Help not wanted: out-of-work Utahns struggle against employer perceptions.

• Author: Kinder, Peri
• Position: Workforce Feature

In June 2010, a job recruiting website called The People Place posted an advertisement asking for applicants to fill an engineering position. Along with the usual computer, technology, education and communication skills required, candidates were informed at the bottom of the ad, "Client will not consider/review anyone NOT currently employed regardless of the reason."

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After a flurry of complaints, the post was taken down, but many believe this declaration reflects the attitude too many employers have when hiring new workers. Even in today's economy, when thousands of people have lost jobs, employers often believe an unemployed applicant may not have top-notch skills, were considered "dead weight" at their former place of business or could even have a behavioral problem that could become a liability if hired.

While these are all simply assumptions, people who have been unemployed for a significant amount of time are finding it harder to overcome these attitudes. Employers want a person who is currently employed and don't want to risk hiring someone who could be a problem in the future.

Essentially, the unemployed are all too often discriminated against because they are unemployed.

Fishing for Talent

Due to personnel cutbacks resulting from the slack economy, Justin Wright * was laid off from his job at a public relations firm. Through no fault of his own, he was unemployed for nearly three months. He went to numerous job interviews and felt he was often defending himself against employers who saw his unemployment status as a negative. The reaction he seemed to get was that if he wasn't "indispensible" at his previous job, why would someone else want to hire him?

Instead of focusing on his job skills, employers wanted to know the circumstances that led to his being laid off and what he'd been doing during his unemployment. Wright says at first he would joke about his situation, telling potential employers he had "been home being Mr. Mom for a while." He quickly stopped joking when he realized employers weren't amused--and weren't hiring him.

"I think there's a tendency when hiring people to believe that the best workers and most indispensable people already have a job," Wright says. "When there are so many people looking for jobs, I felt they were going to go with someone they could poach from another company."

According to the Utah Department of Workforce Services, more than 100,000 Utahns were considered unemployed in November 2010, a number up just...