Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Pride and Prejudice in Job Applications

Elizabeth Bennet saying, " I'm no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder at you knowing any."



One of the most beloved novels in the English language  reveals a lot about society, human nature, and any convention that validates absurd standards, which includes today's job listings and applications  You have to channel Jane Austen to remove yourself from the absurdity rather than get sucked into normalizing it. 




What made me think of this mashup? A job application that was  ridiculously demanding in terms of the number of questions that required essay type answers. Not only did it show zero consideration of the candidate's time with a form that would take an hour to complete, but whoever set it up didn't even check that it made sense.  It included a space demanding a passcode, which wasn't a test  but an error on the employer's part.





After attempting to fill it out 2.5 times, I finally came to my senses and filled in some of those boxes by with a declaration that such questions should only be asked in the course of an  interview stage and not in the initial application.  I also pointed out that they were likely turning off many fully qualified applicants with this exceedingly time-consuming form. While I was declaring my independence in this way (yes, I know giving up any chance of actually advancing to an interview with this company), I thought of Pride and Prejudice. 

Austen's heroine refuses to be boxed in and accept unreasonable demands from others -- whether they are to marry her cousin or to believe that women must aspire to live up to unreasonable expectations to be considered accomplished. Elizabeth Bennet shows us how it's done. 

She pricks balloons of hot air, subtly undermining rules that Mr. Darcy and others present as absolutely fixed. This is most striking when she offers her opinion on the requisite qualities of an accomplished woman in chapter 8 of Pride and Prejudice. 

To see how this scene was treated in various productions dating back to the 1940 film that horrifies purists (for many reasons)  but is still a lot of fun. See this compilation and identify your favorite in the comments. 




Note that 2005 film shows Elizabeth not just closing her book -- the action shown in the earlier adaptions -- but audibly slamming it shut when Darcy mentions the importance of reading for an accomplished woman. In the text of the novel, though, Elizabeth loses interest in her book prior to that point and has shifted to watch the card game before the debate on what constitutes accomplishments takes off: 

'It is amazing to me,' said Bingley, 'how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are.'

'All young ladies accomplished! My dear Charles, what do you mean?'

'Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses. I scarcely know any one who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she was very accomplished.'

'Your list of the common extent of accomplishments,' said Darcy, 'has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half a dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished.'

'Nor I, I am sure,' said Miss Bingley. 'Then,' observed Elizabeth, 'you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman.'

'Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it.'

'Oh! certainly,' cried his faithful assistant, 'no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved.'

'All this she must possess,' added Darcy, 'and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.'

'I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any.'

'Are you so severe upon your own sex as to doubt the possibility of all this?'

'I never saw such a woman. I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe united.'

So what's going on here? 

Miss Bingley and Darcy are constructing an ideal that Elizabeth knows is impossible to attain. Like the job listings that call for someone with both deep technical skills and advanced soft skills, as well as capabilities to create content in written, visual, and video form, these are demand for a combination that almost never exists in a single person. 

So when we see such job descriptions, we shouldn't feel that we come up short -- the gaslighting game Caroline Bingley intends in this conversation. Instead we need to draw on Elizabeth's confidence and refuse to accept the irrational views of others just because they have more money and/or status (but not intelligence)  than we possess.
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Elizabeth stands firm against gaslighting and will not be persuaded to ignore what she knows based on her own lived experience. As she has not seen anyone who combines all the accomplishments listed, she will not accept it as a feasible goal for any woman to aspire to. 

Pride and Prejudice also shows us the foil to the independent Elizabeth -- the character who bows to those in power and who comes across as obsequious worm -- Collins. You definitely don't want to fall into line the way Collins does for Catherine de Bourgh..





What's possible?


Writing this made me appreciate the brilliance of Austen's planting the notion of what is attainable and what is not just before this exchange. Caroline Bingley raves abou Pemberly's library and tells her brother he should take that  estate as a model for his own:


'Neglect! I am sure you neglect nothing that can add to the beauties of that noble place. Charles, when you build your house, I wish it may be half as delightful as Pemberley.'

'I wish it may.'

'But I would really advise you to make your purchase in that neighbourhood, and take Pemberley for a kind of model. There is not a finer county in England than Derbyshire.'

'With all my heart; I will buy Pemberley itself if Darcy will sell it.'

'I am talking of possibilities, Charles.'

'Upon my word, Caroline, I should think it more possible to get Pemberley by purchase than by imitation.'

Bingley doesn't seriously expect his friend to sell his estate. He is making the point that an attempt to match a perfect model is not realistic. This bit of insight shows that Bingley is not quite as clueless a character as he is sometimes played in dramatizations of the novel. It also shows how well-crafted the novel is to lay this foundation of rejecting impossible aspirations.

What holds true of estates and standards for women's perfection also applies to job requirements and applications. Think of all  riciulous laundry lists of skills and senior level experiences places demand -- often for a junior level salary.. And then there is the application process that serves as  another form of gaslighting to impress on candidates that they have to prove themselves by jumping through all these hoops just to have their application considered. 

That's not a company that values people and their time.  Remember this next time you face one of those monstrous applications. They're playing  Caroline Bingley's game, and the  only way to win is to refuse to play by her rules.  

**Note added on Sept. 29, 2024: Sometimes these absurd standards aren't put into the job application itself but reveal themselves later when the applicants are invited to prove their interest and worthiness by investing hours in answering questions that used to be reserved only for second and third interviews. This is the actual Google doc that was shared with me to move on to the next qualifying round of a job with an upper range salary far below both what I was seeking and what this job should pay. I passed on the opportunity.  



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