Editor’s note: This article was first published in April 2013, at the height of Spain’s unemployment crisis. The testimonials it features, with years out of work counted from 2008-2010, and the ages given refer to that time.
The longer you go without a job, the lower your chances of getting one. That was already true before the crisis, when people used to say: “Look for a job while you still have one, and don’t wait until you’ve left the company.” When the crisis hit, some people thought that with mass unemployment and so many long-term unemployed, employers would stop paying attention to this. The truth is that they still pay a great deal of attention to it.
Today, most employers would reject a candidate who has been out of work for three years, while someone else, perhaps less suited to the position but with five different jobs on short contracts behind them, would find the door much more open.
The stigma of long-term unemployment tells us that a person who has been out of work for three years, or rather who can’t fill a 36-month gap in their CV, could be seen at first glance as very lazy and as someone who hasn’t tried hard enough. Meanwhile, another candidate who has managed to fill that gap, even with jobs far removed from the role being offered and even with less knowledge and fewer skills, may come across to the employer as more of a fighter, more resourceful, and in principle that is something companies like.
If in the past being out of work for more than six months was a real trap when it came to finding a job, being out for more than 12 months, or even four years, practically kills your chances of finding a new one. Add to that the stigma of being over 45, and the odds of finding work in the future would be almost nil.
Seeing in a CV that someone has been unemployed for more than 12 months shouldn’t tell us anything at all. In fact, it can’t tell us anything about their skills, professionalism, knowledge and so on. All it can tell us is that, for some reason (which the employer doesn’t know), that person has been out of work for a long time, and that neither adds to nor takes away from their professionalism compared with anyone else.
Being long-term unemployed is what leads many people to invent fake jobs and fake companies to fill that “dreaded” gap in their CV. (Read: 5 ways HR gets tricked into hiring the wrong candidate.)
Testimonials that show a reality different from the stigma
Angeles García, 52, has been out of work since 2008. That’s five years. Is she lazy? Does she not want to work?
She says that over these years she has sent out nearly 2,000 CVs and has had 30 job interviews. For the first 12 months, her main job was looking for a job. She admits that to get by she has done a bit of everything: walking dogs, waxing, manicures, writing online to earn some extra money, and so on. These are jobs she can’t put on her CV, since she used to be an executive.
Her company went bankrupt in 2008 and everyone was laid off. She says some of the first companies that called her in for interviews have since closed down as well. She heard the advice that you have to reinvent yourself, and that is what she did. She took new courses on all sorts of unrelated subjects, but nothing she did led to a job opportunity.
See also: What entrepreneurs wish they had known before starting their business
After a lifetime of working, at 52 she now finds herself living on a family benefit, because her husband lost his job three years ago, and she is suffering from anxiety and panic attacks over their debts. That is why the mere suggestion that she is lazy because she has spent five years looking for work really gets to her.
Six months ago, out of desperation, she read our article 5 reasons not to look for a job and to start your own business instead, and she is now negotiating with her bank to open a franchise. As she puts it, when you’ve already lost everything, the only way is forward.
Rafael F., 48: from sales director to completely lost
In 2009, Rafael’s company laid off 400 people. In 2010 he found work again after more than 15 interviews, and six months later his new company carried out an ERE (a collective redundancy procedure under Spanish law) and he never got back in. At first he looked for work as a sales director, then lowered his sights to section manager or similar roles.
Desperation led him to look for work as a salesman, and when his unemployment benefit was about to run out, he started looking for anything on offer, from waiter to delivery driver (whatever it might be). He says the only offers he has found involved working on a freelance commercial contract rather than as an employee, and in some cases making an initial investment. At some jobs he was told he was overqualified, and at others that he was too old. He says that when his children leave for school, he goes out for a walk in the park in a state of complete disorientation.
After sending more than 200 CVs and asking for work at more than 100 restaurants, 50 cafés and 25 factories, he is another person who is thinking about starting his own business. He jokes that “life is very ironic: as sales director, more than 300 million euros in turnover passed through his hands, and now he can’t get a job even in shops with an annual turnover of 50,000 euros.”
We have more than 20 similar testimonials. Some even say they have been unemployed for more than two years because going to work would have cost them more than staying at home. Others say they didn’t see the need to fill their CV with just any kind of job, partly because they never expected it to be so hard to find a new one when they had impressive credentials and a proven track record. Clearly, they were wrong. But lazy? I don’t think so.
Further reading
Featured image: Amtec Photos, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.
