Randomness against talent

Why cannot we find a job?

Picture credit Angie Pine

After graduating from my Master’s programme in 2023, me and my fellow students faced the harsh reality of the job market. It was nearly impossible for us to meet any vacancy requirements. I saw a paradox in it. The job market always needs talented highly educated people that are eager to work. Then why did we feel invisible and unwanted? Here, I offer you my theory of it and a strategy to get through.

It began when I read Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb. The author explains how randomness is rationalised as understandable and predictable trends in finance. I believe it is applicable to the job market as well. The main ideas of the book are the following:

1. We need to recognise randomness. If you draw yes and no answers (that are present in equal amounts) from a bucket, you can get all sorts of combinations, including very long rows of only yes or only no. But it doesn’t make the next draw predictable.

2. Our brains love patterns. We are eager to see patterns in random sequences because it gives us a false sense of control and predictability.

3. Positive examples get all the attention (survivor bias). Think of high-prize lotteries. The minuscule probability of winning is largely ignored because the winner (survivor) gets all the attention and hundreds of thousands of people who lost stay silent (Reference: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman).

   
   

What does it all mean for one’s job hunt? It means that looking for a job is the same as gambling (only without the casino cheating). The good news is: the outcome largely depends on luck rather than your talents and efforts. It might not sound like good news to your ear. We want to be picked over other candidates because of our talents and efforts. But the shuffling of the chances begins before we have a moment to show ourselves. That’s why when you get a rejection, take a deep breath and tell yourself: it was an unlucky draw. Next time might be your chance. The bad news is: the outcome is largely random and unpredictable. Let’s say you have to get through three rounds of interviews with six people from the hiring team. Then you need at least five to six yes answers from an imaginary bucket. The longer you try, the higher the chances are of you getting there. In other words, don’t spend too much time pondering on lost opportunities. Turn the page and look for new ones.

For the readers who are short on time, that is the main idea I wanted to share. For those who have a bit more patience, let’s dive in.

An important question to come back to is: how can hiring be a random-answer-generating system? That’s extremely inefficient for businesses. People are an essential element of success, specifically: talented people. It means that an HR department should filter out weak candidates and let through the strong ones. In theory. But there are a few factors that prevent this:

• Each of us is biased in a unique way. The biases of people involved in a hiring process overlap, forming a strange and random filter.

• People’s motivation of avoiding an obvious failure is stronger than their motivation of aiming for success. Based on it, average candidates are more welcome than anyone slightly unusual. (And show me one talented person who wasn’t called weird.) 

• The illusion of perceived efficiency. It’s universally accepted that a successful candidate should have previous experience in the same industry, doing a similar job, working with similar tools etc. That reserves a disproportionate share of yes replies for a random group of lucky ones. And again moves the focus of attention away from talent.

It means that you will get a job when you meet a person that values talent and sees it in candidates. It also means that the unfair treatment of young professionals has no good reason to exist. 

I hope that my reasoning about the works of the job market helped you to look the problem in the eye with new found confidence.