Collective Conscious

Sul­li­van picks up a thread com­mon to the reces­sion­ary job-hunter’s expe­ri­ence. “Over-​​qualified” is becom­ing more and more com­mon a term faced by job-​​hunters these days, and they are quick to dis­miss it as a cause for rejection.

But is it irra­tional? No, I argue. An employer look­ing for an employee is cer­tainly not going to be as ready to hire some­one from a higher pay grade or a much more expe­ri­enced back­ground dur­ing the reces­sion, as it is highly likely that they are going to look to move back up the employ­ment lad­der once the bad times are over, rather than becom­ing a per­ma­nent asset to the com­pany. So the hours spent (re)training the per­son are going to wind up as a loss to the company.

This is another (admit­tedly anec­do­tal) rea­son why gov­ern­ment hir­ing is so impor­tant dur­ing a down­turn.  It pro­vides the train­ing and back­ground expe­ri­ence that is so cru­cial to post-​​recession jobs with­out wor­ry­ing that it will count against future prof­its. Hence my plea­sure that the cur­rent Cen­sus hir­ing coin­cides with a seri­ous employ­ment recession.

(Photo: Car­bon­NYC)