Out of curiosity, what makes you certain you've been discriminated against?
To prove it, one typically has to demonstrate that they are qualified for the job; that the other persons hired are not, in fact, more qualified; and by proxy to argue that since you are both qualified, and performative, that the reason you were passed over was for purely discriminatory reasons.
As for your "non-traditional path", yes, it likely is hindering your job search. Jobs are mostly interested in one thing: Can you do the thing that makes them money, as good as or better than the next guy. They want to know that you can in fact do the things you say you can. They're not just going to take your word for it. Learning things on your own doesn't mean much if you can't prove that you know them as well as you say you do. It lacks 3rd party validation. Certifications, awards, real world experience, etc. They all have a cumulative effect - no one thing is the key winner.
Especially in the tech world, it's typically relevant that they be recent or current as well. Being certified in Windows 3.1 and OS/2 doesn't carry much weight today, for example. 5 years ago, while working on a cybersecurity degree, I had to take a class on windows 7. We were using windows 8 computers. Windows 10 released half way through the semester. CompTIA certifications are only good for 3 years. Tech advances FAST. Some knowledge and experience has a shelf-life.
You can say "well, they should give me a chance, then they'd see I can do it!" - but hiring people is expensive. Like, just the act of taking on a new employee after you've decided to hire them, is expensive, not including everything that goes into getting to even that point in the hiring process. Firing people is also expensive. Hiring the wrong person, having to fire them, and then having to rehire a new person again, typically costs more than that position's annual salary. Hiring the wrong person is a huge financial expense, to the extent that some businesses fail simply because, despite how much revenue they generate, they burn it away towards high turnover rates. It may not seem like a big deal to ask a business to "give you a chance", but it's actually akin to asking to borrow a brand new expensive sportscar, as a total stranger.
As a result, they're going to want to be as certain as possible that you're going to be able to do the job, and that you'll be there for at least a year. Remember that part about hiring and firing costing more than the annual salary for that position? By staying there for over a year, you've made it more profitable to hire you, than to not hire you, all else being equal. At that point, even if you quit or get fired after a year, you were around long enough to generate more income than you cost between labor and turnover expenses. If you quit or get fired in 6 months, they spent 6 months salary on you, plus another year's salary to fire and replace you, even if you generated income for 6 months, which may or may not cover your expense. If you quit or get fired in 2 weeks, they lose a year's salary of money in a matter of two weeks, bam, instantly, and you probably didn't make much of any income for them in 2 weeks, because it was only 2 weeks.
And the law knows all of this. The ADA takes this into account. So it all comes down to whether the other applicants were in fact equally or better qualified than you in matters relevant to the job. This gets harder the more applicants there are. The ADA does not require businesses to hire a less qualified candidate over a more qualified candidate. That's your first hurdle: "Did they hire someone less qualified?" If the person they hired was more qualified than you, you've got an uphill battle making a case for discrimination.
04 Apr 2021, 11:37 am
