The job market stinks. That much is obvious to the millions looking for work.

However, that’s no reason for the relative few companies hiring to feel all ecstatic! Like a powderkeg or stick of dynamite, the current situation is powerful but dangerous.

Things always change, and as a matter of opinion, it seems to hit hardest those who assumed that things could not or would not. Just ask anyone who made a decision in the past 10 years under the assumption that real estate prices can only go up. The job market will return, and those seeking long-term advantage in a temporary situation are not only short-sighted, but they are set up for disaster.

Many companies are using unfair methods to screen candidates… psychological profiling, intensive background checks, asking for free labor. Far from attracting the best and brightest, it would seem to most attract those who have no soul or self-respect.

Many companies are using unfair methods to avoid hiring altogether… demanding free or off-the-clock labor, browbeating and intimidating employees to try to get additional productivity, classifying workers as 1099 (in many cases illegally) or part-time when demanding full-time regular work.

This isn’t another predictable, boilerplate story of how corporate America is bad and how everyone is subjugated by “The Man.” Rather, it’s a story of tables turning. Relationships, working or otherwise, require balance. Those abusing the current market situation are creating an imbalance in just the same way as employees created imbalance in the past by forcing employers to take on every aspect of “security” in their lives as a “benefit,” expecting to be paid gratuitously both during and after employment, and expecting pay to be tied to ego and position instead of profitability. The tides of power always turn, and those that abuse their temporary might the most also lose the most.

Right now, there are more people wanting jobs than there are jobs to be had. I hope that means as many people as possible will check out of that game and create their own jobs where they can. For those who have tried and have exhausted their means or for those that are not suited to that option, they must look, and eventually they will find. Some will find under favorable circumstances, and some will trade their self-respect and self-worth. There will come a day of reckoning to those who assume they can get something for nothing, and that things will continue to come easy. As a matter of history, what goes around, comes around.

Jared A. Chambers