Cover letters were an annoyance to begin with, but in the days of one-click job applications and LLMs, they serve no purpose and only waste everyone’s time and bandwidth.
While technology creates jobs in the long run the nearer term is usually quite rocky, and the numbers show us very close to falling off the ledge.
In under two minutes we can put an end to ghosting candidates. If you’ve been ghosted by a company, consider sharing this article with them.
Like intrepid heroes in a horror film, sometimes job candidates walk into bad situations at companies; here’s how you can be a little more careful than our Tinseltown heroes.
We often look for new opportunities to pursue, but asking what existing activities to stop can be just as impactful.
More connections means a bigger network, right? It’s not quite so simple.
Many companies have employees with no real training interview candidates; that’s as crazy as putting a teenager behind the wheel of a car with no training.
When companies push employees to do extra work, the cost is often borne not only by the employee, but their families as well.
Amazon’s requirement of employees working from the office five days a week does not necessarily market the return of pre-pandemic office requirements. It will depend on a few factors.
Misuse of AI in corporate emails can lead to information overload and message distortion.
A recent federal court ruling prevented a massive change to non-competes, but they still need to evolve to be meaningful in the twenty-first century.
Practical networking advice for those heading to college campuses.
World class competitors may be fierce while on the floor but are often friendly off the floor. It’s a good lesson to help us see past corporate competition.
Making it to the Olympics is to commit to years of training with a long-shot payoff. How athletes think about this can teach us how to think about our careers.
Something that may not make sense at first may be more rational when you understand the context of why it's being done that way.
Many aspiring leaders feel their capabilities aren’t being recognized. There's a simple checklist to make sure that you are seen as the leader you are.
Jobs can often feel like a series of constant interruptions, preventing you from getting “real work” done. There’s an easy way to change that dynamic.
Political debates are interviews for elected officials, but like many interviewing techniques, they have limitations.
Candidates often let their recruiters lead the negotiation, but that’s about as wise as a cow following a Judas goat. You must learn to lead the negotiation yourself.
We often talk about needing to prevent work from interrupting our personal lives. It’s absolutely important, but for many work-from-home workers, limiting local distractions while working can be equally challenging.
AI will transform society, but society has shown that such transformation may not be as expected and the costs, unchecked, can be excessive.
America is a culture that celebrates success, but those overnight successes are rarely the true picture.
First level managers and those in matrix or non-hierarchical organizations often have to manage employees over whom they don’t have direct authority or financial control; how can such people be managed?
QA was always seen as second tier compared to software engineering; AI may upend this relationship and provide lessons for all fields as to the shift in value of different job skills.
Many companies claim to be an AI company; it’s a pattern we see with every new technology. It’s important for employees (and founders) to understand if they are really working for the type of company they think they are.
AI promises huge improvements in efficiency and safety for many tasks in our daily lives, but getting the technology to work is only half of the challenge.
Focusing on the value of a transaction over a relationship may win the battle but lose the war.
Nothing feels worse than blowing an interview question. Fortunately, it happens to all of us, and there are ways to recover.
Most people don’t start networking until they need a job. By then it’s already too late.
Many schools try to expose students to different career paths. Unfortunately, the methodology used is misfocused, and puts many students on the wrong path.
LLMs (Large Language Models) work differently from a traditional search engine and our approach to using them needs to reflect the uniqueness and biases in the tool.
Historically companies have wanted to avoid a cybersecurity incident, but a new type of integrated business model makes such incidents not simply welcome, but profitable.
While you should work to expand your network, remember that relationships take time to build; rushing the new relationship opens the door to problems.
Asking about a weakness is a very common interview question that most candidates answer poorly. Using the SUGaR technique, you can answer it well and stand out as a job candidate.
Interviews have gotten less formal over the years, but finding the right level of formality is still important to make a good impression. This applies to behavior as well as dress.
While engineering departments are trained to understand why there was a mistake and how to prevent its repetition, many hiring teams lack a similar process and often make bad hires. Fortunately, there’s an easy fix.
No one likes to give a bad reference; many want to make their former colleagues look good, but stretching the truth has negative consequences for everyone.
With each new technology the question is asked whether it will make us lazy and lower overall quality. While AI is a shortcut, it’s not the garden path some fear.
See how an executive coach negotiated a deal to keep a client using negotiation trade-offs.
Badly executed layoffs have become more visible thanks to social media. Cloudflare’s recent termination gone viral is a good example of what not to do.
Many job hunters experience frustration and depression after receiving many rejections (or no responses at all). This is more a reflection of the job market than it is of you.
As the year begins many people plan forward progress in their careers. This article provides an overview based on my most useful advice from the past few years.
We often think we need our managers to get us the raise or promotion, in truth, it's mostly under our control to make that happen.
Asking for a raise or promotion is technically and emotionally challenging. Doing it the right way greatly increases your chances of success.
It can be hard to tell when you need to be in the office, or even if you’re expected to respond to emails nights and weekends. A simple approach can help you navigate the uncertainty.
Trade and industry groups have a low-cost way to create a win-win scenario by offering job search support as a community service offering.
There are a myriad of reasons why companies ghost candidates; often it’s more about what’s happening at the company than a reflection on the candidate.
Many people hesitate to leave a job during bonus season. Here’s how to decide what to do and how to not leave money on the table.
Connections to strangers on social media isn’t really networking. Worse, it opens you up to other risks.
While there may never be actual jobs paying people to work as prompt engineers, the thinking and approach of prompt engineering is a key skill we all employ already, and have, in fact, used for decades.
Despite the hype these jobs do not and will not exist. Understanding why can help you avoid other dead-end career paths.
While speaking coaches often focus on formal presentations, many people struggle with being put on the spot at work. Simple techniques can help you quickly overcome anxiety it creates.
Many people struggle to lead a conversation, business or social, to where they hoped it would go. We can employ a technique from improv comedy to be more nimble when conversing.
Paying the ransom in cybercrimes crates a vicious cycle in which we embolden attackers. The best option for society is to remove this option for society.
Striking actors and writers have the advantage today, but history tells us that they are fighting an uphill battle against technology.
Recent advances in LLMs helped AI make a quantum leap forward in capability, but many tasks in our jobs will be beyond its capabilities for years to come.
The right ingredients are the key to success but most people working in a restaurant aren’t experienced enough to select the right ones. Who is selecting your ingredients?
Industry associations and trade groups are in a unique position to provide cost effective training for their members at scale; unfortunately, few of them do.
Individual contributors focus on solving domain problems, but as you move up the ladder personality management becomes another aspect of the job.
Leaders and managers like to be in control, but sometimes the right path forward means giving up some of that control to those who can make better decisions.
Despite fear mongering, AI isn’t going to kill us all, but in the near future it will cause a lot of societal disruption for which we are ill prepared.
Despite fear mongering, AI isn’t going to kill us all, but in the near future it will cause a lot of societal disruption for which we are ill prepared.
As companies implement layoffs employees are sometimes pitted against each other to fight for their jobs. A little preparation can go a long way in saving your job, and setting you up for your next role.
The Titanic and OceanGate both failed due to the same ethical dynamics.
Flying into the office a few days a week seems like the best of both worlds, but there are some hidden downsides.
Employees often shift expectations when faced with small job frustrations. Overall time the small changes add up, leading to an unhappy employee who doesn’t consciously realize it’s time to move on.
There has been a rapid rise in the supply and demand of fractional executives the past few years. We look at the what, why, and how of this trend.
Rapunzel's godmother locked her in a tower to hold on to her. Companies employing the same strategy will face a similar fate.
When it comes to workplace conflicts many managers tell employees to “work it out themselves.” On the contrary, it's specifically the manager's job to solve it.
Business by its nature has risks, but evaluating those risks is usually easier for more senior and more experienced workers. Managers and leaders need to help more junior employees understand and manage their exposure to risk.
All researchers, including AI, and all workers more broadly, need to accept responsibility for their actions. Seeing yourself as a cog in a machine does not remove your moral obligations.
Everyone is talking about the impact of AI, but how to best use it at your company, especially in a way that doesn’t make your employees feel replaceable, can be tricky.
Recent CEO missteps illustrate a trap many managers can, and do, fall into when it comes to motivating and relating to their teams.
During negotiations, asking the other party to explain the rationale for a proposal from your perspective can provide key insights to help you gain a better deal.
Not having a summer internship as the semester wanes can be scary. Fortunately there are many paths to finding a summer job.
Is it ok to work for a company if you think the product or service is bad? Is it fair to the company? Is it fair to the customers?
People think career plans are only for employees; not having one limits founders and entrepreneurs as well.
AI has been created to benefit society, but like seafaring, industrialization, and nuclear power, the side-effects of well-intentioned innovations can be consequential.
Moral hazard rears its head again, only to be shouted down by an angry mob with pitchforks (or the modern equivalent, tweets).
The line between professional connection and personal friend isn’t always well defined. Is someone in your network automatically a friend?
Simple questions often have the most complex answers. A small discussion can have huge ramifications for your likelihood of promotion.
Software engineering is a great job to have—today. We can see the future by looking to the past and recognizing that a good option today may not be tomorrow.
Tech CEOs are incentivized—by us—to take risks, and layoffs are a consequence of them.
The good news is our careers are safe, even if our jobs are not. The bad news is society may bear some consequences even as we reap the benefits.
Whether you’re selling a product to a customer or an idea to your manager you need to know how to manage the pitch. Otherwise, you’re just wasting time.
Some companies are starting to bring underperforming employees back into the office to improve their performance. Unfortunately, the challenge is much more complex.
There’s been criticism of late about nepo babies. Who benefits and where the line should be drawn isn’t as clear cut as we might think.
There’s a (not so new) trend of providing internships for returning workers. This allows workers and employers a better path for modern, wiggly careers.
Most people want to be promoted but what needs to be done is often unspoken. Learning how to address this, as an employee or manager helps everyone.
It’s a good time to take a break from sending out endless resumes and cover letters, but it’s an ideal time to make use of your network.
When it comes to career planning most people focus on the wrong priorities, dooming their chances at happiness.
Experience is great in a candidate but don’t let it limit your options; you’re hiring someone for the future not the past.
Companies are inherently volatile; employees must take responsibility for navigating their careers and industries.
Twitter’s idea of asking for commitment from employees is actually the right thing to do; unfortunately, how it was executed was the exact opposite of the way to do it.
The uptick in tech layoffs have people in the industry worried. A deeper look provides lessons for all of us as we think about jobs, whatever our industry may be.
Mastermind groups are very popular, but they may not be the most cost-effective way to learn. This article breaks down their value components and alternatives.
Unfortunate incidents like this quickly fade from memory. We need to remember them to help us find the right balance when it comes to regulations.
A few seconds of effort can make some feel appreciated and keep your network warm.
There are checklists when leaving a job to make sure work goes smoothly. This checklist will make sure your relationships go smoothly.
We’re taught to make a good first impression. Our last impressions can be just as important to our success.
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