My degree is useless?

I graduated with a BA in political science in 2002. For the past six years, I have worked in marketing and pr. I’m a decent writer and pretty good at what I do – especially online marketing. I have also taken grad classes in writing and have a 4.0

Recently, my company announced a new job opening for a conference series writer. Since I already do the marketing for the conference series and understand how desperately they need someone who can write to market the conference (marketing copy v technical writing are very, very different and should not be intertwined!), I threw my name into the mix.

I talked to my boss, and she gave me really positive feedback by basically saying, “You’d be perfect for the job. In fact, people have already asked me if I thought you’d be interested.” Plus, I’d still report to the same boss, so it wouldn’t be that big of a change…just a better job, the chance to travel, and the opportunity to really help out this conference series.

HR scheduled the 5 rounds of interviews and added them to my corporate calendar. But, as it turns out, someone at my company really didn’t want me to get that job. Or even interview for it.

The job description states education requirements as: Bachelor’s degree in public relations, corporate communications, marketing communication, journalism, technical communication, English, or equivalent.

Well, my boss’s boss, for a reason I now believe to be he has someone in mind for the job, decided that since my degree is not in English or writing, I should be bullied out of even interviewing for the job. Apparently, he doesn’t understand the definition of “equivalent.”

How it went down was like this (I pieced this together after talking to several people who knew about the situation) – my boss’s boss, who we’ll call Fisher, called my boss into his office. He basically told her that she had to talk me out of interviewing for the job because I was not qualified since I only have a BA in political science. My boss didn’t want to do it, but did it anyway. And let me tell you how fun that was…to sit in a meeting with someone who you have liked and respected for the past 14 months and have her tell you these things about how unqualified I am to write since I was not formally educated in writing. (Funny how part of my job is writing, and they don’t seem to have a problem with that.)

I don’t know if Fisher understands what a political science degree entails, but all I did in college was write – papers, essays, arguments, etc. And to this day, through multiple job searches and interviews, no one else has ever questioned the legitimacy of my degree (which is from a pretty good school, I might add). In fact, it has mostly helped me in my career – successful political science majors are thought to have excellent communication skills and comprehensive and accurate research skills – among other things.

Besides, my degree isn’t the only thing I’ve ever done – but do you think Fisher ever asked me about my prior experience or accomplishments? No.

So, I backed out of interviewing for the job. It was quite the scandal at work for a week or so. The person doing the hiring wanted me for the job. So did the people who the “writer” will work very closely with.

Work can be so political sometimes.