ABSTRACT
In contemporary working life, training and guidance on how to write curriculum vitae or succeed at an interview are fundamental features of job seeking. Increasingly what counts is to become an entrepreneur of the self – to use Rose’s (1998) phrase – in the labour market. Such skills and capacities are taken-for-granted in advice about job seeking, with the implication that where they are not already held learning is crucial. Training for job seeking is an example of learning for work in a flexible and global labour market, where lifelong learning involves education and training during working life as well as creating demands that go beyond the workplace (Payne 2001). The analysis offered here focuses on how a Swedish trade union for white-collar workers, Sif,1 within different periods of time, and through its brochures for job seekers, has constructed the ‘job seeker’ through advice and guidance on the knowledge and skills that are important. This chapter aims to examine techniques of governing and the construction of subjects in the job search.
