MENA WOMEN: What kind of jobs are your husbands doing/looking into?

[Donna A 4]

What do you mean save up for applications? Where is your Husband applying and why do they charge $1,000-$2,000 to interview him? I don't understand.

Waleed's Sister finished her masters in cardiology recently and is moving on to her Ph.D. which they are coming back to the US to finish. Her Husband just finished his Ph.D. with a fellowship in Orthopedic Surgery at John Hopkin's in Baltimore. I kind of have my hopes that when his sister comes back for her Ph.D. fellowship/internship where ever she chooses that Waleed may have some in's. Also I worked at a hospital for 8 years and I know literally hundreds of doctors in my region. Plus my older brother has a franchise in a medical software business that installed software into private doctors offices all over the country so there are loads of connections there too. He often tells me where they are hiring and for which kind of position and speaks to the doctors who have made the transition to here from other countries for tips to help Waleed's transition.

But I am so curious what do you mean about these high costs of the applications? Is this the region where you are living? Did your Husband finally have success?

wow...98 is great. she will be able to get a residency pretty much anywhere. well i guess it depends on how long she has been out of school. alot of places concider that also. another reason why my husband had such a hard time getting in. imagine that...he practiced medicine in saudi arabia for almost 10 years and his experience didnt help at all. they want new doctors not old ones. some of the programs dont want u to be out of college for over 2-3 years and some 5 years.

oh yeah...start saving up money for those applications too. they are not cheap!!! we spent $1,000 the first year and got noooo interviews so the next year we spent $2,000 and the only interview he got was at the hospital here and only cuz he went there and begged and wouldnt stop begging until they interviewed him.

also prepare yourself for they only hire once a year. so if u dont make it the first time u have to wait a whole year before applying again and with their education no one is going to hire them. my husband applied many places and didnt get called...why would they hire someone who is going to quit as soon as they get a job in their profession anyway?

u have to go thru a online application process to get into a residency program. i cant remember the name of it right now and hassan is sleeping or i would ask him. i think the first 10 applications are free and then after that u pay for them. its the only way to apply for residency or internship. maybe ur talking about something totally different then i am but he is only a MD. maybe phd does things totally different. hassan is a internal medicine resident. he got his md and then took his usmle step one and step two tests. they didnt have clinical skills assessement and step 3 when he took his tests so it was not necessay for him to take them then (those are the 2 he is behind on) and now he has to do a 3 year residency (first year is a internship) and if he wants to get into a sub speciality like cardiology, dermotolgy..etc the would have to do a fellowship after the residency ends.

the way to get into the residency program is the online application process. this way they can apply thru the united states easily. it would be hard to go from hospital to hospital to apply so that makes it easy for them to apply every where. i dont know of anyone who dont go thru this system. they dont even take applications in the hospital. they only charge for the applications not the interviews.

anyway he went thru a lot of ####### to get in the program. he didnt have any connections at all. my sister is a nurse and has doctor friends and they couldnt help him either. i guess alot of it is just luck.

[Mommy2ZaidnSalma 11]

My job has a disability provider that will pay me 80% of my salary....and it is only for 6 weeks.....im sure of that....

[Donna A 4]

olivia...just looked it up myself...its called ERAS. i think its electronic residency application system or something like that. I know its ERAS tho.

[S and S 12]

For Olivia and Donna:

My husband is a doctor and graduated from medical school just a few years ago. Due to the situation in his home country he couldn't really do his residency though he has done some interning through a hosptial outside of Iraq. He has started studying for steps 1 and 2, we know about 3 though we worry about the first two now. I bought a couple books he can use when he gets here, but any suggestions you both have would be great. My husband's english is excellent and his whole medical school was in english, so I am not worried about that part. I just worry about what kind of work he should do until he is ready to take the tests and until he can start a residency.

Edited April 24, 2008 by S and S

[simple_male 1]

my husband is a mechanical engineer and can't get an interview here in america for the life of him! every job he's sent his resume to doesn't call back. i think just taking any job, going to more school, then looking again after might give him a better chance.

a friend of mine from morocco who moved to the US 32 years ago (things are different now, i know) went to school starting at high school even was a college graduate from morocco....and now he's the vice president of a bank (making bank!lol) so it can happen. i suggest putting all your husbands back in school here and see what happens!

Yes, taking a job and going to school really does help as I have seen it with my own eyes. Yes, I also know a man who came here about 34 years ago, and he is now the executive of Mutual Banking. There is good opportunity to work upwards, its just now with the economy and the taboo on these men, its harder and the process, all the more headachy for us who only wish to see our husbands satisfied with their work and give them peace of mind.

but they can tell a lot of times by the person's name if they have half a brain!

i had my husband abbreviate his name because his full name is practically impossible to pronounce. he refuses to use another name all together though.

absolutely. as a side note, Simplemale if everyone one did everything they are SUPPOSED to do, like not SUPPOSED to ask/look at religion I wouldn't have even and these concerned women wouldn't have even wasted a breath to respod to this topic.

I never said discrimination does not exist. Again, I know the guideline. An Interviewer is not supposed to ask the job seeker about his religion, race. However, some interviewer might not follow this guideline and of course many job seekers are not aware of this. If one is asked about the race, religion, he/she can simply politely say that he/she prefers not to answer the question. If a job seeker thinks the interviewer is too much concerned about the job seeker's religion, perhaps it is better not to work in that company, if a job offer is made. Sooner or later co-workers, bosses will come to know the religion of the new employee. So the job seeker should make an effort to figure out the company's working environment during the interview and company tour. For your information, sometimes I also interview candidates. It might be easy to find a person's religion by looking at the name, if the name is obvious (mohammad, ahmed, khan, etc). But it is also hard to know a person's religion by looking at the name when the name is not obvious.

We all know this...please again, this topic is to voice conerns of jobs that are happenning here and the problems faced by MENA newcomers, not a topic to discuss the hiring process. No need to talk of guidelines we all know them this is a topic for MENA women voicing concern of the situation at hand.

thank you

I just try to write something which might be helpful to some readers. I find it very surprising that you are instructing people how to reply this thread that you started. I thought, each one is entitled to voice his/her own opinion.

Simple Male, discrimination may be illegal, but it happens constantly here in the deep south where we live. I saw it for years against myself as a woman, and my husband sees it as a non-Muslim Arab man. He's been asked to his face if he's a terrorist, if he talks to Bin Laden, been called Bin Laden by supervisors, etc.....

Now that he's unemployed he doesn't even get calls for interviews in spite of a great work history. They just have to see his name for his resume to end up in the trash apparently.

My economics professor made a comment last week in our Labor Economics course that was about like what you were saying. He seems to think that if something is illegal it won't happen very often. That isn't the case. Laws can't change what is in someones heart and mind, no matter how hard we wish they would. People rarely risk sueing for discrimination because it will get a person black-listed for life and nobody wants to be out of work forever (well, some people do, but not the majority.) I put up with sexual harrassment daily for over two years because I was supporting two kids and had no choice and I know many people who do the same.

On the note of knowledge of Morocco - when we send money to his family we've been asked what state Morocco is in even though we put it in the County field on the form. When Abdel tells his co-workers that it is in Africa, they say "Hey, you're our brother man!" That has actually helped him form friendships at work before. Some people seem surprised that there are white people in Africa and think he's lying. He has to explain to them that North Africa is mostly Arab. I have to admit that I knew very little about Africa or Arabs or lots of things before I met an Arab man. The people he meets who know much about Morocco and Africa are usually the older guys at work who were over there during a war or whose fathers were there. We have a lot of retired military down here who are big into US history especially of the wars, so they have studied up on it and love to talk to him about North Africa.

Thats essentially what I mean by bad associations - I think we all understand that here. Asking me what are bad associations wasn't being helpful, it was trying to argue that there should not be such associations because employers are not supposed to ask he religion and also that all names do not reveal religion. again i think we all know that right now those things are not always happenning, and employers are not being neutral and it is quite obvious what I meant by bad associations.

I never said discrimination does not exist.

[Donna A 4]

For Olivia and Donna:

My husband is a doctor and graduated from medical school just a few years ago. Due to the situation in his home country he couldn't really do his residency though he has done some interning through a hosptial outside of Iraq. He has started studying for steps 1 and 2, we know about 3 though we worry about the first two now. I bought a couple books he can use when he gets here, but any suggestions you both have would be great. My husband's english is excellent and his whole medical school was in english, so I am not worried about that part. I just worry about what kind of work he should do until he is ready to take the tests and until he can start a residency.

well he will probably just have to take whatever he can until he can get into a residency. hassan couldnt get any job. he begged for a job at a sleep clinic and they told him...we wont hire u cuz u will just leave and we cant invest time in training u and then u leave. he applied at some factories and never got called. they probably just laughed at his application and said ####### is a doctor appling for a job for.

he did do an observership for 6 months in the hospital he is in now. he hoped it would help him in getting a job there. well it didnt. they wouldnt hire him. so he just kept going and begging and the program director said...ok ill interivew u but i doubt u will get hired. ur scores are under what we allow. well of course he didnt match and it was his only interview so we were loosing hope. one week before the starting date for all new interns they called and said he was hired...dont know what the sudden change of heart was...maybe cuz someone they hired didnt show up or maybe cuz the program director was dieing of cancer and wanted to do something nice...but who cares..he got hired!!!

its probably best for him to get his study materials there. they are a heck of alot cheaper then here. i think kaplin has a good study program. they get the same book there as we get here only theirs is the knock off version. u know someone buys the book and copies them to sell.

im not sure (i didnt check ur timeline) but make sure he brings all his documents from the college...i dont know what they are called but look like a report card to me. any letter of recomdations, his deploma of course. i cant remember what else he had to have.

[S and S 12]

For Olivia and Donna:

My husband is a doctor and graduated from medical school just a few years ago. Due to the situation in his home country he couldn't really do his residency though he has done some interning through a hosptial outside of Iraq. He has started studying for steps 1 and 2, we know about 3 though we worry about the first two now. I bought a couple books he can use when he gets here, but any suggestions you both have would be great. My husband's english is excellent and his whole medical school was in english, so I am not worried about that part. I just worry about what kind of work he should do until he is ready to take the tests and until he can start a residency.

well he will probably just have to take whatever he can until he can get into a residency. hassan couldnt get any job. he begged for a job at a sleep clinic and they told him...we wont hire u cuz u will just leave and we cant invest time in training u and then u leave. he applied at some factories and never got called. they probably just laughed at his application and said ####### is a doctor appling for a job for.

he did do an observership for 6 months in the hospital he is in now. he hoped it would help him in getting a job there. well it didnt. they wouldnt hire him. so he just kept going and begging and the program director said...ok ill interivew u but i doubt u will get hired. ur scores are under what we allow. well of course he didnt match and it was his only interview so we were loosing hope. one week before the starting date for all new interns they called and said he was hired...dont know what the sudden change of heart was...maybe cuz someone they hired didnt show up or maybe cuz the program director was dieing of cancer and wanted to do something nice...but who cares..he got hired!!!

its probably best for him to get his study materials there. they are a heck of alot cheaper then here. i think kaplin has a good study program. they get the same book there as we get here only theirs is the knock off version. u know someone buys the book and copies them to sell.

im not sure (i didnt check ur timeline) but make sure he brings all his documents from the college...i dont know what they are called but look like a report card to me. any letter of recomdations, his deploma of course. i cant remember what else he had to have.

Thank God he brought all his documents from school with him when he left Iraq and it is all stamped and certified. I'm half-way thinking it is better he doesn't mention he went to medical school so he can get a job. Since he is coming as a refugee, they will get him a temporary job in the beginning regardless, but in the long term it may help to not mention his schooling. He doesn't have his masters yet, but from what I understand that is not necessary to start out. I bought him a book called "First Aid for the USMLE step 2 CK". Do you know if this book will be helpful?

[Rocketta 0]

Hubby is a barber. Hopefully I can convince him to go back to school after he works on getting a GED. However, it is his life and one of the things he wants badly is to live his life as he sees fit so I'll support whatever he wants to do..... well for a while.

a barber can make a good living. And if he can open his own shop, he can rent out spaces to other barbers and have quite a bit of autonomy. I'm not sure if a barber makes as much as a hair stylists who works with women, but I think it would be a pretty steady job, here.

He can go the barber route or the salon route it's up to him as long as he knows he will be doing my hair regardless ow what he wants to do for a living.

Actually, if he learns how to do my hair, I have dreads there is a lot of money in the maintenance of natural hair styles.

About the deep south and discrimination.....I think saying hey it may not be discrimination is fine but I also think people know in their gut when stuff is up and the answer is always more qualified participants. However, when you find out who got the job and they have years and years less experience than you well it's hard to think anything other than discrimination.

Oh and about seeing muslim names on applications....... check out this study ...

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0DX...104521293/print

What's in a name? Study shows that workplace discrimination begins long before the job seeker shows up for an interview

Kendra Hamilton

Thinking of naming your child Keisha or Aisha? How about Rasheed or Tremayne? African American pars across the nation may have to think again, as a recent study has shown that workplace discrimination begins long before the job seeker shows up for an interview.

Indeed, it seems to be in play from the moment the resume hits the human resource manager's desk.

Dr. Marianne Bertrand, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, and Dr. Sendhil Mullainathan, MacArthur-winning associate professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have made a significant contribution to the research literature with their new study, "Are Emily and Brendan More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination."

With names chosen from birth records in Chicago and Boston, the researchers crafted sets of resumes--some of higher quality, some of lower--labeled them with either "White-sounding" or "Black-sounding" names and sent nearly 5,000 of them out in response to 1,300 jobs advertised in the Chicago and Boston papers.

The response from colleagues as they designed their deceptively simple study was, "'Oh, yes, you'll find a discrimination effect, a reverse discrimination effect,'" Bertrand says.

Instead, they found that resumes with "White-sounding" names--like Jay, Brad, Carrie and Kristen--were 50 percent more likely than those with "Black-sounding" names to receive a callback. The results were striking, holding both for jobs at the lower end of the spectrum--cashier and mailroom clerk positions--and for those at the executive level. Put another way, a White job seeker would have to send out at least 10 resumes to receive a single contact from a potential employer. A Black candidate, meanwhile, would have to send out 15--and this in a "soft" economy with a relatively low rate of new job creation.

The most intriguing--and troubling--aspect of the study was that the discrimination effect held even for candidates with stronger credentials: those who had gone to better schools, or won awards, or had fewer resume "gaps," periods of at least six months without employment.

"We really thought a higher quality resume would help the African American candidate--that the employer would put less weight on the names," Bertrand says.

And indeed, improving the resume quality helped candidates with White-sounding names significantly--their chances of receiving a callback rose 30 percent. But for candidates with Black-sounding names, "we found none of that. If anything, we found the opposite," Bertrand says.

"It was very counterintuitive," she adds. "One imagined employers looking at the names and kind of screening at that stage, not going any further, not even reading the resume. People in HR (human resources) call that a 'deselection process,' where you see a pile of resumes that you have to get through and do a kind of rapid screen" in order to separate the wheat from the chaff.

"That's exactly how we used to do it," notes Kimberly Wilson, who held a human resources position in a mid-sized social policy research firm in the Washington, D.C., area. It was Wilson's job to cull the stack of resumes--"perhaps around 300" for every position, she says--down to about 20 names that would then be brought before a committee.

"And every time, the committee would be more critical of resumes with Black-sounding or foreign-sounding names. 'Oh, yes, she did a research internship, but it wasn't in health and that's what we're really looking for,'" Wilson says. When the names didn't provide a clue to race, the committee members would often zero in on other data--professional organizations, for example.

"'Oh, he belonged to the Hispanic fellowship group in college," she adds, explaining, "I don't even think it was conscious, certainly not in most cases."

Conscious or not, the MIT-UChicago study demonstrates that employers actively discriminate among job candidates on the basis of race. And attempts by African Americans to improve their chances with more education and more skills don't appear to help at all.

In addition, the study showed that:

Adjusting for gender greatly increased the discrimination effect. There was a difference of 3.35 percentage points--or 50 percent--between the callback rates for all Whites (10.1 percent) and all Blacks (6.7 percent). But the callback rate for the lowest scoring Black female name, Aisha (2.2 percent) was 6.1 percentage points below that of the lowest scoring White female name, Emily (8.3 percent) and 11.4 percentage points below that of the highest scoring White female name. Indeed, five of the nine Black female names--Aisha, Keisha, Tamika, Lakisha and Tanisha--scored lower than the lowest scoring White female name. By contrast, the racial gap between male names was not nearly so pronounced. The lowest scoring White and Black male names--Neil and Rasheed--were only 3.6 percentage points apart.

Applicants who lived in "better" neighborhoods--"Whiter," more educated, higher income--received more callbacks than those who did not. But again, Whites benefited so much more than Blacks, it was not clear that Blacks benefited at all, suggesting that, despite a widespread societal belief in the stigmatizing effect of a "ghetto" address, a good address doesn't help African Americans overcome discrimination either.

The racial gap in callbacks varied greatly by occupation and industry, but not necessarily in expected ways. The gap between Whites and Blacks for the highest occupational category, the managerial and executive category, was the lowest measured: 33 percent. The highest racial gap was seen in the rung below the top level--administrative supervisors, who saw a racial gap of 64 percent. And near the bottom of the ladder, secretaries had the second highest racial gap in callbacks.

The extent of the discrimination is "remarkably uniform" across all occupations and industries. Neither federal contractors--bound by affirmative action rules--nor companies who call themselves "Equal Opportunity Employers" discriminate less than any others, suggesting that the designation may be more or less meaningless. The only exceptions were companies located in Black neighborhoods in Chicago--these discriminated less than other firms.

Placed in the national context--the fact that African Americans are twice as likely to be unemployed as White Americans and that, when employed, they earn 25 percent less--the study seems both an explanation and a reiteration of very bad tidings.

It was certainly greeted as such in Boston and Chicago when the results were released earlier this year. They sparked a blizzard of newspaper coverage, not to mention spirited discussions on radio call-in shows.

Bertrand says she has been virtually inundated with phone calls and e-mails--particularly, from "people who in their own lives are carrying out the experiment," she explains. "I've heard from people who were African American and had a very distinct African American name who changed the name on their resumes to a less race-salient name, dumbed down their education and did much better....

"Of course, that was not our point."

Though many media accounts have seized on the name-changing aspect as a possible solution, Bertrand is quite clear that "it seems like an easy way out. The burden should be on the companies, not on the person looking for a job. And to give up your name? When names are such an important part of personal identity--No?"

Nor should the study's findings deter African American job seekers who want to sharpen their skills, says Dr. William Harvey, vice president of the American Council on Education and director of ACE's Office of Minorities in Higher Education.

"Unfortunately, there's nothing in the study that contradicts what we already anecdotally know to be true of the experience of African Americans in the job market. There's nothing surprising here," he says. "So this should not deter those of us being discriminated against from getting as many weapons as possible to add to our arsenals--and one of the most respected weapons is still higher education."

Bertrand adds that she is quite encouraged by the fact that "there's been a huge amount of interest, much more than we expected, from people in training and resource management." She hopes in the future "to use the study as a training device, to kind of illustrate to the HR people that these kinds of biases might be at play, whether they're conscious or subconscious," adding, "What we're hearing from the people in HR who have contacted us is that they want to de-bias the selection process too."

Mean Callback Rates By First Name *

White Female Black Female

Mean Mean

Name Callback Name Callback

Emily 8.3% Aisha 2.2%

Anne 9.0% Keisha 3.8%

Jill 9.3% Tamika 5.4%

Allison 9.4% Lakisha 5.5%

Sarah 9.8% Tanisha 6.3%

Meredith 10.6% Latoya 8.8%

Laurie 10.8% Kenya 9.1%

Carrie 13.1% Latonya 9.1%

Kristen 13.6% Ebony 10.5%

White Male Black Male

Mean Mean

Name Callback Name Callback

Neil 6.6% Rasheed 3.0%

Geoffrey 6.8% Tremayne 4.3%

Brett 6.8% Kareem 4.7%

Brendan 7.7% Darnell 4.8%

Greg 7.8% Tyrone 5.3%

Todd 8.7% Jamal 6.6%

Matthew 9.0% Hakim 7.3%

Jay 13.2% Leroy 9.4%

Brad 15.9% Jermaine 11.3%

* NOTES: 1) SAMPLE: ALL SENT RESUMES. 2) THIS TABLE REPORTS CALLBACK

RATES BY FIRST NAME WITHIN EACH SEX/RACE GROUP, FIRST NAMES ARE RANKED

BY INCREASING CALLBACK RATE.

SOURCE: "ARE EMILY AND BRENDAN MORE EMPLOYABLE THAN LAKISHA AND JAMAL?

A FIELD EXPERIMENT ON LABOR MARKET DISCRIMINATION" BY DR. MARIANNE

BERTRAND AND DR. SENDHIL MULLAINATHAN

Racial Gap in Callback Rates by Occupation, Industry *

Panel A: Occupation Breakdown

Callback rates

for

% of Ads White Black Ratio Difference

Names Names

Executive &

Managerial 14.5% 7.91% 5.95% 1.33 1.96%

Administrative

Supervisors 7.7% 9.57% 5.85% 1.64 3.72%

Sales Representatives 15.2% 8.04% 5.09% 1.58 2.95%

Sales Workers, Retail

Finance, Insurance

& Personal Services 16.8% 10.46% 7.05% 1.48 3.41%

Secretaries 33.9% 10.49% 6.63% 1.58 3.86%

Clerical Workers,

Admin. Support 11.9% 13.75% 9.96% 1.38 3.79%

Panel B: Industry Breakdown

Callback rates

for

% of Ads White Black Ratio Difference

Names Names

Manufacturing 8.3% 6.93% 3.96% 1.75 2.97%

Transportation

and Communication 3.0% 12.16% 14.86% 0.82 -2.70%

Wholesale

and Retail Trade 21.5% 8.76% 5.71% 1.53 3.05%

Finance, Insurance

and Real Estate 8.5% 10.63% 4.35% 2.44 6.28%

Business and

Personal Services 26.8% 11.30% 6.71% 1.68 4.59%

Health, Educational

and Social Services 15.5% 12.14% 9.50% 1.28 2.64%

Other/Unknown 16.4% 8.71% 6.47% 1.35 2.24%

* NOTES:

1.) THIS TABLE REPORTS CALLBACK RATES BY RACE AND OCCUPATION (PANEL A)

AND BY RACE AND INDUSTRY (PANEL B). SAMPLE IS ALL SENT

RESUMES (N=4890).

2.) THE TWO TESTS REPORTED IN THE TABLE ARE LOG-LIKELIHOOD TEST OBTAINED

FROM TWO SEPARATE PROBIT REGRESSIONS. IN PANEL A, WE REGRESS THE

CALLBACK DUMMY ON 6 OCCUPATION DUMMIES, A BLACK DUMMY, AND THE

INTERACTION OF THE BLACK WITH THE SIX OCCUPATION DUMMIES. IN PANEL B,

WE REGRESS THE CALLBACK DUMMY ON 7 INDUSTRY DUMMIES, A BLACK DUMMY AND

THE INTERACTIONS OF THE BLACK DUMMY WITH THE 7 INDUSTRY DUMMIES. IN

EACH CASE, THE NULL HYPOTHESIS TESTED IS THAT THE INTERACTION TERM

EFFECTS ARE ALL THE SAME.

SOURCE: "ARE EMILY AND BRENDAN MORE EMPLOYABLE THAN LAKISHA AND JAMAL?

A FIELD EXPERIMENT ON LABOR MARKET DISCRIMINATION" BY DR. MARIANNE

BERTRAND AND DR. SENDHIL MULLAINATHAN

COPYRIGHT 2003 Cox, Matthews & Associates

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group

As an African-American I would love to go through life thinking as long as I show up and do the best I can that I have a legitimate shot at all jobs but it's just not the reality I live in and sadly it's not the reality that our MENA husbands will live in either. That's America.

Maybe one day I'll post the study that showed white males with criminal records got more call backs than minorities without criminal records.

[S and S 12]

As an African-American I would love to go through life thinking as long as I show up and do the best I can that I have a legitimate shot at all jobs but it's just not the reality I live in and sadly it's not the reality that our MENA husbands will live in either. That's America.

Maybe one day I'll post the study that showed white males with criminal records got more call backs than minorities without criminal records.

That study was very interesting. Thanks for posting. I have noticed since I changed my last name to my husband's name that people treat me differently. I have actually had people ask me if I am middle eastern based on my name even though I don't have middle eastern features or an accent. One guy joked today that I should have gone through a metal detector today before coming in his office.

[dolphin1 5]

At the high school i specialized at english literatures, i got my high school diploma in 2001 and then went to the university to continue studying english. But as the university was in the other city, the BAD me i didnt go to live there like other students did and do, i just went there from time to time to get courses sometimes i didnt go at all,i was doing so so good but i became lazy and lost the mood to study, i left the university in the 2nd year whcich was the year that i studied accountancy in a government high quality college which is now hard to get in. But again the stupid who is me ,i left it too. Now i am in the US i still dont have the work permit but i am searching to see how is the job market. When i think about how stupid i was to get depressed and left my studies, i think too that even if i got lots of diplomas it wont help in this country (i think that to make myself feel better not stupid about what i lost). Lots of people who are in new places it is hard for them to adjust,but with time everything will be great, for me i will start with anything.good luck

[Donna A 4]

For Olivia and Donna:

My husband is a doctor and graduated from medical school just a few years ago. Due to the situation in his home country he couldn't really do his residency though he has done some interning through a hosptial outside of Iraq. He has started studying for steps 1 and 2, we know about 3 though we worry about the first two now. I bought a couple books he can use when he gets here, but any suggestions you both have would be great. My husband's english is excellent and his whole medical school was in english, so I am not worried about that part. I just worry about what kind of work he should do until he is ready to take the tests and until he can start a residency.

well he will probably just have to take whatever he can until he can get into a residency. hassan couldnt get any job. he begged for a job at a sleep clinic and they told him...we wont hire u cuz u will just leave and we cant invest time in training u and then u leave. he applied at some factories and never got called. they probably just laughed at his application and said ####### is a doctor appling for a job for.

he did do an observership for 6 months in the hospital he is in now. he hoped it would help him in getting a job there. well it didnt. they wouldnt hire him. so he just kept going and begging and the program director said...ok ill interivew u but i doubt u will get hired. ur scores are under what we allow. well of course he didnt match and it was his only interview so we were loosing hope. one week before the starting date for all new interns they called and said he was hired...dont know what the sudden change of heart was...maybe cuz someone they hired didnt show up or maybe cuz the program director was dieing of cancer and wanted to do something nice...but who cares..he got hired!!!

its probably best for him to get his study materials there. they are a heck of alot cheaper then here. i think kaplin has a good study program. they get the same book there as we get here only theirs is the knock off version. u know someone buys the book and copies them to sell.

im not sure (i didnt check ur timeline) but make sure he brings all his documents from the college...i dont know what they are called but look like a report card to me. any letter of recomdations, his deploma of course. i cant remember what else he had to have.

Thank God he brought all his documents from school with him when he left Iraq and it is all stamped and certified. I'm half-way thinking it is better he doesn't mention he went to medical school so he can get a job. Since he is coming as a refugee, they will get him a temporary job in the beginning regardless, but in the long term it may help to not mention his schooling. He doesn't have his masters yet, but from what I understand that is not necessary to start out. I bought him a book called "First Aid for the USMLE step 2 CK". Do you know if this book will be helpful?

im sure that will be good. they probably all are about the same. the problem is by leaving out he was in medical school they will want to know what he did with all his time. there will be a lapse of time that they will think he did nothing. so i dont know what the best thing to do is. i guess getting into some kind of research looks good on a resume for when he applies to residency programs. problem is they dont usually pay.

im starting to figure out what olivia is talking about now. ur sister in law is coming here to college for her PHD and not a residency at a hospital? is that correct? she is probably getting a PHD in science or whatever her masters is in. i dont think u get a PHD in cardiology. thats just her profession. this is why im getting confused on applications for residency. totally different subject. she will just be coming for a degree and not a job in cardiology.

[dolphin1 5]

i forgot to say that there are some jobs like at Fry's , Target.... some convenience stores (although they say it 's dangerous especialy at night)..

[tammy2688 1]

As an African-American I would love to go through life thinking as long as I show up and do the best I can that I have a legitimate shot at all jobs but it's just not the reality I live in and sadly it's not the reality that our MENA husbands will live in either. That's America.

Maybe one day I'll post the study that showed white males with criminal records got more call backs than minorities without criminal records.

That study was very interesting. Thanks for posting. I have noticed since I changed my last name to my husband's name that people treat me differently. I have actually had people ask me if I am middle eastern based on my name even though I don't have middle eastern features or an accent. One guy joked today that I should have gone through a metal detector today before coming in his office.

yap bad associations haunt people in this way as well..simply change the name and it flushes out.

[Rocketta 0]

As an African-American I would love to go through life thinking as long as I show up and do the best I can that I have a legitimate shot at all jobs but it's just not the reality I live in and sadly it's not the reality that our MENA husbands will live in either. That's America.

Maybe one day I'll post the study that showed white males with criminal records got more call backs than minorities without criminal records.

That study was very interesting. Thanks for posting. I have noticed since I changed my last name to my husband's name that people treat me differently. I have actually had people ask me if I am middle eastern based on my name even though I don't have middle eastern features or an accent. One guy joked today that I should have gone through a metal detector today before coming in his office.

Yeah I can imagine. I hope you rolled your eyes at his joke.

[honeyblonde 0]

Women don't take their husband's last name in Morocco, and Abdel wanted to know why I wanted to take his. He joked about taking mine. Now he's wishing I had agreed to that because nobody can pronounce his. We've been discussing him shortening his first name to Del since his supervisor at his current job asked him if he can just call him Bob. Bob is my boss's name and that's the last name he wants to be called.

I've noticed a little bit of discrimination since I took his name, but not really a lot. Then again, I already have a good job so don't have to deal with the job hunt now. I have put in for jobs here at work in other departments and not gotten any response at all, but I think that's more due to a really lousy resume collection software than my name. I've heard a lot of people complain about the system used here including those trying to hire and the system screening out resumes of people they wanted to interview.

We discussed in class last week about the things that impact the pay a new immigrant will make and there are basically three factors that are important (setting aside discrimination which we all know exists):

1. Language skills - the faster the immigrant is able to learn English and the necessary slang or vocabulary of their particular work environment, the faster they can advance.

2. Establishing a US work history - most US companies don't care so much about what work a person did overseas (unless it was possibly in a professional field). Most want to see that an immigrant, just like any other person they would hire, is going to be productive. Once a U.S. work history is established it is easier to get a decent job.

3. Learning the job searching process in the US - This is probably the hardest one for most of our husbands. Abdel constantly has to call me and ask questions. The tests that even simple jobs require are totally foreign to our men, as well as even the resume format which is nothing like the CV in many of their countries. One of his friends from ESL class sent his CV to me to try to help him get a job where I work because we need a lot of engineers and he is one, but the format was not even close to what we look for. In India where he was from they apparently are allowed to ask religion, race, marital status, and all kinds of things that are illegal to ask here. Unfortunately his experience was in a totally unrelated field and our company wants only experienced aircraft engineers.

Abdel also has a problem finding his way around, even with a map, since many of the industrial areas don't have street signs or numbers on the buildings.

Yesterday unemployment office called me with 2 job opportunities they wanted to send him on. But, he is working temp and doesn't have a cell phone so I told her to e-mail the info to him and he could look at it when he got home and contact them. When he called his agency to ask about taking today off to go interview the guy told him that if he sent someone else to this job in Abdel's place, that company wouldn't want him back. He tried to call me to ask what to answer but I was on my way home. Both jobs pay $2 an hour more than this temp job, and are both better jobs. But, like Jenn said, they will probably get over 200 resumes so who knows what his chances are. Also, if he looses this temp job through his fault, he might not qualify to get back on his unemployment. At least the agency did say that taking off to go to interviews wouldn't hurt his chances of them placing him somewhere else.

I'm a little jaded I guess about the discrimination issue after my boss hired his daughters boyfriend to do my old job and after a year of him screwing it up I'm still being blamed for not teaching him right. 3 very qualified women applied for the job and got interviewed, but the boss had already decided who was getting the job before he even posted it. I had no idea who he was until I realized how unqualifed he was and started asking around. I have tried to train him but I can't give a boy a brain. If I didn't see this kind of thing all around me maybe I'd think that it wasn't so bad, but I do see it, and not just in this particular situation.

Edited April 24, 2008 by honeyblonde