Job Seekers: You Cannot Attract What You Resist

My favourite quote illustrating the futility of resisting reality is by American author Byron Katie: “When you argue with reality, you lose, but only 100% of the time.”

A few years ago, I read Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret to better understand the Law of Attraction. According to Byrne, one aspect of the Law of Attraction is that “what you resist, persists,” because, theoretically, you’re giving energy to what you don’t want, keeping it alive in your mind.

Resistance is feeling-based.

Resistance involves telling yourself false stories to create excuses for why you’re not getting what you want.

Resistance is refusing to read the room, such as AI being more cost-effective than hiring junior employees, lean teams looking great on earnings calls, and “let’s wait and see” becoming a corporate strategy.

Resistance is the refusal to accept the reality you find yourself in.

As detrimental as it is to their job search—by now it’s common knowledge that employers will check your digital footprint to determine whether you’re interview-worthy—I see job seekers ad nauseam take to LinkedIn to voice their “resistance” to hiring practices, which, in turn, explains their lengthy job search. Employers avoid hiring candidates who lack emotional regulation.

Every day, I see the same pattern: job seekers unwilling to adapt to the new paradigm for finding work. Applying with an opinion resume, as if it’s 2005. Telling the same unsubstantiated career stories.

When nothing happens, they get angry at recruiters, hiring managers, the enigmatic ATS, and the non-existent “hiring system.” (For a “system” to exist, all hiring managers and recruiters would need to assess candidates similarly, which isn’t the case.)

Every day, we try to avoid or escape the realities that don’t suit us. The two predominant ways we do so are by:

• Judging our reality (employers)
• Arguing with our reality (employers)

If your job search isn’t progressing as you’d like, public outbursts, which signal to employers that you can’t control your emotions, aren’t the answer. The answer is to stop resisting what you can’t control or change and to adapt; to become okay with what’s not okay.

When it comes to job search success, job seekers would be much better off understanding and accepting that employers design their hiring processes to protect their business and reduce hiring risk. Hiring the wrong person can be costly in terms of training, severance, and lost productivity. Successful job seekers don’t resist an employer’s hiring process; they recognize that employers are risk-averse and therefore hire as they do, and they adapt. They don’t entertain the limiting belief that investing in an employer’s hiring process may be wasted effort.

For example, as a job seeker, you’ve likely noticed that many employers ask candidates to complete an assignment to verify their skills. Those who resist think, “Assignments are free labour.” They’re judging an employer’s request without considering that employers are navigating a job market full of bad actors who make exaggerated claims about their skills and experience. This is the reality employers face, and job seekers need to deal with it too. Also, arguing against (read: resisting) doing an assignment won’t change the reasons employers ask candidates to do one.

Having resistance to how employers hire isn’t doing you any favours. The more you can let go of that resistance—softening it—the smoother your job search will be. Stoic philosopher Epictetus said: “Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not.” The way an employer designs their hiring process and evaluates candidates is outside a job seeker’s control.

While I understand it may feel counterintuitive, you need to trust that going with the flow regarding how employers hire and believing it’ll lead to employment can be the most beneficial mindset shift for your job search. When it comes to job searching, the single best advantage you can give yourself is to learn to navigate the job market’s currents, understand and accept why employers are hiring the way they are, why ghosting has become common (liability issues are real), why feedback isn’t given (again, liability issues), and why employers are more risk-averse than ever, rather than exhausting yourself by resisting what you have no influence over changing.

Let employers be employers!

A utopian solution to ease the frustration and anger, stemming from their resistance to the realities of today’s job market and not wanting to understand why employers are trying everything in their power to reduce hiring risks, would be to tape Alcoholics Anonymous’s Serenity Prayer, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference,” to every job seeker’s laptop, monitor, wall, fridge, and anywhere they’ll see it repeatedly.

Stop fighting what you don’t know, can’t manage, or don’t like, or what’s not going your way. The universe doesn’t give you what you ask for. It gives you what you’re being.  By resisting employers’ hiring processes and candidate assessment methods, you not only waste mental energy you could be using for your job search, you’re also prolonging it.