THE STIGMA TRAP

A cogent argument against the “myth of meritocracy.”

Sociologist Sharone, founder of the nonprofit Institute for Career Transitions, examines the social, financial, and emotional consequences of long-term unemployment, drawing on research with 539 college-educated, white-collar job seekers, ranging in age from 40 to 65, along with career coaches, network colleagues, and recruiters. Sharone’s interviewees “had had long and successful careers and assumed that employers would value and recognize their qualifications and they would be hired quickly.” Like many workers who attended top schools and filled upper-level positions, they believed that skill, education, and achievement would reap rewards—which left them stunned when they failed to find another job. Instead, once they were unemployed, “regardless of their level of education or past professional achievements,” they were “stigmatized in the eyes of potential employers,” recruiters, and colleagues from whom they sought referrals. “The core experience of both unemployment and networking,” writes the author, “is a series of rejections.” In addition, their situation generated feelings of shame, self-blame, and ongoing anxiety, especially when financial pressures worsened. Even family and friends, buying into the meritocracy myth, assumed there was something wrong with an unsuccessful job seeker. Traditional coaching rhetoric, Sharone found, underscores the message that finding a job is “primarily a matter of strategy and attitude,” but this “exaggeration of jobseekers’ individual control only distorts empirical reality and overlooks real obstacles. It is a harmful fiction because it reinforces stigmatization.” With three out of four American workers likely to become unemployed at some point in their careers, and the experience of long-term unemployment increasing, Sharone calls for collective action and advocacy to counter the meritocracy myth and widespread stigma: policies to address discriminatory employer hiring practices, expanded unemployment benefits, the possibility of universal basic income, and sociologically based support from coaches.

A well-researched study that should interest job seekers of all varieties.