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Carole

A friend of mine has been trying to find a new job for over a year now and although she's been successful in procuring interviews, she's yet to have a job offer. I'd say she's had at least a dozen interviews, if not more, and I know she's qualified for all of those jobs.

What I'm wondering is whether her weight might be affecting her chance of getting a new job? (weight discrimination) She weighs about 18 stone (a size 24) which is grossly overweight. My guess is that potential employers see her as a risk because she might take lots of time off work due to future health problems related to her size.

What do others think and if that's the case, is it fair to discriminate against those who are overweight? Is this a case of weight discrimination ?

Carole

7days · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 4:04 am Post subject: Obesity

Hello,

Well it may not be fair, and it is not fair, however, it sounds like your friend is having a problem getting jobs due to her weight problem called obesity. Although it may not be her weight problem doing it, it may be that she thinks it is her weight problem and instead she may have some sort of an image guilt issue, or some sort of a depression issue, or some sort of embarrassment due to her weight problem.

Obesity can cause heart problems as well as other problems and can be a sign of diabetes, among other things. Lots of those sort of people are very friendly and overly happy and happy go lucky and very fun to be around and genuinely caring, thoughtful, hard working people. Unfortunately many interviews think things such as personal appearance is an important issue, and think people should look like a model to even go to the interview.

Have her try some sort of a job like on the phone where people don't see her, or have her try some good volunteer positions that would accept her. Then once she has a job that she can put on her resume and/or job application, then it may be a lot easier for her to be accepted by some job she actually wants to get.

Guest · Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 10:41 am Post subject:

Hi Carole,

This might sound a little odd but has your friend ever considered working in local government or the Civil Service? In my short experience of working for the Civil Service a couple of years ago, I found them to be concerned about equal opportunities to the point of near paranoia. Whether they actively pursued a policy of positive discrimination or not was debatable but our small office seemed to include representatives of every possible minority. The debate about whether or not they were qualified for the job professionally didn't hold much weight with me as many of the able-bodied staff appeared not to be anyway but that's neither here nor there!

If she has a genuine weight problem and can source some kind of medical justification for it then she may well have a chance.

Good luck,

Richard

Carole · Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2005 3:30 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the advice but I should have perhaps pointed out that my friend is a professional lady who isn't interested in finding a job in a call center or doing voluntary work. She's built up a career over 20 years and, understandably, doesn't want to change now. The strange thing is, she has an excellent reputation in her field and yet she still has trouble finding a job with another company (she has her reasons for wanting to leave her present employer).

Richard. It's interesting to hear about the diversity within the civil service but I don't understand why a person would need medical justification for having a body shape that doesn't comply with what society portrays as the norm.

Carole

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