resume writing and job hunting. Your resume should be easy to read (you only get about 30 seconds to capture my attention and sell yourself), it should list accomplishments and it should demonstrate how you separate yourself from others who have held the same job. A resume is not a biography - it is a marketing tool, it is your personal advertisement and it should be chock full of qualities employers are looking for. Your resume might be good, but it is never complete, it can always use work and updating. Now, whether your resume is good or not is only part of the equation - you may be better than all the applicants, your interview might go perfect but you still might not get hired. Why? Because the job hunt is two-sided. Just because you read a job announcement and declare yourself the right fit, does not mean that the hiring official agrees with you. Do not take it personally, do not get discouraged, and whatever you do, do not throw in the towel. Getting hired is a job in and of itself so it takes time - even if a hiring official were to tell you why they did not hire you, it does not mean that the answer they provide is the truth. Tons of intagibles go into hiring a person and truth be told, most hiring officials are clueless as to what they need - some may know what they want, but they don't always know what they need and how to get it.

I am employed now, only because i know everyone that works or own where i'm working. That seems to be the only way i have been able to get a job....ever. I have to know someone. I have noticed something when applying at places where i don't know someone. 1) managers/owners are sexist. A vast majority of the places owned or managed by a male only hired very attractive females for an obvious reason...sex sells. Others because the guys they did hire tried hooking up with every girl that worked there or that came in....so a loss in trust. This screws it up for every other guy that is actually focused on their life and not the bedroom. Places owned/managed by females only hired females (or majority of females) because they think guys work to get some, the only problem was there was constant drama so they went through employees like 50 cents to a 5 year old. (this coming from asking). 2) Many places hire drop outs, convicts, and addicts (weather it be drugs or alcohol) before they hire a person attending school or just graduating. Even after the problems with drug dealing on the job, fighting on the job, coming to work drunk, or constantly being late or not showing, and getting arrested, employers still kept those people around....the only reason i can think of why....those people will be there a lot longer than someone who is moving up in the world. So people are sacrificing character and service for liability and stability. And also, as stated in the article.....older people or "baby boomers"....whatever....are being hired along with those people. It seems it is no longer what you know, but who you know. And if you are actually a good kid and land a job at a place like "#2" be ready to be acussed for snitching.

I am from the state of NJ, my unemployment started in 2004,in 2005 I had gone back to school, worked part-time at nights...upon completion of the classes that I was taking..I again went on the the "job search path" I'd interviewed for many positions usually told that I was overqualified which interprets I was too old (my age is 64)...I started working for temp. agencies with the promise of respective employers that it was a position temp to perminent...surprisingly they usually came up with excuse that things weren't going to gel as they were experiencing downsizing at the time, or they weren't doing as well financially as in previous years...when in truth they wanted ti hire someone younger without experience and at a cheaper rate....at this point I "threw in the towel", sold my house and moved to Mxico ( this transpired in 2008) ...yes I am angry to this day .....I feel that employers on the whole are terribly unfair to their employees and deserve the poor work force that they are faced with.

This will certainly be financially hard for some, but it in the long term it may be wise to hire a career or interview coach. A less expensive alternative would be to attend a free or reduced cost event in your community or at local college/university.

Reasoning: Everyone has their faults and quirks and since most employers cannot or will not offer constructive feedback to candidates it's up to each job seeker to try to improve themselves. The recession has been a humbling experience for many, and I think the career rules of yesterday no longer apply. Qualified (and less than qualified) labor exceeds demand; thus it would be wise to invest in yourself to increase the chances of being hired.

All these things you say about job hunting are true and have been true always.
I ran into these problems 50 years ago, but they worse now. To many companys have sent jobs overseas to save money.This leaves fewer jobs at home and more people looking for them.It has become cheaper to produce outside our borders and import it in. A job that pays 16 dollars an hour here pays 8 dollars a dal or less outside this country. Figure that one out. Companys are being pickier now because they can. Want a job with an american? Go to a foriegn country like India. Just make sure you know what Grits are.

My husband, a well-qualified electrical engineer, was suddenly out of work after 17 productive years at one company and over 18 with the company before, when his company closed due to mismanagement. Everyone was laid off about 2 weeks before Christmas 2008 and most are still unemployed or underemployed. We spend many hours each week searching for another job for him, have spent a fortune sending out resumes and cover letters, he's signed up with three temp agencies and several job search sites, and at this time, have almost 2800 emails from those sites listing "available" jobs. He applies to every one that's remotely related to his 35 year long career in the industry, but has had only THREE interviews come of it in almost 2 years and not a single offer! He's willing to commute up to 50 miles each way, has offered to work any shift, will take a cut from his former salary...whatever it takes...but nothing has come of the efforts. I work part-time and we're drawing on his 401-k to fill out the minimum required to pay our bills. We coupon religiously, buy only if it's on sale and have a coupon in most cases, got rid of the house phone immediately and use only cells, dropped internet service and use the library 6 days a week for job searches, held a rumamge sale and got all we could for what we had, seldom go out for a meal (and then ONLY with a BOGO coupon). Spending has been cut to the bone, Christmas last year consisted of homemade baked goods and dollar store cards and will be the same this year. Oldest son was killed in an accident 5 months ago and expenses were unbelievable, aside from the mental anguish and emotional drain placed on us all, and has only made the job search more desperate. Aat the time of the layoff we expected to retire in four years, but instead two of those years have been spent laying himself out before hundreds of human resources managers and department heads, asking for a chance toprove his worth. That can only become depressing and almost demeaning after a while, and is affecting his health and attitude. All we ever wanted to do was work hard, be productiveindividuals, and put away money for our golden years, but here we are, hitting the bricks daily in search of something to jsut get us by. This just isn't right and mos tof our country is paying for poor decisions that someone else made!

This is a very tough time for anyone to find a job. It is even harder to find a job if you have a misdemeanor marijuana possession conviction. Our country is pretty screwed up when close to 90 percent of employers run your credit to see how good of a worker you are going to be. Well here we are in the middle of one of the worst times in our countries history with more people filing for bancruptcy and the national poverty level higher then it has been in 20 years this is the time where we as american citizens need to stand up to our senators and congress people and tell them that running a credit score on a potential candidate doesn't show what there work ethic is like it shows how they handle THIER MONEY!!! Credit scores don't show if you are a thief, a bad driver, an over weight person, a hard worker, or a slacker. The only thing that they show is hey you have either paid your bills on time or you haven't. Further more we are sending gen y'ers to college and grad school to rack up copious amounts of debt while there are very few jobs for them out there when they graduate from school and there intrest rates on there student loans are close to 7 percent (thanks George W. Bush for really caring about getting our country eduacted). This goes back to Gen Y'ers Grandparents generation and our parents for completely screwing everything up while we were still in college. Thanks guys for leaving our generation a little better off then yours was....NOT

Wow, you hit the nail on the head. I have been unemployed for the past 8 months and with plenty experience I am not finding the jobs that I thought I would easily qualify for. I wish I could get answers as to why I was not offered the job but working with a temp agency seems to be a bit more promising then trying to get hired directly by a corporation or company. With this economy I think the credit check certainly hurts but when you are unemployed as in my case my credit score has hit the bottom. Without steady employment it is hard to just keep food on the table. I agree patience is key and not giving up- Prayer definitely helps too!!! I want to encourage everyone out there to trust God and dont give up!!! We can make it we have to just keep swinging until we hit it out the park!
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto thy own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths!!!! God Bless

Employers are starting to suck. I guess I am lucky enough to be working still, but I have had to take on a 3% salary cut, 401K retraction, meaning, the company stopped matching first about 7 months ago, then cancelled the benefit and sent us our money back that we contributed, not the vested amount by the employer if under 6 years, to invest elsewhere or get taxed on it, along with increased premiums on health insurance. Lucky I guess to be working, but its costing me to work there now with the commute. So, I am looking for a new position where hopefully closer to home, but its not going very well. I feel that I am stuck somewhere between under and over qualified like everyone else and have removed some work experience and education off my resume. Thing is, there's just tooooooo many people doing what I have been doing for 15 years. Have to keep that 15 years off though, dont want to sound too much like a know it all.

"You are not what I'm looking for." = you are too old. Even the guy who interviewed me and flew me up there to be interviewed by his boss was flabbergasted and couldn't understand it.

IT business - they want 20 and early 30 year old people, college degree, 5 certifications, 20 years experience on everything from PC repair to designing world wide networks. And this is just for the help desk positions.

I have had all these and more over the years. One way I have found to get around some of the issues is looking at non-traditional methods to getting a job. One of which is going through temp agencies. Even during this type of work I would hear that we are interested in hiring after a period of time, but of course I was looking again when something did not jell. The best I can say folks is to persist and work when and where you can. Having a job of any sort til you have that better paying one helps your attitude. And be patient with life, yes I know "patient"? What the heck you may say, but life is a marathon. Life is made up of a series of life experiences.

Good luck in finding that job folks... persist things do tend to work after a fashion. God Bless.

When a company does a background check is it usually at the State level of the Federal level?

Overqualified, have received so many applications and I did not make the interview cut, are looking at other candidates but will contact you if another position becomes available, etc.

This has only left me confused. I was always told to get the highest education possible, take charge, take lead and you will always be valued. I did that; I followed the equation for success and now I am underemployed and struggling to make ends meet. Still looking for the right fit; I have even been tempted to leave off my education.

I agree with many of the posts here, it's the same story here in England. The main thing I get told is "You're not ready", "You don't have enough experience" or "Another candidate scored higher than you". Non-reasons in my opinion as they were not backed up with constructive feedback when I enquired.

I'm a 21 year old with three and a half years on and off experience in my field and am just about to take a course in Business Management just to try and get myself up the ladder. Not sure if it will help but at least I will know I have the knowledge to do the job.

I am the director of a state agency, and we are not allowed to tell candidates why they were not selected for a position. I wish we could because I think it's definitely more courteous, and it's a kindness to the applicant if there is a problem that could be corrected. Most folks truly want to learn from the interview experience so they can do better, and we all appreciate honesty. We used to be able to tell someone why he/she wasn't hired, but you can only imagine in this litigious society, a few people decided the reason they weren't hired wasn't good enough or they were "discriminated against", so they sued. No matter how careful, interviewers are human and say things that are misconstrued, or the candidate does not want to take responsibility for his own actions. It's too easy to find an attorney to take a case on a contingent fee, and a lot of people - and juries - think government agencies (or corporations) have deep pockets to pay out big judgments. It's awfully expensive to defend that type of lawsuit, even if ultimately cleared, and we have all heard about companies settling cases for small amounts even when they did nothing wrong just to avoid the expense of a trial. (It's really sad because it cheapens and disrespects the people who actually have a legitimate employment claim.) The end result is that now we can't give people any interview feedback at all because there's too much risk for the employer. I think it stinks, too, because I would far rather answer the question when someone asks me. But as a society, we brought it on ourselves....

I agree with Tim. I am a 25 yr. old IT student in Washington State; I have 5 years of IT experience with servers, networking and troubleshooting. When I went in to apply with Best Buys "Geeksquad" I was not hired because I had "too much" experience for entry-level, but "not enough" experience for mid-level. I asked them to hire me at entry level because I needed the experience, but they refused, saying they didn't want to have to pay me at mid level for an entry level position. I realize that I am young, and have no professional experience but how do they expect me to gain the experience if they wont hire me?

I agree with James above, I have heard all those. The one that really gets me is the "credit check" did not come back within our qualifications.

I love it. What does a credit check, and yes in these times of unemployment and foreclosures people have lower credit scores, have to do with whether I can do the job. I have been out of work for 18 months now, constantly searching so my credit has been affected. Whose wouldn't when lenders won't renegotiate home loans to assist etc.

I believe when I go for an interview, which only happened twice in 18 months, or walk in to fill out and application they see a grandma who has a slight limp. Arthritis in the knee. I know its age discrimination. I do not look as old as I am, I color my hair and people are surprised when they find out my age but I am well over 40 and I believe that is part of the problem today.

I have been informed that I "spoke too educated" to work as a pharmacy technician by an interviewer who from all accounts had a high school education and seemed to think I wanted her job.Ridiculous as she was apparently from a different department.