Anti-Intellectualism, Layoffs, & Gatekeeping. Also Known As: What the F*ck Do You Want From Us?

By Jillian O'Malior, Founder & CEO, New World Labs

PUBLISHED: December 4, 2025

Hi. Welcome to my crash out.

What caused it this time? Oh, just watching a video from Giovanna at Rhize talking about how a job seeker had a verbal offer withdrawn because the CEO, who she didn’t interview with, saw the 10-month layoff gap on her resume and decided that made her unfit for the role. Keep in mind: this woman had been doing freelance and contract work, she just hasn’t had a full-time role in 10 months. And the CEO, head of the company, didn’t like that. So bye-bye offer, too bad to the hiring manager no longer having a say in picking the right talent for the job. Because the optics of employment is always more valuable than someone who can do the job, right?

F*ck that.

This is why those of us who have navigated long-term unemployment THIS go-around will tell everyone else: if you’re not in it, you won’t understand it. It’s not just that it’s brutal in terms of ghost jobs and ATS filters and AI screenings and overwhelmed recruiters and fake jobs and spam and scams. Those are all there, those are all valid, those are all what prevent us from getting a foot in the door.

But even when we DO, we get in the door, we prove our worth, we think we can start to breathe. Here comes that “employment gap;” the one we didn’t choose, the one we’ve been actively trying to keep as small as possible. Here it comes to ruin the one chance in 10 months we got.

Because yes, this crash out started as a result of watching that video. But at the core was the fact that I resonated with the entire story.

The first part? “Freelance, contract, fractional isn’t the same as being ACTUALLY employed.”

You’re right; it’s not. It requires way more discipline, way more work, and way more determination. Because you have to wake up every day and be the CEO, the CRO, the sales director, the closer, the procurement and contract team, the finance director, and the customer success manager even BEFORE being the one to execute the work. You are running the full show and if you can keep yourself busy with contract and fractional work? Then you are Good. At. It.

But that also means that you’re capable of doing things yourself. Which for a leader with control issues, with power struggles, a leader who fails to see the sheer power of someone like that, all you look like is “someone who isn’t hirable.” Because you had to rely on yourself for work and survival, not on a W2. And for a leader without the vision to see the talent that takes and the experience it garners, it’ll look like a challenge. And therefore; it’s discredited. It’s devalued. It’s lesser than. And it’s disqualify-able.

Next up: Don’t take a layoff personally; it’s just business. Don’t see it as a reflection of your worth.

But YOU do. You, the hiring manager. You, the recruiter. You, the CEO who only read our resume and never met us. You saw it as a reflection of our worth. Because you saw that gap, and you got NERVOUS.

“Why haven’t they had full-time employment in 10 months?”

Oh, I don’t know Jim. Maybe if you took your nose out of “Good to Great” and looked up at the job market, at LinkedIn, at the sheer number of green banners and #OpenToWork posts being shared, that might answer it for you. You saw not just that our job ended, but that we then didn’t get another one right away. And you did some math:

Job ends in November + No new job starting in November / It’s now December of the following year = By George, they probably didn’t leave of their own devices!

And despite the fact that our capitalistic corporate society has decided quarterly layoffs are a totally fine, totally normal way of doing business (OMG, thank you Jack Welch!) we still have not quite emotionally caught up with the idea that it means that MOST of us not only find ourselves unemployed involuntarily; unemployed not as a result of our efforts and skills and work ethic, but as a result of budget restructuring. Company mismanagement. But so many leaders, so many hiring managers, so many people in TA and HR can’t help but be biased. Judge it, judge us. Have somewhere in the back of their brains that it MUST have had SOMETHING to do with us.

But then those same leaders will turn around next quarter, layoff 5% of their staff, and tell them as they exit “don’t take this personally, it has nothing to do with you. #ThoughtsAndPrayers”

Rinse and repeat.

So the question becomes: What the f*ck do you want us to do?

Because there is no winning move for the job seeker here.

We show our freelance/contract/fractional work? Doesn’t count, not real work, we don’t respect it, NEXT.

We show our part-time retail job, our Lyft driving, our DoorDashing? Ewww, gross, nothing to do with this corporate work, we don’t respect it, NEXT.

We lie, we make up a job, we give our feral best friend as a reference? YOU LIE!?!?! Inconceivable, inappropriate, unprofessional, loser behavior, NEXT!

We leave the gap? OMG, why haven’t you worked, what is wrong with you, this makes me sooooo nervous, NEEEEEEEEEXT.

What do you want us to do?

What can we do?

We are trying, we are working as hard as possible to close that gap, but the longer it gets, the harder it is to close. And the panic sets in.

And the fear.

The anxiety, the self-doubt, the depression, the fall.

We just want to work. We want to support our lives, we want to do the things we’re good at, the things we enjoy. We want to not wake up at 3:00am in the grips of panic because that eviction notice is being stapled to our door the next day.

But what about you?

Why are you gatekeeping like this? Why are you overlooking someone’s skills, someone’s experience, the fact that the hiring manager, the person who would ACTUALLY be working with them day-in, day-out, says “this is the one, this is who I want.” Why are you overlooking all of that concrete evidence of success, that this person will drive your company forward, and instead saying “but see that 10 months where I can’t account for your time? THAT MATTERS MORE THAN ANY OF THIS.”

Off with their head.

From my lens, there’s a few things happening here:

One: Lack of creative, or even critical, thinking on a leader’s part.

Because if you can’t see someone for their worth in front of you, and you only measure them by way of how some other leader may or may not have found them valuable, then you have no business running a company. Leadership, REAL leadership, requires intellect, it requires creativity, it requires being able to see every move on the chessboard before it’s played. But if all you’re capable of is getting frustrated, wiping the board clean, and yelling “CHECKMATE, I WON” then Jim (I keep harping on Jim, sorry man) you will lose every game you ever attempt to play.

It’s no secret that anti-intellectualism is on the rise, has been for awhile. Idiocracy has crept into so many of our corporate systems and it is running amuck. I mean, that’s a whole topic for another day. But in this case: this is how it shows up. The inability to see a candidate’s worth because all you see is the gap. And this inability to connect the dots, to understand macroeconomics when hiring for a micro role, is the exact type of anti-intellectualism that is destroying companies from the inside out.

Two: The need for control.

This one is more insidious, and because of that, not easy to train out of people.

Because this is about control. A candidate with a gap means a candidate with time unaccounted for. Unvouched for. Uncontrolled time. And THAT is a threat to a leader who believes that first and foremost, their role at a company is to control.

Especially a candidate who has maybe even done well in that gap. Freelance, contract work. Made a name for themselves, not quite enough to comfortably secure and sustain their life, but enough to get them by. That’s a candidate who knows how to get things done. And therefore, a candidate who might not be as easy to control. And if you’re a leader on a power trip, a leader who wants to rule with an iron fist, a leader with a motivational poster of Grand Moff Tarkin above their desk, then yeah, you don’t want them. You want the candidate who plays the game, knows their role in the corporate world, silently moves from company to company with no gaps, no time to find themselves, no time to discover that there’s more to life, and work, than blind obedience. You’ll pass on the suspected independent in favor of the likely conformist.

Three: The belief that gaps = desperation, and you like someone who plays hard to get.

Imma let you in on a secret, something we’ll just spell out plainly: long-term unemployment ABSOLUTELY leads to desperation.

Gasp! Shock! Faint!

I know! Horrifying to think, right? But it’s true. Because spoiler alert: having no income for months on end, in a country and society that has monthly subscription fees for basically existing, leads to desperation. It’s survival desperation; people need to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. Not having access to that, not having that security, causes desperation.

But don’t moralize that sh*t.

You would feel the same way. The vast majority of us are only a couple missed paychecks away from total financial devastation. So yeah; you start to feel desperate.

But do you know what that desperation can fuel? Hard work. Creativity. Ingenuity. Gratitude. Relief. Qualities you WANT in an employee, I don’t care where you work or what you do. You want those things.

But our base psychology has us believing that we only want what we can’t easily have. And a candidate who is willing and eager to work for you is just not quite as DESIRABLE as the one you have to lure away from your competitor. Those ones cost more, they may not work as hard, they may not be as grateful. But damnit! You had to woo them, and doesn’t that make them more valuable? Isn’t it all a game? Chaser, chasee, black cat/golden retriever energy? Not just for dating folks; it’s what we want in the people we give our paychecks to.

So, again, I ask. What the f*ck do you want from us?

Because we want jobs. We want to work. We want to do something, be a part of something. Feel valued, feel worthy. Feed our children, pay for our rent, maybe even go on vacation once in awhile.

We want to live. And once you get past that 26-week mark, when the meager unemployment benefits run out, just the idea of “living” in the most basic sense starts to feel out of reach.

So we panic. And we fear. And we get angry. And we try, God willing, we try so f*cking HARD to close that employment gap. And we sell ourselves, and we prep, and we sparkle and shine while the back of our head counts the few pennies we have over and over, just hoping you’ll give us a chance to LIVE.

But you see the gap. And you get “nervous.” And you say “thanks, but no thanks. Best of luck.”

And the walls echo. And the heart pounds. And the fear screams inside our heads.

And we crash out.

And then, we pick ourselves up.

And we hope the next leader will have a little more humanity than you.