I worry about the latest growth industry in our community: the Employment Industry. Think about it. Here we have a changing world of work, where lifetime employment is a thing of the past, where the ‘hard’ skills we train for can be made redundant by technology, change is rapid, economies are global, the ‘knowledge economy’ is touted as the next great thing and the government department with the big surplus is the one that is responsible for Employment Insurance. [In re-reading this post I wanted to make a note about naming, and the power of language. At some point the name for this national program changed from Unemployment Insurance to Employment Insurance (and the Fed Gov department responsible has some ironic name changes, too – currently Service Canada) in an obvious attempt to have a more positive vibe and send a message that status quo reliance on UIC as part of an annual vacation plan had to change.]
At the same time, the nature of how we work and the relationships with employers is evolving rapidly: multiple jobholding, short-term employment contracts, nonstandard employment like regular part-time or seasonal work and self-employment are on the rise. In this world of work, those who take a ‘Cinderella’ approach to job-seeking are the most vulnerable, and yet the very systems we create to help people find paid work, actually encourage this approach.
Richard Bolles, whose annual issues of “What Color Is Your Parachute” – one of the best self-help books for career development, still – gave us tools years ago that continue to help each person discover their skills, talents, interests, passion, and direction for career self-management. His books are as relevant and fresh today, and used by individuals and professional counsellors alike. What is wrong with this picture is that the focus on the individual to understand their own strengths, plan their own future and conduct their own search for employment occurs – by and large – within a setting and a delivery model that is based on a teacher/student problem-solving model at best.
Bolles himself sounded the alarm about this model and how it is internalized by the helping professionals in a keynote address presented at the International Conference on Careers Guidance: Careers Guidance – Which Way Now?, in Bled, Slovenia, Wednesday, May 5 th, 1999.
There is a widespread belief that the whole vocational system in a particular country is essentially a man or a woman who stands with both arms outstretched: one, holding onto the hand of the employer, and the other, holding onto the hand of the job-hunter – student, blue-collar worker, middle-aged executive, or someone on the brink of retirement – equally helpful to both and equally loyal to both employer and job-hunter.
Well, I think this is a delusion, and one that has been responsible for a great deal of mischief, over the years. If you would in the imagination of your hearts go up in the air and look down from about two hundred thousand feet on the whole elaborate job-hunting system that countries around the world have erected, one thing will strike you above all else: and that is, that almost every part of this system – governmental, private, academic – is more loyal to the employer, than it is to the job-hunter.
People are being told they need to bootstrap themselves up to find their passion, follow it, do the research and build their paid work from these blocks. However, the environment in which this takes place and how the message is delivered denies autonomy and discourages self-direction. Location is often a classroom, in an office building or high school or university or college, led by professionals who have been educated at the university level, and who may not have worked themselves outside an academic or corporate setting.
They speak not from first-hand experience but from what the research tells us, or using the tools developed by others to deliver a model of external self-assessment, expert advice on what to do and how to do it, but little or no space for discovery and development of personal tools that work. Even barriers are labeled and defined, and one can choose from a list of those which apply.
Mostly, this paradigm is in response to where the financial support comes from for working with the unemployed. It is a problem-solving model. The problem is – you are unemployed. The solution is – for you to find work. I have no problem, because I HAVE a job – counseling YOU.
That makes me one-up on you, so listen. At the same time, I know that the measure of MY success in my job is that great numbers of you unemployed clients will find jobs. Although we may use language of self-direction, empowerment, finding and following your passion and so forth, we have few tools to deal with that and no time. It might involve some personal work that has been holding you back and you need therapy to work that out. Not our turf, sorry.