The Contradictions of Job Seeking
There are some niggling contradictions in job seeking. They apply in situations where the job-seeker is simply looking for a job, and to a lesser degree in situations where pursuing further education or qualification is practical. In other words, these contradictions are clearer when the job-seeker is trying to continue along, rather than drastically change, their so-called career path.
The main contradiction is that while the job-seeker’s “job” is to prove to potential employers their capacity for productive work, the condition of job seeking itself is extremely unproductive— not just in the eyes of potential employers, but sometimes objectively so.
What follows is more relevant to white-collar work, but it could apply to work more broadly.
Generally speaking, employers value two attributes in potential recruits: 1) successful past employment, and 2) some loosely defined skills and conditions that fall under “networking”.
Anything the job-seeker does in the dreaded “in-between-jobs” period that doesn’t fit within these two categories is undesirable and unproductive (again, objectively or from the employer’s POV).
For example, doing objectively productive yet unsalaried work is in fact unproductive vis-à-vis one’s chances of finding new employment. Because in a perverse way, it demonstrates either the job-seeker’s inability to valorize their labor, or worse, that their labor is not valuable. Thus it seems that the job-seeker is discouraged from engaging in such unpaid productivity, or from disclosing it.
There are plenty of activities that fit this description, but to name a few: volunteering, self-education, creative endeavors by those not seeking work in creative fields (the inverse may also be true), becoming exceptionally good at reproductive work (e.g. cooking or housekeeping), or, and this applies in the academic context that I know too well, doing unpaid work (research and education) with (for?) previous employers.
The fact that all of this seemingly productive work is neither salaried nor “entrepreneurial” in the conventional sense makes it unproductive (or invisible) in the potential employer’s perspective.
Short of past salaried work—and by extension, all preceding formal qualifications and accolades relating to said salaried work, such as education and formal training—the only thing that can increase a job-seeker’s chances of gaining employment is “networking”.
Networking is a can of worms, so I won’t fully get into it. Suffice to say that in many cases the emphasis on “networking” is a smokescreen for less savory realities of the job market, like nepotism and discriminatory hiring.
Leaving that aside, I want to focus again on contradiction. Being good at “networking” as it’s conceived of today is not a reflection of having truly useful “soft-skills” that are relevant to many professions, skills like problem solving, public speaking, and critical thinking. Rather, it’s code for being good at public relations in its most insipid and unoriginal forms, like embellishing one’s accomplishments on LinkedIn. In simpler terms, the job-seeker is encouraged to talk more about work in the interim period of unemployment than to engage in anything that resembles actual work.
That type of “networking”, if one can call it that, happens to be so mind-numbingly unproductive, and it takes time and energy away from what intuitively feels like more productive activities (see the list above).
One logical explanation for why things are the way they are (if indeed my reading of the situation is correct) is that much of the white-collar work sought by the job-seeker is in fact a continuation of that PR-centric “networking” that’s encouraged in the job-seeking phase. Thus it makes sense that employers (and especially HR specialists) would screen for such attributes. The potential employer cares more about your ability to do PR on their behalf (even when PR is not your official job) than they care about your ability to think critically, garden, or play the flute.