Tag Archives: Unemployment

Another Look at Employment Gaps, Responsibility, and Objectivity

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“They just think that you might have a problem with drugs or alcohol,” a friend explained, “They don’t want to hire someone with that sort of problem.” So, employment gaps carry a negative stigma even though people have a wide variety of reasons for taking a few years off here and there. Due to the recession, potential employers have become more understanding as more people have them now, so I hear. However, well-meaning friends and relatives will urge you to cover them up with some story if you don’t already have a conventionally acceptable excuse to take a break. You can also gauge how much of a concern employment gaps are to those that have them by conducting an Internet search on how to explain them.

One thing I’ve noticed about myself is that the older I become, the harder it is for others to (1) scare me about the consequences of diverging from the conventional life-path and (2) convince me that so-called “mistakes” are embarrassing. Yep, I’m not embarrassed about my own employment gaps and I’m going to explain why as well as make a case for changing how we think about this issue. Must the acquisition of skills and experience be observed by an employer in order to count?

Rethinking the View on Employment Gaps

Odds are, during an employment gap, you were doing more than just eating, sleeping, and eliminating. Why shouldn’t the experiences and skills acquired informally from classes, other people, self-employment, or learning on your own count? If you enjoy learning on your own as much as I do, you’ll find that it’s even pretty easy to learn the basics of using new software programs by tapping into the various tutorials available on the Internet. Search engines are your friends. Search, “how to use [name of program]” or “tutorials for [name of program]” and you’ll see.

Also, let’s face it. There are times when you learn more during an employment gap than you learn performing the same tasks and fulfilling the same duties over and over again in an employment situation (until someone finally notices and grants you additional responsibilities). That’s why some of us experience workplace boredom.

Furthermore, at least in my geographic region specifically (California), previous employers don’t give a lot of information about you in order to guard against lawsuits. I’ve received this human resources policy memo within organizations as an employee and as someone who has called employers for reference checks on job applicants. The prevailing policy is that employers stick to confirming (1) that you were an employee and (2) the dates and time you were employed there. So, at least over here, accessible information has become more superficial.

Rethinking the View on Choices and Responsibility

The adage, “With freedom comes great responsibility” is so true! Living without a steady paycheck greatly tests your ability to be financially responsible, and some people do just fine. When I look back on my life-path, I can see why it’s diverged with respect to those who either like or are compelled by circumstance (e.g., having dependents, a mortgage, or student loan, etc.) to buy things all the time. Our priorities are different. I have loved ones who love shopping, and I’m not passing judgment on them. We’re just “wired” differently and this extends to the differing need and value we place on continuous employment.

I’ve met women who’ve bought several hundred pairs of expensive shoes. When I see something like this, I always try to calculate how much free time this can buy. This has been my mentality ever since I was a young girl, and the reason why I almost always came home from the mall empty-handed. My iron-fisted saving habit carried over into adulthood and eventually earned some good-natured ribbing from peers during college for being so against carrying a credit card balance! I was no fun to shop with as I was always thinking about the free time that the money could buy.

However, the unspoken rule seems to be that you can spend your hard earned money on anything you want but funding your own “sabbaticals” will raise eyebrows (even if you spent that time developing yourself). By the way, I’m definitely not rich. I’m just a severe penny-pincher. Ultimately, when friends or family express concern with my choice, a couple of questions come to mind: Isn’t buying my own free time a legitimate purchase? Why do I have to make excuses for this?

A Call for Objectivity

In Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix It, Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson made a case for competency-based education. This would allow students to earn credits by demonstrating mastery of skills and knowledge rather than forcing students to “do time” in a uniform manner. People vary according to the amount of time and repetition they need to master various skills. By focusing on results, students can learn at their own pace while not compelling other students to take the same amount of time. This takes the focus off how, when (including time duration), and where students acquired skills and knowledge.

This competency-based system can be extended to hiring for jobs where skills can similarly be demonstrated. Emphasis on testing for skills, abilities, and knowledge or requiring presentation of a portfolio would lend objectivity to assessing whether or not someone who appears short on number of years of work experience can perform the work or not. My call for objectivity isn’t intended to “ding” the people who have been continuously employed without a break. However, it makes sense to put some emphasis on comparing people’s performance regardless of differences in employment history timelines.

Thankfully, there are employers who will check out job applicants with employment gaps if everything else looks good. Ok, so they’ll want to confirm that I don’t have a drug or alcohol problem. There are others out there who still avoid candidates with gaps altogether however. I just tell myself that it would be hard to work for someone who’s not going to be open-minded anyway.

Is 100% unemployment realistic, desirable, and statelessly doable?

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Reblogged from In defense of anagorism:

I find it hard to imagine a situation in which all real needs can be satisfied without any work being performed by people. I find it equally hard to believe that we will ever see full employment; understood to mean enough jobs to go around. Automation is real, and it's inconceivable to me that the future needs all of us. Thus, as long as we are living under a market economy, some of us will be expendable.

Read more… 531 more words

Is it conceivable? Thinking of a way to reconstruct a society in which all the work is being performed by technology makes for an interesting thought exercise indeed. However, some thinkers (such as Andrew McAfee in his TED presentation - see my previous post "The Move Towards Self-Employment") do see the possibility of a life where people are freed up to do other things. Can the currently assumed exchange between work and consumption be broken? Can the current unemployment situation be but a painful transition on to a life that is ultimately better? If money no longer mattered, perhaps some people would still be working and striving, but for different rewards (such as popularity or mere thrill of competition) as one of my conversation partners hypothesized. This possibility has optimists exclaiming "100% unemployment now!" However if we are striving towards this type of society, one of the worst risks we take is that our creations turn on us and we live out an event akin to "The Terminator: Rise of the Machines." On the other hand, the way we currently work is already ruining people's health and therefore slowly killing a good number of us so, if things keep going the way they are, the issue of our welfare becomes moot. Check out this interesting blog post, "Is 100% unemployment realistic, desirable, and statelessly doable?"

The Move Towards Self-Employment: A Big Picture & “Little Picture” View

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Nowadays you don’t have to search very hard to find well-respected thinkers forecasting the decline of traditional employment and a corresponding rise in self-employment. Daniel Pink, author of Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working For Yourself, had been tracking the decreasing average “half-life” of organizations well before this book was published in 2001. During his time as former speechwriter for Al Gore, he was one of the first to see the information that the Bureau of Labor Statistics churned out on a weekly basis. The relationship between organizations and employees is changing thanks to technological advancement and, in particular, the Internet. Pink foresees a future in which a great proportion of the population will be working as contractors, getting together and working on one project, dispersing when the project ends, then getting together with a different group to work on another project in the fashion of film crews.  Here is Daniel Pink discussing this scenario in the following video:



In Race Against the Machine, authors Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee agree with the forecast. Moreover, they suggest a plethora of recommendations aimed at institutions to facilitate and support people as they transition from traditional employment to self-employment. Andrew McAfree holds an optimistic view of the future in this interesting presentation at a TED Conference in Boston:



At this moment in time, however, I’ve encountered people struggling with their attempt at self-employment. As a freelance researcher, some of my clients called upon me to look up requirements and procedures as they set about establishing their business. Some of the tasks seemed intimidating to them. Skimping on knowledge gathering in particular left them vulnerable to ridiculously huge liabilities and problems.

My experimental attempt at self-employment began only recently as well. So, I don’t have very many recommendations that would help those seeking self-employment succeed in their endeavor. However, when it comes to acquiring the necessary knowledge, a bit of stamina will go a long way. One of the first steps you should take, and one that I’ve witnessed so many people neglecting to take, is grabbing a comprehensive guide such as Working For Yourself: Law & Taxes for Independent Contractors, Freelancers, & Consultants by Stephen Fishman, J.D., instead of looking for information here and there at various websites. First of all, many of these websites aren’t checked for accuracy. Secondly, seeking answers to questions only when they come to mind leaves you open to missing out on information you hadn’t thought to look up. Yes, reading reference materials doesn’t sound like fun however, for many of us, plowing through the numerous, complex requirements and laws is only the tip of the iceberg.

As I proceed, I will, hopefully, be able to offer up more about my experiences – especially with regard to being self-employed as an extreme introvert. If you are like me, you’ve probably had people tell you that you can’t do this because you’re not likely to go out and schmooze enough. I know that a bunch of us out there are struggling with this. However, putting myself out there on the Internet has helped me build valuable connections. Some people I’ve met online have offered good, constructive feedback with regard to my first attempt at blogging. For that, I’m saying thank you! Self-employment is certainly a challenging experience, but it is one that I enjoy and one that I would like to master in case that future scenario suddenly arrives.

See my follow-up post, The End of Organizations as We Know Them.