Recent USC Law Grad Finds Solace in Fact that She’s Overqualified for Starbucks

By Karen Huang, Contributing Reporter

SEATTLE -- As a recent graduate of the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, Elise Montenegro was eager to begin her legal career in her hometown of Seattle, Washington. Elise returned to Seattle just weeks after her graduation still looking for a job. “I was willing to do anything. Anything…,” she said in a telephone interview. “I was sitting in a Starbucks one day and thought, I really love their stuff. Why not work here?” Montenegro applied to the company’s legal department and made it to the third round of interviews. “In the third round I blanked on the address of the most artsy and hip Starbucks in the Des Moines, Iowa metropolitan area and they hired someone else.”

Although disappointed, she did not give up her dream. She realized if she did love their coffee and crumb cake so much, she should work as a barista behind the counter at Starbucks. “I went to their flagship store in Seattle and applied to work behind the counter, but things didn’t work out. They told me that my law degree meant that I was overqualified to work behind the counter and that I was under-qualified for their only other available position -- communications.”