Excluded from consideration for being unemployed?

When I read "Looking for work? Unemployed need not apply" an article from http://money.cnn.com/ by Chris Isidore (June 16, 2010 4:25 AM ET) I was not so much shocked as disappointed. Certainly screening out those candidates that are unemployed from applying for a job isn't illegal, but what does it say about the value we place on a person's temporary employment status rather than what a person can contribute to the success of an organization.

A recruiter friend of mine said to me recently "there are no bad employers and there are no bad employees, just bad matches." I think there's truth in this. Except for companies that are engaged in unethical business practices or employees that steal from their employers, it’s all a matter of gradations.

Having been involved locally with Milwaukee JobCamp http://www.milwaukeejobcamp.org/, a collection of recruiting and HR professionals that created a sort of boot camp for job seekers, (creators are all voluntary and seekers pay nothing to attend all day resume writing, networking, online social media and expert speaker sessions) I can report that there is a sense of compassion and commitment to help those that need this kind of support. JobCamp4 took place a couple weeks ago and the attendance, while down from the JobCamp3 event in July (1700) to 1100, was still a much needed day of hope for many still searching for work.

In the http://money.cnn.com/ by Chris Isidore (June 16, 2010 4:25 AM ET) article I read about employers nationally that would not consider candidates for jobs that were not currently employed. In the article, senior level HR and recruiting executives reported that this practice is "more prevalent than it used to be." The explanation given is that there are so many candidates for each opening; this is one way to trim down the list to a manageable number. Mostly this was seen as a bad idea and that employers were in fact missing two important things in applying this practice. 1.) Potentially good candidates that they would never even take the time to interview. 2.) An employer tax break recently passed exempting them from having to pay the "6.2% of a new hires wages in Social Security taxes" for the rest of 2010.

If this practice is common even in some limited way it speaks to a few things that I think are important as we examine the identity of what it means to be unemployed. First there is this idea of insiders and outsiders or haves and have not’s at play. There are groups of individuals; in this case employers that are deciding for those that are now outsiders (non-employees) that they aren't welcome. Second, other insiders, namely other employed individuals are welcome and given access. So those without (often through no action of their own) are kept “out” while those already “in” maintain access to the inside or in this case employment. Like the Scarlet "A", it seems that the unemployed have a Scarlet "U" for unwanted or undesirable, as their badge of shame.

Having at one time been an unemployed person for over a year, there is plenty of guilt and shame that comes built in to the status of unemployed without the help of others. Losing a job is like any other loss and the process that goes with it is the same. We experience shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. There are practical aspects that contribute to feelings of guilt and shame like not being able to pay ones way, take care of obligations or family members, etc. The stigma of being unemployed is a bit self-inflicted, but being further excluded contributes to a sense of unworthiness too. It was quite challenging to get up every day and face the rejection and harsh reality of a job search. I'm glad I didn't know about this exclusionary tactic then.

The phrase "pursuit of happiness" keeps coming to mind here. How is my finding a job (personal freedom) coming into conflict with someone else's personal or public success? What is it about an unemployed person that, by nature of that fact alone, makes them unworthy of consideration? I think that it gets down to one thing. As a society we are suspicious of what we don't understand. If we haven’t experienced unemployment, we make fast judgment that it's due to performance or some fault of the person who finds themselves unemployed.

I would ask us all to take a look at the situation more closely. Unemployment is still at 9.5% according to the BLShttp://www.bls.gov/. According to many experts (Manpower Employment Outlook Survey - Press Release http://bit.ly/aIE3m8) while there seems to be reason for cautious optimistic, the full economic recovery in terms of job loss is still a ways away. According to USA Today (10/13/2010) there is “a record 30% out of work at least a year."

Unemployment can happen to anyone. If you haven't been unemployed, someone you know, maybe even someone you love has. This is reason enough for insiders to consider the unemployed as part of the larger insider group. The currently unemployed but the future employed.

People want to help you, but you have to tell them how! Like the Yellow Brick Road, job search is scary, uncertain and long, but there are people along the way who can help!

You can do this!