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Superstitious job hunters cross fingers

By Xiao Xiangyi (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-20 08:04

"Most of my classmates wear Nike on interview days," said my friend Jin Yue, a senior student who is going to graduate from college this June.

"Interesting, but why necessarily Nike?" I was confused.

"Think of the logo!"

Ah, it all made sense. The secret lies in the Nike Swoosh that purportedly has a positive meaning for Chinese students.

With the arrival of this year's job fair season, millions of job seekers, mostly the "me" generation born in the 1980s, are confronted with the tough task of gaining employment.

Many of them have turned to personal rituals or weird superstitions to boost their chances of being hired.

Similar to the belief in the Nike design, some job seekers might go to temples before interviews; some might avoid coffee and turn to a piece of chocolate for breakfast on interview days; some might even draw a "Qian" symbol, which is the first of the eight trigrams.

We might feel amused at the news that four boys in a dorm share one same "lucky" suit in job-hunting, but have you thought about why they would do that?

I believe their trust in magic, luck or chance gives them an illusion of power when they feel they have no control over things.

Superstitions in this case are based more on weakness than ignorance.

"When people have been out of work for some time, it's truly a loss - loss of self, identity and what you thought your life was going to look like. They would think, 'I've done everything else, so rather than feel completely helpless and hopeless, I'm going to do this,'" said Elizabeth Lombardo, a psychologist who practices in Wexford, Pennsylvania.

Wearing Nike for interviews is perhaps the only thing they could choose in a situation where they are to be chosen by others.

"A lot of times, people will go to something - their magic spirit, that special shirt - because that's easier than addressing that they're not good at interviews or their resume needs fixing," Elizabeth Lombardo warned.

"It's not helpful if you're only relying on that."

A personal ritual does not necessarily lead to mockery and blame, for it has a psychological value to job seekers and it does no harm to the society.

Of course I am not encouraging it; what I'm talking about is that we could at least try to be tolerant. Though a lucky suit is certainly no substitute for a strong will and honest-to-goodness interview skills.