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Flawed System/Flawed Self
A sociologist's book on why American job seekers blame themselves, and Israeli ones the system
Why it’s worth your time
Ofer Sharone's Flawed System/Flawed Self looks at how a long job search can quietly turn from a problem you're working on into a judgment on who you are. A sociologist, he interviewed out-of-work professionals in two countries, and his comparison can lift some of the self-blame off someone who's been searching for months.
How to stop taking job rejection personally
The book · About 4 hours of reading · Buy or borrow
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- Start with the chemistry game chapters.
Chapters 2 and 3 describe the American white-collar search, where seekers are coached to show the person behind the résumé, and how that sets up self-blame. Chapters 4 and 5, on Israel's skills-based specs game, supply the contrast.
- Keep a two-column search log.
For each application or interview this week, write one line in two columns: what you controlled, such as preparation, follow-up or fit, and what you couldn't see or change, such as an internal candidate, a frozen budget or a screening filter. Reread it on Friday before you judge the week.
Good moments for this: three months into a searchafter a run of rejectionswhen a friend has been out of work for a while
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Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
Sharone's point is that how hiring is organized shapes whom job seekers blame, in ways a single applicant can't see. A no often reflects choices made before your application arrived, so it tends to say less about you than it feels like it does.
What might make this harder
Add structure and company: a weekly search group, a peer, or a career adviser who can see the pattern from outside. Sharone's later book, The Stigma Trap (2024), looks at how the stigma of being out of work can keep even experienced, college-educated people stuck in long searches.
Questions people ask
What is Flawed System/Flawed Self about?
A 2013 book by sociologist Ofer Sharone comparing out-of-work professionals in the US and Israel, along with blue-collar Americans. Drawing on interviews and observation at job-search support groups, he argues that how hiring is organized shapes whether people blame themselves or the system.
What is the chemistry game in job searching?
Sharone's term for the American white-collar search, where hiring is framed as finding a personal fit, so applicants present the person behind the résumé. In his account, that makes rejection feel like a judgment on the self.
Why do job seekers blame themselves?
In Sharone's research, Americans talked about their layoffs in outside terms, like outsourcing or the economy, then turned inward when new work didn't come. He links the shift to a hiring process that rewards self-presentation.
What it says, and how it holds up
Ask someone three months into a job search why it isn't working, and the answers often point inward: the interviews, the networking, the lack of direction. Sharone heard that from American white-collar workers, and noticed that Israelis in similar jobs tended to blame the system instead. How hiring is organized, he argues, goes a long way toward explaining the difference.
In the US, he found, white-collar hiring runs on what he calls a chemistry game. Employers look for fit and passion, so applicants are encouraged to present who they are beyond their credentials and to treat the search as something they control. That framing fits how American hiring works, and it can turn each rejection into a judgment on the self. Israeli hiring, as he describes it, leans on screening firms, tests and keywords: impersonal and often frustrating, and easier to blame on the process. Blue-collar Americans in his study faced a third pattern, built around showing diligence.
The book won awards from two sections of the American Sociological Association. Renyi Hong, reviewing it for the International Journal of Communication, called it a timely look at long-term unemployment and linked it to wider writing on emotion: in the American case, he wrote, positive thinking and self-reliance draw attention away from the labor market's problems, so the remedy for unemployment becomes therapy rather than social change. Screening software has spread since the fieldwork, so parts of the American search may now look more like the specs game than they did.
Early in a search, a few weeks in, the structural reading can come too soon and turn into a reason to send fewer applications. Sharone's book is about searches that have dragged on; in the first stretch, a practical guide to the mechanics of searching, such as Richard Bolles's What Color Is Your Parachute?, may do more.
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Picked by Truest and described in our own words. The original belongs to its creator. Last updated October 9, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.