Partner Article

The delusion of lack of jobs

The fear of perceived lack of jobs keeps people working harder than they need to and being more distressed than they should be. A conviction that no jobs are available as a mindset will bind you from taking the steps that lead to success. It is difficult to take a step forward with this sort of comprehension. The case in point being jobs; The current business delusion about employment is that there are only a limited number of opportunities that are created by industry and government, so some of the people must do without work when there is financial disarray. You have heard the comments: There are no jobs out there, companies are not employing, I sent out 60 CV’s and had no acknowledgment whatsoever, and jobs are few and far between!

Every drop in the unemployment rate cause shudders to run through the business world and the media. Hardly ever does anyone mention that even with 10% unemployment we have 90% employment, one way of reasoning is that; the odds are enormous! Thinking that there is a dearth of jobs rules by the dread of not being included, cast aside, not required. This then leads people to conclude that all they all they can do about it is to mark time and wait until things improve.

How many of our young graduates do we hear of taking menial part-time jobs just to make ends meet? Waiting, until they say ‘something better comes along’! They dislike intensely their work, being “over-qualified” for what they are doing. These bright young persons are sometimes ‘encouraged’ by some of our Government departments, in order to meet ‘targets’ to apply for work which is well below their qualifications and training. This behaviour actively encourages the young person to actually believe that; that’s all there is in this broken economy! This could then lead to a situation where they remain stuck in jobs they hate, waiting perhaps for years “for things to improve”.

These clever young graduates could end up sacrificing their careers for decades with the fear that if they terminated their unsatisfactory employment they would eventually be back on Jobseekers Allowance and repeating the process for longer than they could afford.

Having just volunteered to mentor young persons, via the CIPD’s Steps Ahead project, I was introduced to a young, well qualified graduate straight from a local University with no experience of the real world of work.

In conjunction with Job Centre Plus and the CIPD, my mentee and I worked diligently together for over five months. {The mentoring period was officially determined to be for six weeks per young person}. During the five months my mentee was actively encouraged by others to apply for menial jobs {to meet targets}! well beneath her capabilities. Together, we resisted this ‘siren call’ and after many months of persistence; through frustration, disappointment, demotivation, periods of self-doubt and countless interviews, unpaid voluntary work, internships and of course, support. She eventually, through sheer hard work and never losing sight of the objective: obtained a paid career commensurate with her qualifications and training. This was precisely within the industry and location that she had targeted.

The moral of this story is that there are careers out there. All it takes is the will to not be side-tracked into believing that there are no worthwhile jobs. And not to nurture the thought that; ‘I’ll just have to take whatever is on offer until things get better“.

After all, a job is an opportunity to solve a problem and there is no shortage of problems.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Andrew Dane .