Overcoming the Stigma of Unemployment

When looking to add top performers to their team, we often hear hiring companies say they don’t want to consider any candidate who’s not currently employed. They argue that no company would let a top performer go. And while there is a lot to be said for that type of reasoning, we are here to tell you that there are some unemployed top performers available on the market right now that we don’t usually see.

That’s because we are witnessing some craziness in the market that is still a result of “the Covid years.” The global pandemic of 2020 has had a very long tail and continues to have an impact on the market. Industries that tanked during the pandemic had a few years of incredible growth as companies worked to meet the surge of consumer and business demand. Industries that boomed during the pandemic hired thousands of workers, only to see a slowdown over the last year or two and are now desperately trying to right the ship.

All that means that some very good people have been let go, not because of performance, per se, but just so the company could get back to profitability by the fourth quarter.

We’re seeing companies that have to make cuts now to survive. Some are making strategic and thoughtful decisions, but some are also just making cuts across the board to get to a specific headcount number. Experiments in staffing that they thought might be the new normal didn’t produce the results they’d hoped for, so companies are taking corrective action. And corrections to any market are painful. We are also seeing a number of mergers and acquisitions, which also results in those caught up in the fray.

Employers have always preferred candidates currently working; they view employment as an indicator of competence, even though it’s not always the case. Some workers are lucky enough to be in the right market at the right time. Some underproducers are protected by their managers or propped up by a customer who’s too big to fail.

Getting laid off can happen to anyone, and we look at it as an event, not a complete record. Studies have shown that about 3 out of 4 American workers become unemployed at some point in their career. Even the best workers have had employment gaps, but it doesn’t change their performance record when they were employed.

Ofer Sharone, associate professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has written a book on the stigma of unemployment. In  “The Stigma Trap: College-Educated, Experienced, and Long-Term Unemployed,” he says the sense is that,

“if someone is good, they would be working. The stigma of unemployment means that as soon as someone loses their job, they’re viewed through a different lens, a more skeptical lens. And that can make it harder to get a job. And as the length of unemployment gets longer, the stigma increases. And it stubbornly persists.”

We try to help employers look at the record of performance and success a candidate has accrued. We encourage them to pretend this is a “blind” resume. If we removed one (end) date from this resume, what would change about this candidate’s chances of making a contribution to your team?

For example, the following candidate was caught up in an acquisition where multiple brands were merged.  The producer had remained a top biller and experienced no decline in production, but the business model was heading in a different direction, and the merger impacted their position. Check out their experience and performance numbers:

Senior Account Executive

Experience: 28 years of staffing industry experience

Vertical: Manufacturing, IT, Professional

Background:

• • 100% client-facing facing responsible for net new logo sales and account expansion
  • Specialize selling large strategic accounts with 50+ different locations throughout the country
  • Increased book of business from $1M to more than $15M annual revenue
  • Customer portfolio included 12 accounts, 7-8 active at any given time
  • 300-375+ headcount on billing
  • Depending on client and time of year, average headcount at each account ranges from 10 to as high as 150-175
  • Developed several accounts to onsite programs (7 active onsite)
  • Mostly light industrial, manufacturing & 3PL – bill rates averaged $25+
  • Drive growth of underperforming, inactive & poor performing accounts
  • Increased one LID account from flat $10M account to delivering $18M+ in 18 months

We have multiple experienced candidates in the same situation currently looking for employment. We believe these people are a find and prove the point that it’s simply not true that “all the good ones are taken.”