One of my clients related to me an incomprehensible scenario from an interview she snagged after a dry spell of several months. The woman interviewer asked her why she hadn’t worked in over a year.

Duh!

Mam, haven’t you read the newspapers? Turned on a television? Opened up Yahoo? Hello…are you living on the same planet? Like maybe your applicant in front of you couldn’t find a job in all this time? Perhaps this employer’s reality is not the frustrating one of millions of people worldwide who finds themselves depending on a government check each week to pay the rent. Perhaps because the recession hasn’t affected this employer’s business and she hasn’t been hurt personally. Perhaps because she has a job, she cannot relate to the realities of daily life in the business world across the country.

My client stayed calm and rational. I give her credit. She’s a better woman than I.

She explained that she is her sole source of support and couldn’t possibly accept the below-cost-of-living wage (and less than her awarded weekly unemployment insurance amount), in the offers that she had been getting. Perhaps the interviewer could have commiserated with her by understanding how difficult things are out there and asked the same question differently in a more dignified manner.

Some things go unsaid but interviewers will say the darndest things! Anything goes…I’m sure there are eight million stories in the Naked City about looking for work.

Before we assign this 2009 utterance a place in Ripley’s Believe it or Not or “Can You Top This?,” it might pay to take a deep breath and think about what an employer might be trying to ascertain about us when he/she asks this question. What lurks under the surface of asking a job applicant in these times why he/she hasn’t worked in over a year?

After some thought, I realize that, of course, employers know what’s going on in the world of work and are well aware of the staggering numbers of unemployed folks. They’ve got to know the words, recession and downturned economy. I give them the benefit of the doubt.

When the dust settles, we can see what employers are really asking during interviews and can prepare ourselves with honest and substantial answers. I think employers want to know how we have perceived the setback of having lost the last job and how we are coping with it. I don’t think they want to hear how we’ve exhausted our life savings and how many jobs are paying less than they used to. But whatever you say—don’t say that you’ve been looking for over a year and haven’t gotten any offers! (The employer might think, well, if nobody else will hire you, why should I?)

I do think employers want to hear that we have used this ‘down’ time in constructive ways, whether we were laid off or are just re-entering the job market after having taken a sabbatical, cared for a sick loved, raised a family or spent a year backpacking across Europe and observing the variety of cultures and mastering the concept of diversity. Perhaps we have upgraded or strengthened job-related skills in online training sites or enrolled in formal training. Perhaps we’ve volunteered our time and can relate a few pointers on what we’ve learned or mastered—especially if we’ve volunteered or took a non paying internship in the field for which we are interviewing. We want to be respected, not pitied, by someone holding a trump card—whether we are hired or not. And they want to know what have we done that can help them in their business.

If we can describe anecdotal ways in which we have better equipped ourselves this time around, perhaps then we won’t feel awkward, stymied, humiliated and disadvantaged if we have lost our jobs are ever asked why we haven’t worked in over a year. Wishing you good answers, a wealth of opportunities and offers and plenty of work to go around.

-By The Job Enthusiast Who Won’t Rest Till Everyone Is Put To Work!