there was one cattle call interview in which i was one of maybe 40 people selected to be interviewed; the managers took notes on our behavior as we sat in the room; managers reviewed our resumes and a personality profile to determine callbacks; I got what I thought was a belated callback from a company spokesperson who did not know that I had already interviewed for a phase I interview; he was obviously confused when I told him I had already interviewed; later I got a callback from a manager who invited me in as one of a final group of 12 people to be trained at the company headquarters; I was one of only a couple of women; I paid for for fairly expensive training and showed up at the appointed time; I did the requisite homework over the weekend to prepare for the raining (many hours of reading and study); on the very first day of training the same manager who had hired me on asked me to step out of the training room and told me that the company had changed its mind about training me but gave no reason saying only that it had been determined that "I could not cut it" in what was a competitive industry; BTW: I have a PhD from the University of Chicago and three masters degrees as well as over 30 years of near flawless employment; no one asked me any relevant questions about my background or gave me any valid reasons for the determination that I "could not cut it" in the industry, only the arbitrary determination from a person who had never met me before, never checked any of my references and did no background research on me at all, that I would be insufficient. I am certain that I had better credentials than anyone else in the training room. I am over fifty and a woman in what is mostly an all male field but otherwise I cannot think of any other factor that might have ruled me out. .
