Common Advice to Job Seekers That Misses the Mark: “Just Start Your Own Business”
The idea that an individual can rise from humble beginnings and achieve greatness and success through determination, hard work, and ingenuity is a deeply ingrained component of the American Dream. Anyone can make it here! All you need is the drive, the gumption, the risk appetite! Look at all these entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley! In this precarious job market, a common piece of advice repeated ad nauseam online, in career journals, and at networking meetings is some version of “You should just start your own business.”
On the surface, this may seem empowering or inspiring. Take control of your future. Be your own boss. But for most unemployed people, the suggestion is impractical. Starting a business requires more than free time, and dispensing such simplistic advice oversimplifies the complexity of economic reality, systemic structural factors, and the significant barriers to successful entrepreneurship. More specifically, starting a business:
Requires capital. Starting a business costs money, which unemployed people usually do not have in abundance.
It is extremely risky. Data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics demonstrate that 60% of small businesses fail in the first five years. That percentage is much higher in sectors like retail stores and restaurants, among others.
Demands that you have the right skills, and more importantly, the right network. Being a good worker doesn’t automatically make someone a good business owner. Owning a business requires a potpourri of skills, including finance, marketing, management, and compliance.
It can be emotionally draining. As a business owner, one must possess constant energy, resilience, and decision-making skills, often with little reassurance that the effort will pay off.
Has the potential to undermine work/life balance. Running your own business is a relentless grind, and boundaries between work and personal life often disappear. The business becomes all-consuming, leaving little time for anything else.
Although Americans often exalt and glorify individualism and entrepreneurship, not everyone dreams of running their own company. Some people value predictable income and regular hours, and they don’t wish to expose themselves to enormous risks. When you tell someone to start their own business, you are likely dispensing trite, useless advice. If you really want to help your job-hunting friends and family, here are some things you can do:
Connect them with people in your network.
Offer to review their resume and practice interviewing techniques.
Assist in crafting a compelling, concise career summary that can be used for the most often asked question, “Tell me about yourself.”
Check in, but avoid prying or constantly asking for updates.
Validate their feelings and acknowledge their struggle.
The American ideal of self-made success can distort our understanding of what it takes to thrive in an unforgiving economy, assuming that “success”—however you define it—is solely a matter of willpower and effort. In reality, success is dependent upon access to opportunity, resources, and support systems that are not equally available. Offering concrete solutions, empathy, and connections is more helpful and constructive than this oversimplified trope will ever be. True advocacy comes from recognizing people’s circumstances and humanity, not furthering the myth of boundless upward mobility.
*Don’t judge the em dash. It’s not AI.
To your career aspirations!
Deb