Just opened my rejection letter

They have decided to only continue to interview candidates who are more qualified. What the heck? During the interview, they told me that they've had people in this position straight out of college, who had never been in a food plant in their life. The job was for an research and development technician at a food company, who would basically start off weighing ingredients, cooking them according to instructions, serving panelists, and entering data into the computer with repsonsibilites to increase as the tech learned more. I am a quality specialist at a food plant who has done all of those things aside from serving panelists and tastes and comments on product myself and have many reslonsibilities in my job. I wanted the job because I want to get out of quality, into research and development, and into a bigger company where I can advance. I know they interviewed several other candidates, but how can I possibly switch into anything even similiar if even the entry level positions are being filled by people with that specific experience?
Oh well, I won't have to move now (or have a ridiculously long commute). I have also applied recently for a position for a medical research company that involves killing little animals, even though I don't want to kill anything. They probably have several people applying for that position though that have had a few years working at that.

but I couldn't kill little animals for any money!

but I really do want to do research. This company, seeing my resume on monster.com, had called me to interview for a position right before I had my current job. I was interviewing for my current position, another full time position, a temp assignment at a company that I wanted to work for, and had been just called back for my seasonal position I had before being laid off a few months before. I told them no thanks at the time.
I know that having an advance degree (currently have a BA in biology, which would be a BS at most colleges) would help. Several of these companies where I have applied have tuition reimbursement though and I really need to be making money now anyway.

They want to hire new college grads because they won't be as demanding. But they say that other candidates are "more qualified" to obscure this despicable practice.

was. That's a big difference. Keep your hook in the water and play the odds to best favor your getting the job. It will happen.

Just got one myself yesterday. It kind of floored me, too, since I'm already working at the job for which I applied (I'm a temp) and getting excellent student evals and letters of rec and the whole ball of wax.

I haven't even told anyone in my family yet. I wanted to wait until I could talk about it without getting all upset.

Someone else in the same boat (also a temp who applied) said that it's not really who's most qualified, it's who the committee identifies with most. That really made sense--I've got a higher degree than most of the people on the committee and probably as much experience if not more. They don't see as being the right "fit" for the job because I'm not like them.

Oh, well.