I would suggest a new term: Employ-unable.<p>Many if not most firms are unable to identify intelligent, motivated people, outside of the typical CV pedigree of Ivy Leagues and corporate brands.<p>As a result, they have created a cargo cult recruiting process that promises, in a few easy steps, to tell them the essence of the applicant's very being, and to accurately predict their future performance within the organization.<p>A child knows that this is impossible, but the need for control and risk minimization means firms force themselves to believe in it.<p>That is why the entire job seeking and interview process has degenerated into a tragedy and a farce.<p>In Europe and North America, there are tens if not hundreds of millions of people unemployed because businesses are not able to employ them; they lack the competence to recruit well.
'Nobody' here is highly contextual. From what I understand, there are some markets (outside the US, particularly in the developing world. E.g., <a href="http://dazeinfo.com/2014/10/28/1-5-million-engineering-pass-outs-india-every-year-fewer-getting-hired-trends/" rel="nofollow">http://dazeinfo.com/2014/10/28/1-5-million-engineering-pass-...</a>) where there's a glut of talented people. They are 'unemployable' if they cannot move and cannot find remote work.<p>In the larger sense, there are plenty of people who are unemployable (though it can be geographically or temporally limited in scope -- not always ,though): Zero Marginal Product workers: <a href="http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/07/zero-marginal-product-workers.html" rel="nofollow">http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/07/zer...</a><p>To his point, though, the market in the US is still hot, and we're not /terribly/ far off from the first dot-com wave situation of "if you know HTML you can get hired in this market." Now it's more like "if you know Rails or one front-end JS framework decently, you can get hired." So if you have any skill, yeah, you're not going to unemployable here for a while, and whether or not you failed at your own company will probably not be relevant.
I have been self employed most of my life, I created companies from scratch and I deeply feel that I am unemployable.<p>I am engineer, a geek, a hacker, whatever you want to call it when you love working with machines all day, but the most important thing is that I take my own decisions. I won't be happy working on machines for someone else.<p>When you study in the University they train you to obey the decisions of others. Everyday I am shocked when people obey me without resistance.<p>The best people I had did not obey me: When I ask something stupid, they just told me fast how stupid it is. They were a pain in the ass to work with, but the resulting work is outstanding.<p>I think the belief that you need to work for someone else is wrong, society trains you for that as it is the only alternative. It is not. You can work on your own just fine and partner with other people.<p>Working on your own is not for everyone, but also being employed is not for everyone.
For me, it was the exact opposite. I was self employed for about 15 years and decided to take early retirement as a full time employee. It's amazing. Vacation time. Full benefits. Profit sharing. Dedicated A/R and A/P accounting departments. Built in customer service department (HR). Marketing department. All taxes handled for me. All I have to do is code. Frankly it's a joke.<p>Don't be afraid of going back if you decide or need to. In my mind, I'm still a consultant and always will be. My current customer is my employer and I only have one customer. The only thing that can get to me on occasion are all the petty gripes the other employees constantly bicker about. They don't know what it's like to do everything on your own.
I love how nobody has actually responded to the post.<p>The idea that working for yourself makes you unable to be an employee is a serious one. I have alternated over the years between self-employment and working for others and at this point I doubt anyone would ever hire me again even if I wanted to be hired.<p>Self-employment is not for everyone (it does come with a huge amount of stress), but if you can get used to this then it make working for someone else hard to accept.
Having gone back and forth between employment and entrepreneurship, I agree with the point that the author is making. Taking on a "regular job" doesn't mean you've failed, and previously running a business certainly wouldn't be a knock against someone I was considering hiring.