A rather upsetting situation..

i have a story..it's not about me..but it affects me in many ways..so here goes:

in pharmacy school, there are residency positions in various hospitals for graduating pharmacists (similar to medical residencies for graduating doctors)..there are very limited spots for a residency position..25 in all of ontario to be exact..for 2 pharmacy schools with ~200 graduating students each year..so the odds? not that great

to apply for a position is similar to applying for any other job..cover letter + resume + interview etc..you can apply to as many of the hospitals as you'd like and they conduct their own interview..

so my friend who is graduating this year applied to ~20/25 positions..he got an interview for all the hospitals..this is pretty amazing..yet not surprising because he is what you would call 'the very well rounded' student..he is the class president with good grades, he plays sports, he has lots of extra curriculars and he is well liked..

so after you have your interviews, it is a little different than a regular job application process..what happens is each of the 25 hospitals ranks their top 3 picks and you as the job seeker rank your 3 picks..then the system matches #1s with #1s and #2s wtih #2 etc..

already there is a flaw in the system..

anyways, the results of the 25 residency positions was announced and my 'over qualified' friend did not get a position

how did that happen?

2 reasons:

part 1) how he screwed himself over
-my friend only got to pick his top 3 choices..so as anyone else, he picked the 3 places he would most like to work for..
the problem: those weren't necessarily the 3 interviews that went the best

part 2) how the system screwed him over
-more than majority of his interviews could have picked him as their #1 or #2..
the problem: the system would have scanned his #1 and if it didn't match his #1, then all those places would be removed from his list of potential positions..meaning he has no chance with the majority of the places anymore

it kinda sucks because this system is incredibly flawed..if he had chosen a place as his #2 and they chose him as their #1, there is no chance of a match..in reality, this would not be the case..what would actually happen is that they would offer him the position, he (realizing he didn't get his #1) would take the #2 job..both parties would be very satisfied

but in the case of this silly little matching system, a majority of the positions would be filled with #2 and #3 people..

it really is upsetting..it sucks to be screwed over like that and it juss isn't fair sometimes..but such is life