Job Search Myth #1: Job search is rational. Like a math problem.

Better resume + training + interview = job. The whole job search industry rests on that myth. If you are looking for work, you know this myth.

And connecting people with jobs will never happen until that myth is destroyed.

Until we all start thinking differently about finding work. Until we all understand what it feels like to stand in the real job search line.

Standing in the real job search line feels like this:

You are standing in a really long line. Shuffling slowly towards the JOB at the front. The line stretches around 3 city blocks, winds its way out to the edge of town, travels past empty houses, deserted farms and barren fields, stretches on out to the next town where it passes by tumbleweed empty abandoned factories, boarded up storefronts, and crumbling parking lots in front of empty office buildings. You can’t see much of anything beyond the person in front of you because it’s dark as night.

No one speaks. Above all, it’s quiet. Eerie.

In the search for JOBS, everyone’s alone. And quiet.

Somebody hands you a book. The basics of how to get a job. Most everyone still has his book---though some lay scattered along the ribbon of people winding their way across a dark, still wasteland where jobs once grew.

What’s in the book? Cautionary tales of chewing gum in job interviews, dreams of the perfect resume.

All the usual advice. All based on the usual premise that the shortest distance between two points, the shortest distance to the job, is a straight line. Logical assumption. So you stand in the line. You might be munching on potato chips or staring blankly at an internet job board, or filling out a profile in an HR office. But even then you are also in a line. That giant line for a job.

The line inches forward so slowly you can feel wrinkles in your face growing deeper.

Finally, you get to the front of the line. You are dressed in your finest job interview clothes. The hair is perfect. The handshake is firm. You are just about to look the hiring manager straight in the eye and the thought flashes into your brain like a buzz saw.

There is no job. All the jobs are gone.

There are no jobs.

Now what?

You’ve reached the front of that seemingly endless line and there are no jobs.

What do you do now?

You are standing there dumbfounded. Not sure where or how to move. You’ve gone through the line. Done everything asked of you. And nothing happened.

The way the system is set up didn’t work for you.

So you begin to wonder. What if . . . . .

You had your own damn line? Why not? The one you were standing in with everyone else didn’t work

The entire SYSTEM surrounding how we search for jobs does more harm than good.  Ever spend a moment on an internet job board? Apply for a job that doesn’t exist? Did you name the wrong goal? Maybe “work” and not “a job” should be your goal? 

All you know is that you’ve walked the straight line of doing what the experts said was right. But what if ALL the experts were wrong? What if a zig zag, totally individualized path to work is what’s right for you?

Besides being quiet, the other thing about that giant line for THE JOB is that it’s desperately lonely. Even when you religiously take your daily two tablespoons of “networking,” recommended by pretty much everyone---the LINE is lonely.

Nothing feels lonelier than walking into a networking event where you don’t know a soul.

But these “What if’s . . .” are pretty radical thoughts. So before you try anything too wacky, giving it all up and joining some other circus, let’s see what’s at the front of the line.

At The Front of the Line

At the front of the silent line of people winding their way through that endless darkness, nobody has to tell you there are no jobs. Nobody has to read you a list of statistics. You just know. Even in that deathly night silence when no one is speaking.

You already know because all the places you’ve tried don’t even bother to send our rejection letters anymore.  You know from the looks when you walk in to fill out an application. You already know because you can see it in the faces of the other silent, head down souls in the line.

So you’ve snaked your way up the line, waiting for your turn, because that’s all you know how to do. And now you’re at the front. Your turn.

But again, you are greeted with silence. And this is what you imagine.

At the front of the line, stretching out to the left and right you see a counter. Like a barricade. Behind the counter sit faceless, black hooded people never speaking. Just shaking their heads and silently mouthing the word “No.”

On a big sign tacked up sloppily behind the counter you see a list of promises.

Read this book and you could land the job of your dreams

You too could make $10,000 a month

Complete this training!

Register here for $100k jobs!

$1,000 will buy you the perfect resume.

 $400 per hour will buy you Coaching on job search.

You already know about schemes that prey on the vulnerable.

So that is what you face if you go forward.

Now what? Could you go backwards? Maybe go stand in the line again? As if you missed something? Stranger things have happened. People keep sending résumés to internet job boards---by the millions—even though nothing happens.

What if you were to turn around and get back in line?

You turn around and gaze back over that useless line still stretched out behind you, even longer now. From the front of the line you have a better view of what’s behind you.  What you’ve just walked through. You can see more clearly.

Strewn along the line evokes an image of rusted out cars, refrigerators with the doors pulled off, burning tires, coffee grounds, crumpled newspapers, old neon signs ripped from the front of failed businesses, office furniture slashed with the stuffing popping out, giant metal fabricating machines from once humming factories rusted and cold. The battered ruins of so many places where people used to work. In these smoking mountains of trash it’s as if you can see the pride, the self respect, the training for a trade, the tools and even the passion for doing the work that all the people in that endless line used to do so well. Abandoned self-respect and pride smell of sulfur in the acrid night wind.

And sprinkled along this parade of broken dreams, like the cut glass shards of a shattered mirror you see the remnants of questions littering the night. Questions so clear they might as well be written out on scraps of paper.

What did I do wrong?

Where did I mess up?

Is this my fault?

Is this fair?

Why is this so different than I expected it to be?

Should I just try again?

Maybe try harder?

Can anyone help me?

And that’s even before you start hearing the swelling chorus of “other people’s success stories.”

Inspiring? Or patronizing? Success stories can be well intentioned. Or they can be clever ways of blaming the victim.

In the end though: it’s your story, not somebody else’s success story that matters to you.

So before you turn around and try the line again. Or, before you keep walking past the faceless demons at the front of the line into deeper darkness; let’s try something different.

Perhaps try thinking differently.

Instead of taking the same old rational steps, what if you started thinking about principles? Principles like:

Telling your story. A resume or job app does not really tell a story.

Adding Music. What is it in your story that sings? Shows harmony? Shows you in chorus? With a rhythm of consistency. What makes you different?

Communitize. Becoming part of a community is different from how most of us network.

Solving a Mystery. Ever watch a high paid executive try to load a copy machine? Anything can be a mystery. Which ones can you solve?

Stewardship. How can you take care of something bigger than you? A movement, a thought, a company. . . .And what if that could lead you on that zig zag path to work?

How do we find work when there are no jobs?

Forget rational.

Think different.

Start telling your story. To everyone. Then start making all 5 principles real for you. For no one else.

Just you.

From “Thinking Differently About Finding  Jobs” by Roger Wright. Unpublished manuscript.