Career development

Anonymous member

4d

i really want to work in a friendly place...
recently working somewhere filled with lots of toxic people
what can i do to ignore their behaivour

2

R R
39m
Join my independent yet team work from home industry!!! Its NEVER toxic
Dana Fripp
2h
If the toxic behavior is directly related to policy and practices, then it's potentially a form insubordination and harassment. For example, if a... coworker is constantly coming to you and badmouthing your supervisor(s)' decisions, or coworkers' performance, that's creating a toxic environment. You should a.) document and timestamp it, and b.) politely but firmly suggest that they take their grievances directly to HR/management. If it's the higher-ups giving you a problem, that's more difficult. However, still document it, and stay as far out of the office gossip mill as you can. Folks are notorious for throwing you under the bus when their job and reputation is on the line. Gripe to the wrong person, and even if you're right, suddenly you're the problem.

Keep yourself fully in business mode when on the job site, and afterwards. You don't have to party with them, or be social media friends, or swap recipes, and useless gossip with them at lunch. Be courteous, but stay on task, and within policy. Let the toxic ones think you're distant and unfriendly if they want. That's not your concern. Staying employed with integrity is your concern. Building your skills set for the next great opportunity is your concern.

Oh...and keep that resume fresh and ready at all times.

Take good care of yourself! more

Stuart Harper

Career development

1d

I had a job interview last Wednesday. The HR person said they’d call me back in a few days. I know a week is normal to wait, but how long does it usually take to hear back? If they didn’t call soon, does that mean it’s a no? Thanks

1

Femi Olojo
1h
If a company needs you it would call you and calling the company won't change its decision not to hire you.
1 reply
Jim Nicholson
5h
CALL THEM!
1

Career development

12h

Two-time MVP Lee Whitwell set for MLP Champions Series return

Lee Whitwell has been confirmed as one of the latest players to join the MLP Champions Series for the upcoming season.

Widely regarded as one of the top senior professionals in the sport, Whitwell arrives with an impressive résumé. A two-time MLP Most Valuable Player, having claimed the award in 2021 and 2022, she has built a strong reputation not only through her success on court, but also... through her presence within the game -- combining competitiveness with a strong connection to fans.

Off the court, Whitwell continues to play a significant role in the development of pickleball. She currently serves as the APP Next National Team Coach, where she works closely with emerging talent, helping to shape the next generation of players.

She is also co-founder of Game ChangeHer Events, alongside her partner Angela Farmer. The initiative focuses on supporting and promoting women in the sport, while also encouraging growth and engagement within the wider recreational pickleball community.

Whitwell's addition to the MLP Champions Series is seen as a major boost, bringing both experience and influence to the competition as it continues to expand. Her impact, however, extends beyond results, with a focus on community building, player development, and the continued growth of the sport. more

Career development

13h

Identifying resilient founding teams while avoiding bias | Startups Magazine

Dr Marta G. Zanchi

Dr Marta G. Zanchi is the Founder and Managing Partner...

In the realm of early-stage investing, many professionals tend to prioritise hard metrics such as gross margin or burn rate, as these are the signals we are trained to trust for identifying long-term success. However, at the seed stage, these signals are often incomplete.

The dynamics among a startup's founding team... can be a significant source of strength or a critical weakness. We have observed companies with promising initial momentum stumble, not due to an absence of market demand, but rather because the team struggled to manage the pressure of operating within that market. It is important to acknowledge that, despite seemingly exceptional metrics, a team's performance can pose a significant risk.

How your team can be a risk

As investors, we like to think that we are supporting innovation and execution. However, in reality, at the earliest stages, we are supporting people. A founding team may appear perfectly complementary on paper, with a strong mix of commercial and technical experience. Yet, under stress, those neat divisions blur. This causes responsibilities to overlap and unresolved tensions to surface, slowing decision-making and clouding the product vision.

Building a resilient team requires more than assembling an impressive set of résumés. It's not just who is on the team that matters, but also how they function as a cohesive unit when things go wrong - because they inevitably will. Startups are environments of constant uncertainty, and founders must make high-stakes decisions with incomplete information while under significant financial pressure. In this context, team dynamics are fundamental to the company's success, meaning they are not a soft metric.

When evaluating a founding team, we always have to ask: how will these individuals behave under pressure - not in theory, but in practice? How do they handle disagreement? Who takes ownership when something fails? Are they investing their energy into building the company or fighting for control of it? These questions are difficult to answer from a pitch deck or during initial meetings, because founders always try to present a united front to investors. However, how a team behaves during a pitch is not necessarily indicative of how they will act in the face of adversity.

Evaluating founders without bias

Traditional evaluation frameworks often fall short, and sometimes do more harm than good. They tend to reward familiar archetypes, such as the charismatic visionary, the seasoned operator, and the technically brilliant outsider. While these patterns are comforting, they also risk reinforcing bias by favouring individuals who already fit the industry's implicit mould over those who could build stronger, more balanced teams. To move beyond this, we must shift our focus from identifying "ideal" founders to understanding team composition in a more nuanced and data-driven way. What capabilities are present? More importantly, what or who is missing? Are there any gaps that could become fault lines under stress?

Mapping team dynamics

In our work, we've found that integrating advanced software analytics with structured tools is invaluable, not as a means of selecting a specific type of founder - but rather as a way to identify blind spots. During the advanced stages of due diligence, we use proprietary and third-party software to ingest data inputs and conduct scientific personality assessments.

Specifically, we conduct a founding team's DISC personality analysis and then map it onto the Big Five personality model (O.C.E.A.N.). Then, we use that mapping to analyse the team's composition for factors that predict startup success - drawing specifically from the "FOALED" founder typology framework.

These analyses allow us to categorise founders into specific behavioural profiles, such as Leader, Developer, Operator, Expert/Engineer, Accomplisher, or Fighter. This enables us to rigorously evaluate team complementarity. For example, an analytical mapping may reveal that a team is strong in vision and external storytelling but lacks operational discipline. Another team might excel in execution but struggle with strategic alignment. Neither profile is inherently better, but both carry risks if unaddressed.

Our approach is grounded in a growing body of rigorous, published research on the impact of founders' personalities on the success of new ventures - highlighting the advantages of larger, personality-diverse teams in startups, which exhibit an increased likelihood of success. The findings underscore the significance of personality diversity as a novel dimension of team diversity, highlighting its impact on performance and success.

Our process and methodology is informed by another body of research that comes from the fields of psychology, business, and personal development, which attempts to categorise human behaviour into primary types. This focuses on how people act, communicate, and adapt to their (stressful) environment. Finally, our tools are becoming increasingly sophisticated, thanks to the continuous advancements in artificial intelligence.

See Also From bubble to business: how AI matures

The goal is not to exclude teams but rather to determine where post-investment support is needed and whether the founders recognise these gaps. It is crucial to apply these tools carefully because any form of structured analysis can become reductive or, worse, reinforce existing biases. We've already seen how algorithmic systems in other domains can amplify inequality when trained on biased data. In an industry still fighting to create equity for founders from diverse backgrounds, this would be a significant setback.

Avoiding familiar archetypes

If we rely on preconceived notions of what a founder "should" look like and use analytical tools to confirm them, we are effectively automating exclusion. Instead, the objective is to leverage these scientific insights to expand our perspective, enabling us to formulate more effective questions, challenge our assumptions, and deliver targeted support to facilitate team growth following an investment.

It is imperative that we do not penalise teams that do not conform to traditional standards, as they may possess a higher level of resilience due to their diverse experience, unique thinking styles, or leadership strategies. Investing at the seed stage is inherently uncertain, and there will always be unknowns.

Team dynamics represent the hidden variable that determines whether a company can survive and scale. While strong metrics are important for gaining initial traction, it is the strength of the team, including how they complement each other, handle pressure, and grow together, that determines whether they will continue to be successful.

For more startup news, check out the other articles on the website, and subscribe to the magazine for free. Listen to The Cereal Entrepreneur podcast for more interviews with entrepreneurs and big-hitters in the startup ecosystem. more

Anonymous member

Career development

2d

I wanted to move to another department because there was a great opening there. But they turned me down pretty bluntly, saying my soft skills weren’t good enough. I thought I got along fine with other coworkers. Now I don’t know how to keep working if they don’t see me as a “team player”. Are people just being fake to my face, even when they smile?

john ladislaus mwumvaneza
14h
Hi you cannot escape people who are jerous so keep trying you will succeed
1
Obina Tom
18h
Not forgetting your attitude towards company vision, mission, colleagues,supervisors etc

Career development

17h

Mathilde Robard of Centre Commercial: "This job requires great emotional intelligence"

If one job in fashion reigns supreme with emotional intelligence, this is it. Far from the clichés, sales advisors embody the most vibrant and perhaps the most human face of this vast industry. To create a multifaceted portrait of this hands-on profession, FashionUnited spoke with those who view sales as an opportunity for fulfilment and specialised expertise.

Following our conversation with Léa... Siboni, a sales advisor for the luxury brand The Row, we meet Mathilde Robard, a sales advisor at the concept store Centre Commercial in Paris.

Mathilde Robard: I was a sales advisor for the Italian brand Bialetti, which sells coffee, coffee makers and kitchen accessories.

Yes, I have fond memories of it. I was 21 during my first sales job interview. The person who interviewed me was very kind and truly inspired me to pursue this career.

I think the best advice I was given was about taking initiative. It was okay to try, even if it meant making mistakes.

The Centre Commercial boutique in general. After six years here, it really feels like home. I always look forward to returning to the store, seeing the products and working with my team.

The joy of selling comes, above all, from the interaction with the customer. It is successfully selling a product that someone might not have tried initially but that you can envision them wearing. It also involves providing guidance and seeing a person leave happy with their purchase.

It may sound silly, but my most unexpected sale was the first time I served a famous actor. He wanted to buy a pair of Veja trainers for a friend. To show me the size, he pulled out a drawing of his friend's foot outline.

Over time, yes, you could say I have my "favourites". I do not have any particular anecdotes. However, as soon as they enter the store, I am happy to catch up with them and show them the new arrivals from the brands they like.

Styling and understanding a garment's cut is the technical skill I have honed most over the years.

Firstly, merchandising. Through practice, I have developed significantly in this area and have become increasingly creative in my work. Secondly, management. I have learned a great deal through my seniority and various training courses. I am proud to be able to manage a team of several people today.

Firstly, you must have a perfect knowledge of the products in the store. You can quickly become unfocused if you do not know the products and their cuts well. Secondly, you need to listen to the customer's needs and ask good open-ended questions. This allows you to refine the selection you offer them. With experience, you can quickly determine which brand or item might suit a person as soon as they walk through the door.

The role of a salesperson is often undervalued and can seem like just a way to make a living. This job requires organisation, rigour and a great deal of emotional intelligence. Having the "gift of the gab" is not enough to succeed in this profession. more

Career development

17h

Mathilde Robard of Centre Commercial: "This job requires great emotional intelligence

If one job in fashion reigns supreme with emotional intelligence, this is it. Far from the clichés, sales advisors embody the most vibrant and perhaps the most human face of this vast industry. To create a multifaceted portrait of this hands-on profession, FashionUnited spoke with those who view sales as an opportunity for fulfilment and specialised expertise.

Following our conversation with Léa... Siboni, a sales advisor for the luxury brand The Row, we meet Mathilde Robard, a sales advisor at the concept store Centre Commercial in Paris.

What was your first job in sales?

Mathilde Robard: I was a sales advisor for the Italian brand Bialetti, which sells coffee, coffee makers and kitchen accessories.

Do you have fond memories of your first sales job interview?

Yes, I have fond memories of it. I was 21 during my first sales job interview. The person who interviewed me was very kind and truly inspired me to pursue this career.

What is the best advice a manager or mentor gave you when you were starting out?

I think the best advice I was given was about taking initiative. It was okay to try, even if it meant making mistakes.

Today, what gets you up in the morning?

The Centre Commercial boutique in general. After six years here, it really feels like home. I always look forward to returning to the store, seeing the products and working with my team.

Could you describe what the "joy of selling" looks like?

The joy of selling comes, above all, from the interaction with the customer. It is successfully selling a product that someone might not have tried initially but that you can envision them wearing. It also involves providing guidance and seeing a person leave happy with their purchase.

What is the most unexpected or memorable sale you have ever made?

It may sound silly, but my most unexpected sale was the first time I served a famous actor. He wanted to buy a pair of Veja trainers for a friend. To show me the size, he pulled out a drawing of his friend's foot outline.

Do you have favourite customers?

Over time, yes, you could say I have my "favourites". I do not have any particular anecdotes. However, as soon as they enter the store, I am happy to catch up with them and show them the new arrivals from the brands they like.

What is the technical skill you have honed the most over the years?

Styling and understanding a garment's cut is the technical skill I have honed most over the years.

What qualities or skills related to your job are you most proud of?

Firstly, merchandising. Through practice, I have developed significantly in this area and have become increasingly creative in my work. Secondly, management. I have learned a great deal through my seniority and various training courses. I am proud to be able to manage a team of several people today.

How do you train your eye daily to always propose the perfect silhouette to a customer?

Firstly, you must have a perfect knowledge of the products in the store. You can quickly become unfocused if you do not know the products and their cuts well. Secondly, you need to listen to the customer's needs and ask good open-ended questions. This allows you to refine the selection you offer them. With experience, you can quickly determine which brand or item might suit a person as soon as they walk through the door.

What is something people do not suspect about the job of a salesperson?

The role of a salesperson is often undervalued and can seem like just a way to make a living. This job requires organisation, rigour and a great deal of emotional intelligence. Having the "gift of the gab" is not enough to succeed in this profession. more

Career development

2w

I've applied to 1,000 jobs since earning my master's and am still unemployed. I'm frustrated because I thought I did everything right.

I'm frustrated because I thought I did everything right, but I'm now focusing on freelancing.

For most of my life, I believed in a very specific formula: work hard in school, build a strong résumé, study abroad, learn languages, get a master's degree, and be globally aware.

I studied journalism and media, and I leaned into storytelling early on. I spent time abroad multiple times in Rome,... Florence, Kuwait, and Scotland. I learned how to navigate new cultures, new systems, and new expectations. I became fluent in spaces that were not designed for a first-generation student like me.

After graduating, I went on to earn my master's degree in international affairs as part of the inaugural cohort at John Cabot University in Rome (again). I focused on global justice, human rights, and representation. I contributed to research on the gig economy, attended UN conferences both in Italy and Azerbaijan, and built what I thought was a strong, competitive profile.

I completed my MA degree early, believing I had done everything right. But I still can't find a job.

Since graduating, I've applied to over 1,000 jobs.

That includes roles in Rome with UN agencies, NGOs, and humanitarian organizations. It also includes jobs across the US -- in-person, hybrid, and remote roles. I applied to communications positions, research roles, media jobs, and anything that aligned with my background in storytelling and global affairs.

I tailored résumés. I wrote cover letters that took hours. I researched organizations, memorized their missions, reached out to every connection, and prepared for interviews like they were exams.

Out of all those applications, I've gotten 15 interviews. Only two of those moved me to a second round. Less than five of the roles I interviewed for were actually filled.

For the rest, I watched the same job postings reappear weeks or months later. Were those even real positions?

It started to feel like I wasn't competing for jobs. I was competing for the possibility of a job.

Rejection is one thing. Uncertainty is another.

When you don't get a job, you can usually point to something. Maybe someone had more experience. Maybe you didn't interview well. Maybe the role just wasn't the right fit.

But what do you do when there's no outcome at all? When positions stay open indefinitely. When companies repost roles without hiring. When you make it through multiple steps and still hear nothing back.

It creates this constant loop in your mind. You start questioning everything: your degree, your experience, and the choices you made.

I did everything I was told would make me employable. Yet, I've never felt more unsure about where I stand.

At some point, I had to shift my focus from waiting to building.

During undergrad, I spent four years working in publicity and creative marketing. That became the one thing I could return to when the job market kept shutting me out.

Now, I freelance as a creative director and marketing professional. I design campaigns, create visual content, and work with clients to build cohesive brand identities. I've worked on everything from social media strategy to email marketing to photoshoots to editorial visuals.

It's not stable or the full-time role I desire for myself. But it's something I built myself.

Freelancing has taught me how to trust my skills in a different way. It's shown me that I don't need permission to create meaningful work.

Still, there's a difference between surviving and feeling secure. I'm still trying to figure out how to bridge that gap.

For a long time, I was chasing stability as it was defined for me: a full time job, steady paycheck, and clear title. But not having that has pushed me to ask a different question. What kind of work do I actually want to be doing?

The answer keeps bringing me back to storytelling.

I want to be a creative director who focuses on telling BIPOC stories with care and accuracy. I want to create media that doesn't flatten people into stereotypes or reduce cultures into trends. I want to build projects that feel honest, layered, and intentional.

That's the work I've been drawn to for years. It's also the work I kept putting off because I thought I needed something more "stable" first.

Now, I'm starting to see that maybe the path I was following was never designed to lead me there.

I don't have a clean ending to this story.

I'm still applying for jobs while freelancing, and trying to make sense of a system that feels unpredictable and, at times, impossible to navigate.

But I also know this: the effort I've put in hasn't been wasted. It just didn't lead me where I expected. Maybe that means I have to build something different instead. more

7

Dan Watt
1d
I hear this all too often. You are the commonality. Examine that.
-1
Reshoketswe Ribisi
1d
Hello, you write very well. I have been struggling to put to words some of the issues you highlight. I am sorry you are going through this. I hope... you find work to do. Can you write and minutise your work by yourself? more

Career development

1d

I Built an AI to Apply to Jobs for Me. The Tech Wasn't the Hard Part.

I Built an AI to Apply to Jobs for Me. The Tech Wasn't the Hard Part.

I Built an AI to Apply to Jobs for Me. The Tech Wasn't the Hard Part.

The job search is already automated. The only people still expected to act manually are the applicants.

I got tired of typing the same information into the same fields on different websites.

Name. Email. Phone number. Work history. Education. Salary... preference. Location. Authorized to work? Willing to relocate? Why are you a good fit for this role?

Over and over again.

Different company. Same form.

Different ATS. Same friction.

Different job. Same feeling that I was being asked to compress my entire career, personality, skill set, and ambition into a couple boxes designed by someone who probably never had to apply through the system themselves.

That was the first thing that bothered me.

The second thing was timing.

In the job market, recency is king.

If a job was posted ten minutes ago, that is not the same opportunity as a job posted ten days ago. The posting may look identical on the outside, but the context around it is completely different. Early in the process, the recruiter is still fresh. The hiring manager is still interested. The applicant pool is still small enough to feel human.

Later, the role becomes a flood.

And once the flood comes in, individual attention becomes expensive.

That's when I started thinking: why am I doing this the manual way?

Not because I'm incapable. Not because the process is sacred. Not because human effort is automatically more virtuous.

I was doing it manually because that was the default.

And defaults are dangerous when the world has already moved on.

The job search is already automated

A lot of people get uncomfortable when they hear about AI applying to jobs.

They say it feels like cheating.

But let's be honest about the system we're already in.

Employers have been using applicant tracking systems for years. Résumés are parsed, filtered, ranked, scored, and often discarded before a person ever reads them. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has held public hearings on the use of AI and automated systems in employment decisions, including recruitment, hiring, monitoring, and firing. That alone should tell you this is not some distant future conversation. It is already here.

Source: EEOC hearing on AI and automated systems in employment decisions: https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/eeoc-hearing-explores-potential-benefits-and-harms-artificial-intelligence-and-other

So if the hiring side is already automated, why is the applicant side expected to stay manual?

That imbalance never made sense to me.

If companies can use automation to filter humans, humans can use automation to reach companies.

That is not cheating.

That is nature rebalancing the system.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

The real pain is not typing. It is compression.

On the surface, job applications are annoying because they are repetitive.

But the deeper issue is compression.

A lot of us have done too many things to fit neatly into one page.

You may have built websites, talked to customers, managed systems, sold software, fixed bugs, worked with APIs, trained people, designed workflows, handled support, built internal tools, managed data, created dashboards, and solved problems that never made it into your official job title.

Then a job application asks:

Why are you a good fit for this role?

And you're supposed to remember everything relevant in that exact moment.

That is not a writing problem.

That is a memory problem.

That is a context problem.

That is a system design problem.

Humans forget. We compress. We summarize badly. We undersell ourselves. We leave out relevant details because we don't immediately connect the dots between what we did three years ago and what a job description is asking for today.

That is where AI becomes interesting.

Not as a fake version of you.

Not as a lying machine.

As externalized memory.

A system that can remember what you gave it, understand the context of a specific role, and help you present the right parts of your background at the right time.

That is the real value.

Not typing faster.

Remembering better.

My first version was messy because real automation is messy

The first version of what became Exempliphai was not pretty.

It lived on my personal computer.

It was a collection of messy automations, browser controls, local workflows, test servers, libraries, and experimental scripts. It worked because I understood every moving part. I knew what to ignore. I knew when it broke. I knew how to fix it.

That is the beauty and danger of personal automation.

When you build for yourself, you can tolerate ugliness.

You can build a wild animal and keep it in your own backyard.

But the second you want other people to use it, everything changes.

The question stops being:

Can I make this work?

And becomes:

Can I make this safe, understandable, permissioned, and useful for someone who does not know how any of this works?

That is where the real product began.

The automation itself was not the product.

The product was turning chaos into something normal people could trust.

The actual hard part was trust

People think the hard part of AI products is the model.

The prompts.

The scraping.

The browser automation.

The résumé generation.

Those things are hard, but they were not the hardest part.

The hard part was trust.

If I build a powerful automation for myself, I know what it is doing. I know what data it is touching. I know what permissions it has. I know what is safe and what is experimental.

A user does not know that.

A user sees a browser extension asking for access and thinks:

Is this malware?

Is this stealing my data?

Is this going to submit something without me knowing?

Is this going to make me look fake?

Is this safe?

And honestly, those are good questions.

A real product has to earn the right to exist on someone else's machine.

That meant taking the messy system I had built for myself and reducing the invasiveness. It meant using cleaner permission boundaries. It meant building a UI that made sense. It meant packaging the complexity into a Chromium extension that could run in Chrome, Edge, and other Chromium-based browsers.

The goal was not to make users feel like developers.

The goal was to make the experience feel familiar.

Put your information in. Review what matters. Let the technical stuff happen in the background.

No Git commands.

No local server setup.

No random scripts.

No "trust me bro" automation.

Just a clean interface on top of a complicated system.

That is what productization really is.

Taking something powerful and making it safe enough, simple enough, and obvious enough for other people to use.

AI should help you tell the truth better

There is a line between tailoring and lying.

I care about that line.

If an AI tool invents experience, that is not optimization. That is fraud.

But if AI helps you remember that a project you worked on three years ago is relevant to a role today, that is not fake. That is context.

If AI helps rewrite a bullet so it matches the language of the job description without changing the truth, that is not deception. That is translation.

If AI fills in your name, email, education, work history, and basic preferences so you do not have to repeatedly do unpaid clerical labor for every company's application portal, that is not cheating. That is efficiency.

We need to stop pretending the old way was noble just because it was slow.

Slow does not mean honest.

Manual does not mean authentic.

Sometimes manual just means inefficient.

What I would automate

If you are applying to jobs right now, I think there are several things you should absolutely automate:

* Basic profile information

* Work history

* Education

* Salary preferences

* Location preferences

* Job tracking

* Recently posted job discovery

* Résumé tailoring

* Cover letter drafting

* Role-fit answers

* Repetitive form fields

* Matching your experience to job requirements

That is the obvious stuff.

That is the baggage AI should carry.

But there are still things I would keep human-controlled.

What I would not blindly automate

I would not blindly automate legal consent.

I would not let an AI agree to terms and conditions under my legal name without review.

I would not let it sign contracts.

I would not let it answer questions that require imagination, judgment, or personal accountability without me having a chance to inspect the output.

Because once AI begins acting under your name, the question is not just:

Can it reason?

The question is:

Whose reasoning is it following?

That matters.

Automation is powerful when it handles repetitive work based on information you provided.

It gets dangerous when it starts making commitments you did not understand.

So the future is not "automate everything and disappear."

The future is control.

Let AI move fast where the road is clear.

Keep humans in the loop where the decision has consequences.

The emotional part nobody talks about

Building Exempliphai was not just about saving time.

It was about refusing to re-enter the system the old way when I knew I was capable of building a better one.

There is a certain frustration that comes from knowing you can solve a problem, but still feeling trapped inside the manual version of it.

I did not want to sit there copying and pasting my life into application portals like it was 2014.

I wanted to externalize the process.

Externalize the memory.

Externalize the repetitive mental actions.

Turn my own frustration into a system.

Then I posted about it.

And people started reaching out.

A lot of people.

People saying they needed it. People asking for access. People who felt the same pain but did not have the technical background to build their own messy version on a personal computer.

That is when it became bigger than me.

That is when the question changed from:

Can I automate my job search?

To:

Can I package this in a way that helps other people reposition themselves too?

That is the work.

Not just building automation.

Building the bridge.

The job search is a system. Treat it like one.

Most people approach job searching emotionally.

And I get it.

It is personal.

You are putting your name, history, value, and future into a system that often responds with silence.

But because it is personal, people forget that it is also mechanical.

There are inputs.

There are filters.

There are queues.

There are timing advantages.

There are human bottlenecks.

There are systems deciding what gets seen and what gets buried.

You can hate that.

Or you can adapt.

I prefer adapting.

The job search is already automated. The question is whether you are going to participate in that automation or be processed by it.

That is the difference.

Don't wait

A lot of people think they can wait.

They cannot.

AI is not waiting. Hiring systems are not waiting. Recruiters are not waiting. Companies are not waiting. The people learning how to use these tools are not waiting.

The status quo is not an option.

If you are still applying manually to every job like it is 2014, you are not being noble.

You are being slow inside a system that already moved on.

Damn.

Automate the repetitive parts.

Keep your judgment where it matters.

Tell the truth better.

Move faster.

And do not let institutions decide your position before you even learn how to play the new game.

* * *

I'm building and writing more around AI automation, job search, browser agents, and the future of work. You can follow more of my work at asaday.co, dev.to/keith_azodeh, and medium.com/@keithazodeh.

Tags: AI, JobSearch, Automation, FutureOfWork, Startups more

Anonymous member

Career development

51m

I have been unemployed for two years. I've been searcing for work the whole time and only got two interviews. Both interviews went badly. I have lost confidence in my self and skills. How can I best keep my mind sharp and improve job seeking results

Career development

1d

Entry-Level Resume Proofread & Polish -- 2

I already have a draft résumé prepared for my first full-time job search; what it still needs is a meticulous once-over. The content is largely in place, but I want every line to read crisply, flow logically, and remain free of spelling or grammatical slips. Your task is to proofread and edit the existing document so it looks and sounds professional while preserving my own voice. I am also open to... small wording tweaks that sharpen impact, tighten length, or better showcase my academic projects and internship experience -- provided the factual details stay intact. Deliverables * A clean, error-free résumé returned in both Word and PDF formats * A brief change log (or tracked-changes version) so I can see every adjustment made Acceptance criteria * No grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors remain * Consistent tense, structure, and formatting throughout * Key achievements retain clarity and readability within a one-page layout Feel free to use tools like MS Word track changes or Google Docs suggestions -- whatever lets me follow along easily. If you can turn this around quickly, even better, as I'm eager to start sending applications. more

Career development

1d

Startup Co-Founder & Advisor Partnership

Pstadio ([login to view URL]) is live and already turning a GitHub username or résumé into a polished portfolio in roughly 40 seconds, thanks to a blend of AI autofill and manual editing. The product works; early users are giving valuable feedback. What I now need is the business fire-power to turn this functioning prototype into a growth story. @note I am not paying hourly or fixed I offer... partnership ,due to freelancer roles it is complsery to put price here if you are interested in partnership and have a capibility send you details here [login to view URL]@gmail,com I'm offering true partnership -- equity, not a salary -- once you demonstrate you can move the commercial needle. Your focus will sit firmly on business strategy and marketing rather than code. Here's where I'd lean on you: * Shape and iterate our go-to-market and overall growth strategy. * Pinpoint the best channels, communities, and partnerships for user acquisition, then lead outreach. * Craft the story and materials that resonate with investors, taking point on fundraising and subsequent investor relations. You'll thrive if you bring proven leadership, deep industry experience in SaaS or dev-tool markets, and the communication skills to rally users, partners, and investors around a crisp narrative. In the first weeks we'll agree on metrics -- user growth targets, investor touchpoints, and deck milestones -- to validate fit before we formalize the equity split. If the idea of co-building a category-defining product from this early stage excites you, let's talk. more

Career development

1d

I'm 37 and most of my close friends are in their fifties and sixties, and it isn't that I'm an old soul, it's that they stopped performing a long time ago and I never wanted to start

While peers my age exhaust themselves curating perfect lives for social media and dinner party one-upmanship, I've discovered an unexpected truth: the most honest, soul-nourishing friendships often come with gray hair and zero interest in impressing anyone.

You know what's funny? At 37, I spend more Friday nights discussing philosophy with my 62-year-old friend over tea than I do at bars with... people my age. And honestly? I wouldn't have it any other way.

Most of my closest friends are in their fifties and sixties. Not because I'm particularly mature or wise beyond my years. It's simpler than that: they stopped performing a long time ago, and I never wanted to start.

Let me explain what I mean by "performing."

When I was in my twenties, social gatherings felt like auditions. Everyone seemed to be playing a role - the successful entrepreneur, the adventurous traveler, the person who had it all figured out. Conversations weren't really conversations; they were verbal résumés.

You've been there, right? Those dinners where everyone's competing to drop the most impressive story, the biggest promotion, the coolest vacation. Where vulnerability is weakness and authenticity is a liability.

I remember sitting at a bar in Melbourne, watching my peers one-up each other with their achievements, and feeling utterly disconnected. Not because I didn't have accomplishments to share, but because I was tired of reducing my entire existence to highlight reels.

That's when I started gravitating toward older friends. Not consciously at first. It just happened naturally.

Here's what I discovered: somewhere around fifty, most people stop giving a damn about impressing others. They've already climbed their ladders, proved their points, and realized that none of it brought the satisfaction they thought it would.

My friend Mark (not his real name), who's 58, told me something that stuck: "I spent thirty years trying to be someone I thought I should be. Now I just want to be myself, even if that self is boring to most people."

And that's the thing - these conversations aren't boring at all. They're real. We talk about fears without immediately following them with success stories to prove we've conquered them. We discuss failures without spinning them into "learning experiences" that led to triumph.

In my book Hidden Secrets of Buddhism: How To Live With Maximum Impact and Minimum Ego, I explore how Buddhist philosophy teaches us to drop our masks and embrace our authentic selves. My older friends seem to have discovered this naturally through lived experience.

With my fifty-something friends, there's no competition because we're not even playing the same game. They're not threatened by my ambitions, and I'm not trying to prove myself to them. We can just... be.

Last week, I had coffee with a 61-year-old friend who's a retired engineer. We spent two hours discussing whether true contentment is possible in modern society. No one mentioned their LinkedIn profile once. No one humblebragged about their morning routine or their productivity hacks.

Instead, we talked about our fears of irrelevance, our struggles with finding meaning, and our confusion about what constitutes a life well-lived. You know, the stuff that actually matters but rarely gets airtime in age-appropriate social circles.

Growing up as the quieter brother, I learned early that observation often reveals more truth than participation. And what I've observed is this: most social interactions among people my age are performances, while conversations with older friends are exchanges.

You'd think having friends twenty years older would create a disconnect, but it's actually the opposite. When you strip away the performance, what's left is pure human experience - and that transcends age.

My older friends and I connect over universal truths: the challenge of maintaining long-term relationships, the fear of wasting our limited time, the struggle to find work that feels meaningful. These aren't young problems or old problems; they're human problems.

Sure, we have different reference points. They talk about their kids going to college while I'm navigating early parenthood with my baby daughter. They're contemplating retirement while I'm building my career. But underneath these surface differences, we're grappling with the same fundamental questions.

What makes this work is that neither side is trying to recruit the other. My older friends aren't trying to convince me to settle down, and I'm not trying to convince them to take more risks. We're just sharing perspectives without agenda.

The real tragedy of performing isn't just that it's exhausting - it's that it prevents genuine connection. When everyone's wearing a mask, nobody really sees anyone.

I've noticed that many people my age feel profoundly lonely despite being constantly social. They have hundreds of acquaintances but few real friends. They know everyone's accomplishments but no one's struggles.

This is why I believe relationship quality is the single biggest predictor of life satisfaction. Not relationship quantity, but quality. And quality requires dropping the act.

Think about your own friendships. How many of them would survive if you stopped performing? If you showed up as yourself, messy and uncertain and figuring it out as you go?

Now, I'm not saying you need to go befriend a bunch of sixty-year-olds (though I highly recommend it). What I'm saying is that authentic connection is possible at any age - you just have to be willing to stop performing first.

Start small. The next time someone asks how you're doing, consider telling them the truth instead of reflexively saying "great!" Share a genuine struggle without immediately following it with how you're crushing it anyway.

You might be surprised who responds with relief and reciprocal honesty. These are your people, regardless of their age.

The irony is that dropping the performance actually makes you more interesting. Real stories, real struggles, real questions - these are infinitely more engaging than curated success narratives.

At 37, I've learned that life is too short to spend it performing for an audience that's too busy performing to actually watch. My older friends taught me this not through wisdom or advice, but simply by being themselves.

They've shown me that there's profound freedom in giving up the exhausting game of trying to be impressive. That real connection happens when we stop competing and start conversing. That the most interesting people are often the ones who've stopped trying to be interesting.

So yes, most of my close friends are decades older than me. Not because I'm an old soul or because I can't relate to my generation. But because they've already discovered what I'm trying to learn: that being yourself, genuinely and unapologetically, is the only performance worth giving.

And the beautiful thing? It's not even a performance at all. more

Career development

1d

Biggest Résumé Mistakes and How You Can Avoid Them

Going into my first year of college, I had no clue what a résumé even was. I had experience, but none of my previous jobs required me to submit a résumé when I applied. So, when my on-campus job asked for one, I scrambled to throw it together. I asked everyone I could for their help. With a horrible résumé (and a ton of grace given by my boss), I was hired.

Now, as a student assistant in the... Journalism Dean's Office, I review résumés daily. This is a list of the biggest mistakes I see in the office and how you can fix them to improve your résumé and chances of getting hired.

Contact information

Contact information is located beneath your name at the top of your résumé. This section includes your phone number, email address, LinkedIn, city and state and portfolio (if you have one).

More than one email address

The first mistake I see in the contact information section is including more than one email address. A lot of college students think it's best to list both their student email and personal email address to give the employer more options to choose from. While this is a good idea in theory, it can be confusing for employers to figure out the best way to contact you. Instead, list the email address that you check most frequently, whether that's personal or school. If you're a graduating student, you should list your personal email and make a habit of checking it regularly.

Not including LinkedIn

If you do not have a LinkedIn profile in college, you're doing it wrong. LinkedIn is an extremely important form of social media used for networking with people in your industry. Although it is understandable not to have a LinkedIn profile your first year of college, it is highly recommended that you create one before the beginning of your sophomore year.

The next step is putting the hyperlink to your profile in your contact section. Don't just link it to the word "LinkedIn;" copy and paste the full URL to ensure your profile can still be accessed easily if your resume were to be printed.

Including a picture

In the United States, federal law prohibits discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, age, etc. Including a picture on your résumé may trigger unconscious bias from your employer and prevent you from even making it to the interview stage. Some employers will even immediately reject résumés with photos to avoid potential discrimination accusations.

Education

This section is the most important information on your résumé as a college student. It includes your college, major, degree, GPA (if a 3.0 or above), expected graduation and minors or certificates, if applicable.

Getting your degree and major name wrong

This might be surprising to some, but in fact, many students get their degree and major wrong! All colleges have different degrees and major names, so it's important to check your school website for the official name of your degree.

High school information after your first year

As unfortunate as it is, employers don't care what you did in high school if you're a college student. It is much more important what you are doing in college, so high school should be completely omitted.

The exception to this rule is first-year college students. This is because until the end of the first semester of college, first-years do not have a GPA or much experience in their degree. That being said, it is generally recommended to remove your high school information from your education section after the first semester of freshman year, and definitely before the beginning of your sophomore year.

Experience

Your experience is the second most important information on your résumé. This section includes your past and present work experience with two to four detailed bullet points describing the work you did in each position, as well as the location and time frame you worked.

Missing detail

An important thing to remember when writing the bullet points for your experiences is to add detail! Employers don't just want to know what you did; they want to know how you did it. Instead of saying, "Wrote articles for Her Campus." You should say, "Wrote 6+ articles for Her Campus over topics of self-love, entertainment, culture, etc." This way of writing gives your employer a better understanding of your capabilities while quantifying your work and adding credibility.

Not including unpaid experiences

Unpaid experiences make up a large portion of a college student's experience. From internships to organizations, college students gain lots of unpaid experience. And many students think that because they did not earn a paycheck for these experiences, they cannot include them on their resume. That is not true. Employers care much more about the knowledge you have gained and experience you have in the position, rather than the amount of paid work you have.

Skills

Your skills section should always be the last section of your résumé. This section is a simple list of skills that you haven't expressed in your experience sections.

Soft skills

Your skills section should be solely hard skills. Things like teamwork, leadership and other soft skills are good to have, but they can easily be demonstrated in the bullet points of your experience section or in an interview.

Instead, include hard skills relevant to the job you are applying for. If you're a journalism major, your skills section should include things like AP style writing, video editing and photojournalism. You can also include programs that you are familiar with. Think Microsoft 360, Canva or Adobe. These kinds of skills will give your employer more information about the skills you possess.

Formatting

Although not a section, formatting your résumé the correct way is extremely important to the hiring process.

Using templates

As tempting as a super cute Canva or Word template is, do not give in! Most templates are formatted in a two-column style that doesn't scan well with applicant tracking systems (ATS). This means that your résumé could be thrown out before an actual human even takes a look at it. Instead, make your own one-column template that you can use over and over again.

Typos

This might sound like an obvious one, but it is so important to triple-check your résumé for spelling and grammar errors. Even one typo can get your résumé thrown in the trash. Employers tend to see typos as a liability later down the line. If you're not checking your résumé for misspellings, it signals to your employer that you'll make that mistake with important work as well.

More than one page

Résumés are recommended to be only one page in order to not overload your employer with unnecessary information. The average amount of time an employer spends reviewing a résumé is six to seven seconds. A résumé that is short and easy to read will allow your employer to focus less on trying to decipher your résumé and more on the skills you could bring to their team.

The most important thing to remember is that your résumé is a living document. This means that you can (and should) constantly be updating it. You should change your résumé for every application you submit.

Résumés are a hard skill to master, but once you understand the reasoning behind all the factors, it will all click and you'll have no trouble creating and editing your résumé. more

Career development

2d

I'm an ex-Amazon recruiter. My advice for job seekers: Don't come across as trying too hard -- be found or referred.

She explains how the four Ps -- product, promotion, place, and price -- along with perception, can help career growth.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lindsay Mustain, a former Amazon recruiter in her 40s who lives in Washington. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Before I began my business about intentional career design, I was a recruiter. My most recent role was... at Amazon, where I led talent acquisition and employer branding strategies.

Over my career, I've hired thousands of people and reviewed countless résumés.

At Talent Paradigm, which I started in 2017, my small team works with thousands of clients on generating salary increases for them, based on what I call the "theory of hireability."

Think about bottled water. You can get water from your sink for basically free; meanwhile, people are willing to pay $9 for a bottle of water at an airport. Fundamentally, they're the same thing -- H2O -- but they have completely different perceived values.

The same thing happens when job searching.

The forces that determine what the market would pay for a product are the way people would pay for your candidacy. Those are rooted in the four Ps of marketing: product, promotion, place, and price.

In my theory of hireability, there's a fifth principle that changes everything: perception. I believe the job market isn't logical; it's psychological, and the only thing you need to change is your perceived value.

Together, these form what I call the five Ps of career ascension.

1. Product

When I was recruiting, I'd sit with a hiring manager before a job was posted and ask what they wanted: Who are they looking for? What kind of experience? If a candidate looked like the answer to that specific problem, they were at an advantage.

Many people market themselves with facts like, "I have 10 years of experience in operations." What actually works is marketing the benefit -- what you actually can do for the company.

For example, if you're shopping for a new vitamin C serum, you're not going to buy it based on how much vitamin C it has; you'll buy the one that says it reduces dark spots in two weeks.

Your résumé is basically the same thing. The commodity candidate only markets their features -- tasks, duties, years, titles -- while the candidate of choice markets the transformation: What did they change? What impact did they make? It's powerful to include a percentage, a dollar sign, and numbers. Make it clear what the company gained because you were in the room.

Are you deciding on a job offer? Or did you recently choose between competing offers and wonder if you made the right choice? Share your story here.

2. Promotion

In marketing, promotion is what you do to get people to know about and purchase the product. For job candidates, the goal is for employers to want to meet with you.

A lot of times, people's go-to move for promotion is the open-to-work banner on LinkedIn. However, from my observations, I don't think it actually helps -- and could actually hurt.

Strategic visibility is real promotion. Building your brand on LinkedIn attracts people into your world and creates referred opportunities. It can be a virtuous cycle -- you share content and thought leadership, engage with others, and create visibility in your field.

When you intentionally shape that narrative, a hiring manager feels like they already know you.

3. Place

You can buy a product in-store or online; for candidates, place is where employers find you.

I asked hundreds of hiring managers what they'd think if someone applied 17 times over 12 years. The overwhelming response was that there must be something wrong with the applicant -- if they were any good, the company would've hired them already.

Shift yourself from being active to being perceived as passive, so you don't come across as trying too hard. The goal is to be found, or to be referred.

With active applicants, it's very apparent they're job searching, whether it's the open-to-work banner on their profile or a post about how they were laid off from their last job and asking if anyone could help. They're spamming DMs with their résumé and asking about job openings.

Passive job seekers are typically those who are employed, who recruiters source, or who are referred by others. The underlying belief is that people who are good at their jobs are usually too busy to look for other jobs.

As a recruiting leader, I aimed for at least 40% of my hires to come through employee referrals, because that's where I consistently saw the highest quality and best hires.

4. Price

There are different ways to price products. There's commodity pricing, like the rollback price at Walmart. In the job market, this is the job board pool of commodity candidates, and the salary floor wins.

Then, there's asset pricing, which is paid according to the value, such as a limited release of Air Jordans. Last year, I was at the mall, and the line for the sneaker store was out the door. The competition is what's driving up the price; the line actually increased the perceived value.

When your product is premium, has a strong brand, and is not widely available, you stop negotiating for a number; instead, you become an asset that everyone wants to have.

You don't have to take the minimum because there's somebody willing to pay more right behind that first person.

5. Perception

Focusing on perception is the most important thing that you can do when you're job searching.

I've talked about perception in each of the other four Ps. It isn't its own individual thing; it's the multiplier -- the difference between being the commodity candidate and the candidate of choice.

It's why, when I was at Amazon, one of the first questions I asked candidates was, "Are you interviewing anywhere else?" I wanted to know if they were top talent, and if so, I could fast-track the process. The only time I could do so was if they had other options, because we didn't want to lose them.

It can be the exact same candidate, exact same talent. It's not experience. It's not qualifications. The only thing that's really changing is what everyone around them now believes to be true -- perception.

Read the original article on Business Insider more

Anonymous member

Career development

5d

It’s become basically impossible to work. The experienced boss retired, and now they put a 28-year-old woman in charge who doesn’t seem to know the job. It feels like a mess. It’s awkward to report to someone so young, and everyone else has more experience than she does. Do you think they’re just trying to make the company younger or is it better not to question why she got the position?

2

Rando375
2d
The promotion process doesn't necessarily select the best qualified for actually doing the job.
Lydia Mphuthi
2d
Age is just a number as long as the person has a skill to do the job. Yes change its always uncomfortable but if a person can deliver its a win for a... company more
1