‘Selling the self’: packaging the narrative trajectories of workers for the labour market

ABSTRACT

Based on ethnographic observations in a programme on job search training in Fribourg, Switzerland, I discuss the regimentation that is expected from job seekers on how to ‘sell the self’ in the labour market, i.e. on how to successfully manage a job interview. I will show how in attempting to narratively package their trajectories, the coaches’ focus lies on a particular register that is aimed at the ‘art of getting liked’. The job seekers are instructed in bodily and communicative behaviour that puts an emphasis on affect, positivity, and agency. In this, these practices can be understood as concurrent with neoliberal principles that involve techniques of the self as well as the activation of the individual. Yet, as a result, the potentially mobile and multilingual trajectories of the job seekers become mainstreamed in the monolingual environment of officially bilingual Fribourg, in which French is the dominant language.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical sociolinguistic ethnography
• narrative trajectories
• unemployment
• neoliberal labour market policies

Acknowledgements

For this article, I am indebted to the project’s PI’s, Prof. Alexandre Duchêne and Dr. Renata Coray, Research Centre on Multilingualism, University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Acknowledgment is due also to the other team members who contributed to the data collection and transcription (http://www.institut-mehrsprachigkeit.ch/en/content/access-labour-market-unemployment-and-language-skills). All data presented in this article was generated within this research project. Further, I am thankful to the editors of this special issue, Maria Rosa Garrido and Maria Sabaté-Dalmau, for inviting me to contribute to this project and for their productive support. I also thank the two external reviewers for their detailed and constructive feedback. All remaining errors are mine.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Mi-Cha Flubacher is a post doc assistant in Applied Linguistics at the Department of Linguistics, University of Vienna, Austria. Her research interests include ethnographic approaches to the economic commodification of language and multilingualism, to language as a site of the reproduction of social inequality, and to questions of language, gender, and race/ethnicity. Addressing these issues in her publications, she has co-authored Language Investment and Employability: The Uneven Distribution of Resources in the Public Employment Service (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) and co-edited Language, Education and Neoliberalism: Critical Studies in Neoliberalism (Multilingual Matters, 2017).

ORCID

Mi-Cha Flubacher http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7011-9873

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 In essence, the unemployment insurance is obligatory for anyone legally working in Switzerland (paid equally by employee and employer and complemented by the state). Eligibility for benefits and LMM arise after 12 months of work, as regulated in the Federal Unemployment Insurance Act 837.0 (German version: Arbeitslosenversicherungsgesetz. https://www.admin.ch/opc/de/classified-compilation/19820159/index.html). Thus, also people with employment can register as job seekers and benefit from certain LMM, if deemed necessary.

2 Information online on unemployment and the LMM: https://www.arbeit.swiss/secoalv/en/home/menue/stellensuchende/arbeitslos-was-tun-/arbeitsmarktliche-massnahmen.html.

3 All institutions, programmes and individuals are given pseudonyms.

4 The unemployment LMM in Fribourg are never officially bilingual but cater to either the French- or the German-speaking population. Migrants are usually sent to French-speaking LMM unless explicitly demanded otherwise.

5 French original: 1) Je prends une douche. Je mets un peu de déodorant. J’évite le parfum car il ne pleura peut-être pas à mon interlocuteur. Je vérifie que mes cheveux soient propres et bien coiffés, voire attachés pour certaines fonctions (ex. : aide de cuisine). Je me rase de près. J’évite le maquillage trop lourd. Je vérifie que mes ongles soient propres. Je prends un repas léger. 2) Je vérifie la propreté de mes chaussures. Je vérifie que j’ai assez d’essence. Je prends de quoi écrire et ma liste des questions. 3) Je relis ma lettre et mon CV. J’arrive 5 minutes en avance. J’éteins mon natel [Swiss expression for cell phone]. Je me présente (prénom, nom) à la réception de l’entreprise et je donne le nom de la personne avec qui j’ai rendez-vous.

Additional information

Funding

This publication is based on a project realised in the work programme 2012–2014 of the Research Centre on Multilingualism (financed by the Federal Office of Culture).