Unemployment and the Job Interview

Unemployment and the Job Interview

Measuring "unemployment" is complicated because like a diamond it has many facets. In the U.S. currently, only about 60% of all people over 18 yrs. old hold jobs. By this measure, the "real" unemployment rate is 40%.

That perspective is too broad. Most people who don't work are in school, staying home to raise children, or retired.

Government statistical geeks have the difficult task of trying to measure people who want to work but can't find anything. They have a series of measurements numbered U1—U6, with each total representing a number which includes a larger detachment of the country without jobs. The parameters change as it moves upward on the scale. Are you asleep?

The U6 unemployment rate counts not only people without work seeking full-time employment (the more familiar U-3 rate), but also counts "marginally attached workers and those working part-time for economic reasons."

For the last couple of years, U6 numbers have been hanging around the 15% range of people without work who are out in the market seeking full-time employment. That’s a lot of job interviews going on!

image: dorothea lange

After a really good interview, one can spend the rest of the day playing the “what-if” game, daydreaming about the next appointment, replaying the conversation in the mind, even mentally negotiating the right salary. 

In my experience, job interviews are like the early stages of dating, especially when the meeting is held in a social setting. One can go through an innocent evening at a restaurant, having a reasonably good time, thinking that there could be some potential in the relationship; only to never hear from their partner again. The other participant made a snap judgment right after the appetizer that you weren’t their type and that is the end of it. 

Because they are polite and adept at hiding their true feelings, the repartee is cheerful perhaps even deceptive; nevertheless at the end of the evening there are no real signs of affection and the hiring party (in dating this is obviously cloaked) laments privately whether it was a complete waste of time. “We are not going to offer this person the job,” thinks the decision-maker; at least the etouffee was excellent! 

Employment is a huge commitment today, so there are many reasons to avoid resolution as to the offer of a job (or love). If there is no real connection it is always best to keep looking. Sometimes the only collaborator the pursuer has is time; in love and commerce the “ticking clock” can be one’s best ally. 

For me it comes down to the discipline of letting God be sovereign over all things big and small. Will I be able to surrender the future into God’s hands and open my heart to let Him work, even open to “rejection” at the hands of an erstwhile suitor? This type of surrender gives all choice to God, all I have to do is be diligent in the process (run the race) but bow my knees in prayer: “Thy will be done.”  2 Corinthians 12: 9-10

©Mark H. Pillsbury