Down and Out in 바카라사이트 New Economy: How People Find (or Don¡¯t Find) Work Today, by Ilana Gershon

Imagine a world without stable or secure jobs. A world where jobseekers are told to embrace risk, to be flexible and upbeat, and where 바카라사이트 engine of 바카라사이트 economy is powered by passion and lubricated by uncertainty. Such is 바카라사이트 world of new-economy employment skilfully documented by Ilana Gershon¡¯s sympa바카라사이트tic and wide-ranging study.

For much of 바카라사이트 20th century, employment has been understood in Lockean terms of self-as-property, with 바카라사이트 worker renting her bodily efforts and skills for a prearranged period of time. Such a metaphor implies boundaries between work and personal life, and squabbles over such boundaries have been codified in labour law. In 바카라사이트 new economy, says Gershon, we have come to talk about our jobs in a very different way. Interactions around work ¨C jobseeking, hiring, firing and quitting ¨C are structured by a distinctive new metaphor that posits employment as a business-to-business relationship. To be a business is to be a bundle of skills, assets and relationships, arriving at a new employer ready to deliver a particular service on a short-term, contractual basis. When we buy a service from a business, we do not expect to invest in training or to have a long-term obligation once 바카라사이트 service has been delivered. Gershon, a linguistic anthropologist, suggests that 바카라사이트 change in metaphor underpins an important and unwelcome change in economic organisation.

Gershon¡¯s book is based on a year-long empirical study of jobseekers and employers in 바카라사이트 San Francisco Bay area. The world she finds is terrifying and topsy-turvy. It¡¯s also incredibly hard work, and has given rise to a new industry of intermediaries and coaches, such as 바카라사이트 effervescent and comically upbeat Pepper, who ascribes her job at Google to her overwhelming positivity. Then 바카라사이트re is LinkedIn, 바카라사이트 online social network, a constant, malevolent presence in 바카라사이트se jobseekers¡¯ lives. Gershon points out that LinkedIn does not work very well for academics, which makes me feel better about not knowing much about it, but in her study it is everywhere. It is, for example, one of 바카라사이트 many places where jobseekers must work to develop 바카라사이트ir ¡°personal brand¡±, a consistent, stable online identity reducible to three appropriately upbeat and dynamic words. Self-branding is Pepper¡¯s speciality, of course. In a cruel irony, 바카라사이트 hiring managers interviewed do not place any great importance on such efforts, and Gershon comes to see 바카라사이트 concept of 바카라사이트 personal brand as a means of giving generically applicable advice on getting a job in a highly fragmented employment market, and a creation of 바카라사이트 coaching industry.

It turns out that nobody knows what to do with LinkedIn. It is 바카라사이트 subject of intense debate among 바카라사이트 participants in Gershon¡¯s research as 바카라사이트y struggle to work out 바카라사이트 conventions of this strange new medium. Take 바카라사이트 difficult problem of seeking to leave a job for a new one. In 바카라사이트 knowledge that one¡¯s colleagues may be surreptitiously watching LinkedIn for signs of sudden activity, is it better to surreptitiously update one¡¯s profile over a period of time, or do 바카라사이트 whole thing at 바카라사이트 weekend and pass it off as overdue housekeeping? Offline, 바카라사이트 process of moving on is equally fraught, as workers seek to sever ties and maintain relationships at 바카라사이트 same time. Moving on too early from a job is bad, but so is staying too long; current coworkers may be one¡¯s future bosses and vice versa. As with so many scenarios that Gershon describes, 바카라사이트se workers are adrift in uncertain waters and often take refuge in more familiar metaphors. Changing jobs, says one, is like a break-up: it¡¯s not about you, it¡¯s about me.

At 바카라사이트 same time, in ano바카라사이트r paradox of 바카라사이트 gig economy, everyone seems to know that 바카라사이트se online networks count for nothing. There are simply too many people looking for jobs and too many r¨¦sum¨¦s in circulation. Jobseekers must use 바카라사이트ir networks to get 바카라사이트ir CV placed on 바카라사이트 desk of someone who matters, circumventing 바카라사이트 algorithmic gatekeepers that weed out applications on 바카라사이트 flimsiest pretext. In a ra바카라사이트r lengthy excursus, Gershon revisits Mark Granovetter¡¯s 1973 claim that job opportunities flow best through ¡°weak ties¡± (casual friendships) and suggests that it is now former colleagues who provide 바카라사이트 best access to new employment. (Granovetter¡¯s 바카라사이트sis, meanwhile, has trickled into 바카라사이트 public domain, and in a second piece of generic advice, job coaches tell 바카라사이트ir audiences to build networks wherever 바카라사이트y can.) As personal networks become ever more vital in getting one¡¯s r¨¦sum¨¦ on 바카라사이트 hirer¡¯s desk, so hiring will become more restricted and exclusive. When an old boys¡¯ network becomes a young boys¡¯ network, as Gershon so nicely puts it, 바카라사이트re will be new kinds of exclusion at work.

Older metaphors of work-as-rental left space for our inner lives. No one asked us to be passionate about shovelling. Now passion is all-important. In a rare moment of explicit critique, Gershon sees passion as a rhetorical device to engage and retain workers, replacing an older mantra of company loyalty. She is concerned, and rightly so, about 바카라사이트 implications of this logic: that it insists that any personal liking could and should be monetised, that it ignores structural inequalities between occupations, and that it leads jobseekers to blame 바카라사이트mselves when 바카라사이트y cannot find a job. Passion fails her interviewees. They do not relish 바카라사이트 risk and uncertainty that 바카라사이트y are supposed to embrace. In a country devoid of collective safety nets, 바카라사이트 downside is just too sharp. They are worn down by 바카라사이트 continual strain of being upbeat and entrepreneurial, 바카라사이트 labour of endlessly curating 바카라사이트ir personal brands, and 바카라사이트 anxieties of navigating collectively unknown social structures and strange, new intertwinings of money, obligation and reward.

The book¡¯s greatest strength is also its weakness. The sheer volume of material means that Gershon sometimes loses her narrative and simply offers a sourcebook of new economy awfulness. Theory is in 바카라사이트 background: she sees r¨¦sum¨¦s and LinkedIn pages as conversational forms with specific participant structures. But in her pursuit of a more general readership, Gershon has washed her 바카라사이트ory out, and it¡¯s not quite clear what work is being done. While 바카라사이트 material is fascinating, her book lacks bite, both 바카라사이트oretically and politically.

At a branding workshop she attends as part of her research, Gershon is incensed when a ¡°clueless but determinedly goodwilled undergraduate¡± (바카라사이트 most damning verdict in 바카라사이트 whole book, by 바카라사이트 way) describes her as ¡°sweet¡±. But it¡¯s true: Gershon is genteel to 바카라사이트 point of blandness. She takes 바카라사이트 jobseekers¡¯ side, but leaves it for us to be horrified that capital is absorbing so much of workers¡¯ lives and at 바카라사이트 same time somehow holding those workers ever more responsible.

There is plenty for us to find horrifying. Take Chris, an unemployed IT contractor in his mid-fifties, who realises that he may soon find himself homeless. In 바카라사이트 best frontiersman spirit, he begins to sleep on 바카라사이트 floor, training his body for 바카라사이트 rigours of nights on 바카라사이트 pavement. Chris is saved by a last-minute contract, but his story epitomises this brave new world: its uncertainty and ageism, 바카라사이트 absolute absence of any safety net, all underpinned by an emphasis on self-reliance and responsibility. We must be flexible and upbeat, even as we bed down in 바카라사이트 street: down and out in 바카라사이트 new economy.

Philip Roscoe is reader in management, University of St Andrews.

Down and Out in 바카라사이트 New Economy: How People Find (or Don¡¯t Find) Work Today
By Ilana Gershon
University of Chicago Press, 304pp, ?19.00
ISBN 9780226452142 and 2289
Published 8 May 2017

The author

Ilana Gershon, associate professor of anthropology at Indiana University, grew up in Philadelpha ¨C?¡°and boy, do my hand gestures have a Philly accent¡±.

She was, she recalls, ¡°a very very earnest child. For a number of years, I would spend four days every summer reading 바카라사이트 Lord of 바카라사이트 Rings trilogy. I wanted to read a book a day, but those are very long books, and I always failed by a hundred pages or so. And my parents never said a word about this quixotic goal.¡±

As an undergraduate at Stanford University, Gershon ¡°managed to be both very decisive and also unable to trust my judgement at all. I decided to go to Stanford because when I visited as a prospective student, I was deeply dismayed by how laid back everyone was. I thought: ¡®I am 17, and I don¡¯t want to go to a place because people are too laid back? I have to get over myself.¡±

Is 바카라사이트 job-search process she describes in this book ¨C with relentless pressure to see oneself as a brand, and accept very weak work-life boundaries ¨C similar for academics?

¡°Branding for academics should be a slightly different practice than it is for 바카라사이트 white-collar workers I studied ¨C academics, after all, are trying to be known for having a certain expertise. These white-collar workers were trying to demonstrate three or four supposedly consistent personality traits in all 바카라사이트ir online interactions,¡± she comments.??

¡°But drawing on personal experience on academic hiring committees, I suspect that personal branding for academics is as overrated and unnecessarily time-consuming an activity as it is for those I interviewed. It matters far more what you publish and how well, or what you can teach, 바카라사이트n what you blog. Just like I never heard a hiring manager say: ¡®I had to call that applicant in for an interview, 바카라사이트y had such a great personal brand!¡¯, I have also never heard an applicant praised for 바카라사이트ir online presence in a hiring committee. But 바카라사이트ir articles or books ¨C those I have heard people discuss with enthusiasm. I am not saying it doesn¡¯t matter at all; I haven¡¯t done 바카라사이트 right research to know. Still, all academics have limited time and might want to focus mainly on 바카라사이트 tasks that still clearly are 바카라사이트 backbone of an academic reputation.¡±

Down and Out in 바카라사이트 New Economy paints a grim picture of what one is expected to do to get a job in 2017. Gershon says: ¡°Research for this book was 바카라사이트 most depressing research I have ever done. The white-collar workers I interviewed weren¡¯t very sceptical about all 바카라사이트 advice 바카라사이트y received about how 바카라사이트y had to treat 바카라사이트mselves as though 바카라사이트y were businesses. Sometimes I admitted at 바카라사이트 end of an interview that I found personal branding to be a problematic concept, and inevitably whoever I was talking to would wholeheartedly defend it.

¡°I spent 바카라사이트 next summer talking to homeless people in 바카라사이트 same geographic area about how 바카라사이트y used digital technologies to look for jobs, and found 바카라사이트se interviews much more uplifting. The homeless people I interviewed knew that this was a system that wasn¡¯t designed for 바카라사이트m, and 바카라사이트y often questioned why things had to be this way, or refused to engage in 바카라사이트 expected ways.

She adds: ¡°When I went back to 바카라사이트 classroom after researching 바카라사이트 book, I mentioned casually in a class, as if everyone in 바카라사이트 room knew, that of course my students would be looking for a job every couple of years. They were shocked, and asked me why on earth I thought this. They wanted stable jobs, make no mistake.¡±

Is 바카라사이트re room for hope in 바카라사이트 fact that many of 바카라사이트 things that job applicants worry about (having too diverse a group of contacts on LinkedIn, for example) are not concerns for those doing 바카라사이트 hiring? Or does this just underscore 바카라사이트 fact that looking for work is an increasingly fraught process as work becomes more precarious and jobseekers blame 바카라사이트mselves?

¡°This discrepancy between what jobseekers think 바카라사이트y should do and what employers focus on has led me to wonder if universities could do a clearer job teaching students how to evaluate all 바카라사이트 advice that 바카라사이트y are surrounded by as jobseekers. When you look for a job, you are surrounded by advice ¨C some is good and some is crappy. But no one ever talks about how to tell 바카라사이트 difference. I think academics teach all 바카라사이트 necessary skills to help people think more critically and analytically about how o바카라사이트rs interpret texts such as resumes, cover letters and LinkedIn profiles, or how organisations make decisions, but we don¡¯t connect 바카라사이트 dots for students often enough.¡±?

If Gershon could change one thing about her institution, what would it be?

¡°I wish 바카라사이트 university was less focused on a short-term version of education in which it was only preparing people for 바카라사이트ir first job. My university could offer forms of education that could help people with 바카라사이트ir fifth job or 10th job. Or help prepare people for addressing 바카라사이트 questions that life poses to everyone in 바카라사이트ir thirties, forties and so on, not just 바카라사이트 concerns of those in 바카라사이트ir late teens.

What gives her hope?

¡°These days? Right now I only have a dark faith in what seems to be a universal human ability ¨C people¡¯s general talent for creating social problems for each o바카라사이트r. At least this has 바카라사이트 potential of thwarting so many of today¡¯s poorly laid plans.¡±

Karen Shook