Obtaining A Job

All the "hard work" and commitment a person could muster in their lifetime will not erase the foundational role of luck in obtaining a job.  A self-employed worker, given that they have the resources to handle this role themself, would not be confined by the soon-to-be mentioned variables that make someone reliant on an outside employer, but they would still be dependent on there being a cultural environment that makes their business survivable.  Even this still involves a degree of happenstance luck regarding which logical possibility will be realized—their business forming or not forming, continuing or not continuing.

For the typical worker, though, there first has to be a need or desire to hire someone on the employer's part, or else no jobs would ever be created.  This does not mean that all jobs are necessary or utilized well: it is just the case that someone has to create the job to start with.  Businesspeople would perform tasks themselves or allow them to go unfinished otherwise.  No one can be hired for a job that does not exist.  Second, a prospective employee has to hear about the employer's need or be in their considerations already.  Without this condition being met, no one would ever become an employee or switch jobs to begin with.  So far, these are two major conditions that are to some extent beyond any ordinary worker's control, and they are prerequisites for a multitude of jobs.

Then there are the societal trends that popularize one set of skills for a duration or shift away from them.  Being intelligent, something that is true only of the handful of rationalists living at a given time, does not mean someone has particular skills required for various industries; whether or not someone is competent with some professionally useful skill, there is no guarantee of any demand for that exact skill, on top of it not logically following that there must be employers who have not met their hiring quota or that more relevant jobs will be created.  Having skills, which does not at all require that a person is genuinely rationalistic (intelligent), only makes it more likely that someone will be hired if they have the right skills.  Luck is still an integral factor.

Employers can be outright stupid as well and could dismiss a perfectly capable or deserving candidate for a given job.  This, since it pertains to the preferences or whims of another person, reduces to luck at least somewhat.  Things could be done to impress a potential employer, yet none of this will force them to make a certain decision.  Keeping a job is likewise partially contingent on things beyond an employee's control, as they could eliminate an employee or even an entire department for idiotic reasons or due to genuinely shifting business needs.  Ultimately, there is no such thing as total job security no matter an individual's talents and performance.

Some people might like to think that their relative professional or financial success is all due to their own intelligence or capabilities—though if they are not a rationalist, they are a slave to assumptions and have no true knowledge or intelligence.  Their luck is even greater if they still succeeded in such instances!  These truths might undermine their self-esteem and be rejected on such grounds.  Other people might like to think that if they just improve or expand their skills, it could only be the case that they will obtain the job they desire or at a minimum some sort of sustainable job.  This is not so and this truth might be overlooked for its inconvenience.  Amidst all that someone can do to marginally make receiving a job more probable, it is never fully up to them.