The Peter Principle was formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1968 book by the same name. The book was meant to be funny, but the principle is very real. The principle states that “In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence.”

Let’s put it a different way. Generally speaking, employees are promoted so long as they do well in their jobs. Sooner or later, they are promoted to a job that they aren’t good at (their “level of incompetence”), and since they aren’t doing a good job, they never get promoted again.

How does the Myth of the Tough Labor Market lead us into the Peter Principle? Because people are so anxious about finding a job, which they see as such a scarce resource, that they adopt a “take whatever I can get” mentality.

With this sort of mindset, people apply to every job in the want-ads that they remotely fit (want-ads, by the way, are some of the worst places to find jobs), and do their best to talk their way through the interview with scripted responses. Sooner or later they do land a job, but odds are it isn’t a job for which they’re very well-suited.

So here we are at the first job in our careers, and we’ve already Peter Principle-d out – never to be promoted because the very first job wasn’t a good fit. Doesn’t this just make you want to cry?

The good news is that it doesn’t have to work that way. Stay tuned for more.

Note: This post is extracted and adapted from the post by the same name on Tough Economy Jobs. In addition to being the creator of the Tough Economy Jobs blog and HuntingToHired, Danny is also co-founder of Firepole Marketing, the definitive marketing training program for entrepreneurs, small businesses and non-marketers.