How “Passion for the Job” Became the Biggest Scam in Hiring
Publié le 28 November 2025
For years, job seekers have been told to show passion and purpose. Not just interest, not just competence—but burning, all-consuming passion. Employers claim they want people who love what they do, who wake up excited to contribute.
But lately, that idea feels less like motivation and more like manipulation. Somewhere along the way, the call for passion became a way to justify underpaying, overworking, and overvaluing devotion to the company above personal well-being.
The rhetoric of passion has been hijacked—and it’s time to see it for what it is: a modern corporate scam dressed up as inspiration.
The Romanticization of Work
The word “passion” carries emotional weight. It sounds noble, almost artistic. When employers ask for passion, they tap into that romantic notion that work is supposed to complete you—that it’s a calling, not just a paycheck.
But this framing benefits companies far more than workers. It blurs the line between professional boundaries and personal identity, convincing people that loving their job means tolerating burnout, unpaid overtime, and endless hustle. And frankly, it’s kind of hilarious. Sure, someone starting off in financial services will definitely be passionate about paperwork! Woohoo!
The truth is much more boring than cringey HR videos: most industries don’t require passion to function well. They require skill, responsibility, and fair compensation. Yet, candidates who treat work as a transaction rather than a lifestyle are often labeled as unmotivated or disinterested. This stigma pressures employees to overperform to prove their dedication. Passion stops being about fulfillment and becomes a test of loyalty—one that workers can never quite pass.
In romanticizing passion, companies also offload accountability. If you love what you do, you shouldn’t complain about long hours or mediocre pay. After all, it’s your dream job, right? That mindset not only normalizes exploitation but glamorizes it, turning self-sacrifice into a badge of honor.
The Passion Trap: Why It Works
The passion narrative persists because it’s psychologically effective. It feeds our need for meaning and validation. People want to believe their work matters—that they’re part of something bigger than themselves. Employers know this and use it as emotional leverage.
When companies frame passion as a hiring criterion, they subtly signal that enthusiasm can substitute for experience. For young professionals eager to prove themselves, this is enticing. They’re willing to accept lower pay or longer hours in exchange for an opportunity to “grow” or be part of something they love. It’s an invisible trade-off, one that benefits the employer every time.
What’s more, the idea of passion masks systemic issues. If an employee feels drained or disengaged, the assumption is that they’ve lost their spark, not that the environment is unsustainable. The blame shifts from structure to attitude, from leadership to the individual. This emotional framing keeps workers self-policing and self-blaming, while companies remain unaccountable for their own dysfunction.
Ultimately, the passion trap works because it preys on people looking for a culture in which they fit. Nobody wants to be seen as just doing it for the money. But acknowledging that work is, in fact, transactional isn’t cynical—it’s honest. Passion doesn’t pay the bills, and pretending otherwise only deepens the imbalance between effort and reward.
How Employers Exploit the Ideal
Somewhere between job ads and boardrooms, passion became a corporate metric. Hiring managers now treat it as proof of cultural fit, enthusiasm, and long-term potential. But what they’re often looking for isn’t genuine excitement—it’s compliance. Passionate employees are easier to convince to go the extra mile, skip breaks, or accept workloads that would make anyone else protest.
Many organizations also use passion as a cost-cutting tool. They recruit people eager to enter a field and frame low salaries as an investment in their future. The implicit message is: if you truly care, money shouldn’t be your main concern. This moral sleight of hand allows companies to underpay talent under the guise of opportunity, and even has darker implications.
Even performance reviews weaponize passion. Feedback often includes subjective assessments like “not enthusiastic enough” or “lacks visible energy,” even when the employee delivers excellent results. That creates a culture where optics trump output—where appearing eager matters more than being effective.
The Burnout Economy
The obsession with passion is directly antithetical to building a culture of growth and learning. When workers are encouraged to give their all, it becomes almost impossible to set limits. The narrative implies that true passion means relentless drive—that rest is a sign of weakness. And when the inevitable exhaustion sets in, companies frame it as a personal failure to stay motivated.
Burnout is often mistaken for lack of passion, when it’s actually a symptom of too much of it. People who care deeply are the ones most likely to push themselves beyond healthy limits. The more invested they are, the harder it becomes to detach, even when their energy and mental health start to decline.
This dynamic serves employers perfectly. Passion-driven employees keep productivity high, and they even find solutions to automate activities like bookkeeping. They volunteer for extra work, skip vacations, and defend the company even when mistreated. It’s not sustainable, but it’s profitable—at least for one side.
As industries glamorize the grind, the boundary between dedication and exploitation disappears. The result? A generation of professionals who conflate exhaustion with achievement and mistake loyalty for passion.
Reclaiming Passion on Your Terms
It doesn’t have to be this way. Passion isn’t inherently bad—it’s just been misused. The key is to separate genuine interest from blind devotion. The bottom line is: loving your work should enhance your life, not consume it. Passion should be empowering, not something employers weaponize to extract more from you.
Start by redefining what passion means to you. Maybe it’s not about your job title, but about problem-solving, creativity, or helping others. When you see passion as a personal value instead of a professional obligation, you regain control. You can care deeply about your work without letting it define your worth.
Employees also need to normalize boundaries. Saying no, demanding fair pay, or prioritizing rest doesn’t make you less passionate—it makes you sustainable. True commitment doesn’t require self-sacrifice. It requires balance, respect, and mutual benefit.
Conclusion
Passion for the job was supposed to be a light—something that guided people toward meaningful work. Instead, it’s often used as a spotlight on workers expected to perform without question. The modern workplace has turned a beautiful idea into a manipulative standard, one that rewards sacrifice and punishes balance.
But passion doesn’t have to die—it just needs to be reclaimed. When you direct your energy toward roles that respect your time, compensate your effort, and value you as a whole person, passion becomes powerful again. The scam only works when people forget their worth. And once you remember it, no employer can use your passion against you.
