Career development

23h

What You've Built > Where You Studied

Résumés used to rely on where you studied. Your school, your GPA, your degree, that was the story. But now, that story is changing.

In 2021, Google dropped degree requirements for many roles. Why? Because they found that great problem-solvers don't always come from elite colleges. Some come from community forums. From YouTube. From figuring things out the hard way. People from non-traditional... paths often show more resilience and resourcefulness because no one hands them the answers; they learn to find them.

When a hiring manager sees a self-taught coder with open-source projects on GitHub and real users, that speaks louder than a CS degree without work to show. A writer with a viral Substack post has more credibility than one with a forgotten diploma. These are not exceptions; they're becoming the norm.

Why the shift? Because companies have been burned. They've hired based on education only to find candidates who freeze when problems don't match the textbook. In contrast, the ones who've built in the wild already know how to adapt when the rules change.

It's not that degrees are useless. They still show structure, discipline, and foundation. But without proof of what you can apply, they fall flat. In a world shaped by rapid tech, instant publishing, and AI-everything, showing your work isn't extra ; it's essential.

So build something. Make it public. Let your ideas live in the open. Because your résumé isn't your past anymore, it's your platform. more

Steward Tony Pacheco
55
7h
Finally! Some common great advice. Degrees no longer hold that value as it once did after years of scandals in education, entitlement in real world... interaction & inadequate performance in the workplace. Seems that ideologies have over run the education system in the last few decades leaving the various industries that sustain our civilization with adult children who care more about what’s in hand than actually building something substantial with hand. I’ll take performance over self imposed prestige any day. more

Alan Pfister

Career development

1d

Hi! I’m interviewing at different companies right now and my friends scared me. They said some HR “accidentally” drop a pen during the interview to see if the candidate will pick it up. They say it’s a test to check if you’re too eager to please.
I don’t get it, should I pick it up or not?
If I pick it up, will they think I’m trying too hard to please the boss? And if I don’t, will they think... I’m stubborn?
Am I thinking about this the right way?
What do you think? Thanks

more

2

Steward Tony Pacheco
7h
We Are All Big Boys & Girls Here Correct? Let Them Pick Up Their Own Pen. If These Are Tests Of Character Then They Are Flawed.
Rick Pierre
11h
Why making this such a big deal, courtesy should be natural in every human being, that is our natural instinct born and raised with, if you are in a... grocery store lady or gentleman and you see someone drop something, your instinct is to alarm the person, pick it up and give it back. Or open door or hold the door at the gas station for a stranger, this is who we are and what we are as people. Therefore, why not saying sir or Ma'am you drop your pen and if you are at reach you pick it up and give back to the person. We have been so disconnected due to the social media world that companies now do not want to hire an arrogant prick or a self centered individual that will bring chaos or discomfort to the company environment. what they are looking for is your good manners, your kindness, your courtesy towards others, which are their clients, Be a good person, be nice, be gentle, be courtois, be respectful, be honest, be loving and stop trying so hard to be an a**hole. more
1

Career development

11h

It's official: Hiring managers aren't reading your résumé

A decade ago, I walked into an office to interview for my first newsroom internship. Wearing a millennial-core business casual H&M pencil skirt and Steve Madden flats, I handed my résumé -- neatly spaced Arial font, carefully considered, and kept crisp in its designated folder -- to the editor. Without looking up from her computer, she said, "I don't read résumés," and flicked the paper to the... floor.

If you've ever assumed an automated applicant tracking system has thrown out your résumé, I can tell you it feels just as demoralizing to watch it happen IRL. Today, more hiring managers and recruiters are following that approach. Now that anyone can spin up a buzzword-filled résumé and cover letter in seconds with ChatGPT, doctor a flawless headshot, or cheat a coding test, faked or embellished applications have become indiscernible from quality candidates.

The résumé has been relegated.

"Resume not your thing? That's great, we don't really read them anyway!" reads a job post for an engineer at Expensify. "While we know you're awesome, it's actually really hard and time consuming to find you in the midst of literally hundreds of other applications we get from everyone else." The post goes on to list five questions applications should answer to be considered. "We don't require a résumé, and we don't expect one," notes a software engineering job at Automattic, which owns WordPress.com and Tumblr.

Some employers are focusing more on a person's enthusiasm and skills than shiny credentials. E-commerce platform Gumroad asks prospective software engineers to send an email detailing why they want to work there, what they've built, and, if selected, to participate in a paid four-to-six-week work trial.

Research has long shown that résumés alone with impressive companies and years of experience aren't great predictors of success in a new job. Now, in the age of Gen AI slop, "the résumé is almost worthless because they all read the same," says Michelle Volberg, founder and CEO of Twill, a recruiting software company. She compares AI-edited résumés to going to a restaurant where "the menu looked really beautiful and had all these amazing ingredients and dishes, but there was no one there actually making the food."

Volberg tells me she's seen a shift just in the past three months: some companies she works with are opting to extend paid work trials for as long as a month to evaluate a candidate. Some are focused more on workers' real-time abilities than if they've worked at a Big Tech company or went to an Ivy League school. A new survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that 70% of employers say they're using skills-based hiring, which prioritizes practical abilities and aptitudes over credentials like degrees and years of experience. A résumé might still be used to identify and track a candidate, Volberg says, but AI résumés aren't wowing recruiters.

In a callous job market where it can feel like everyone's hungry and nobody's making it to the table, recruiters and job seekers alike are looking for a shakeup. But anytime the rules of the game change, there's bound to be new winners and losers.

For more than a decade, AI tools that evaluate résumés and cover letters have made biased choices, preferring male candidates or the applicants seen earlier in the process. Recruiters and job seekers have complained to me about AI-generated and cover letters hitting AI résumé readers -- overwhelming recruiters with unqualified applicants and demoralizing job seekers who had been looking for work for months. As the labor market tightened after 2022, the problem worsened. Mass layoffs in the tech industry shifted the power from a worker market to an employer one, and it wasn't feasible for many human recruiters to review all the inbound applications they received, says Stephanie Alston, CEO of staffing firm BGG Enterprises. Software engineers started using AI to cheat their way through coding tests, leaving hiring managers to come up with novel ways to evaluate candidates. Realizing how easy it had become to apply for a role and how that had become a problem rather than an asset always, LinkedIn started using AI to compare profiles and job descriptions, encouraging people to apply for jobs they might be a better fit for, rather than following the age-old career advice of just throwing an application in the ring.

"We don't require a résumé, and we don't expect one," reads a software engineer job opening at Automattic.

Recruiters have increasingly moved away from relying on application portals to instead actively source candidates from LinkedIn or their own networks. "There's a lot of frustration on both ends, and I'm just wondering at what point will it all just come to a crash," Alston says.

Résumé fluffing and editing has broken down trust between employers and job seekers. Bolun Li tells me he ran into this disconnect when he was working on his first fintech startup in college. He would hire engineers with the "perfect résumé" from Duke University, where he was also enrolled, but found his hires "couldn't build anything," he tells me. "You can't look at people's résumés to know if they're good at what they do. I always had this notion that I need to look at people's work to hire someone, versus looking at what they say they've done."

That frustration inspired his new startup, Vamo, which searches GitHub to find software developers who have completed projects similar to what a company needs. Li, now 27, launched it last month, after using an early model of the concept to make his own hires. Among them is Alex Vasquez, 23, who became the company's founding engineer after Li found a past project he made on GitHub. Vasquez, who attended the University of Massachusetts Lowell, applied to plenty of jobs, but felt he was lost in automated applicant systems. He kept tinkering and building projects that interested him on his own, and that's how Li found him. "I definitely didn't stand a chance, even if I was very capable," Vasquez tells me of other jobs for which he applied. Li tells me never even saw Vasquez's résumé.

Showing skills rather than listing them could become the new normal, even outside of technical fields, J.T. O'Donnell, founder of Work It Daily, a career coaching platform, tells me. Companies are shifting away from posting jobs on career sites, and instead opting for internal promotions or having recruiters do cold outreach in fields where the number of applicants far surpasses the open jobs. It's a trend O'Donnell calls "quiet hiring," and to succeed, she says, job seekers have to market themselves by posting about their projects and thoughts on LinkedIn. O'Donnell thinks posting videos will become crucial ways for people to showcase their knowledge, personality, and signal that they're human. "When you're talking about your industry and your skill sets, you're actually feeding the database so that recruiters can find you in the quiet hiring era, and that's where you're gonna see a big shift in how people get hired," she says.

LinkedIn has also noticed the change. The company announced a new feature for job seekers to verify skills listed on their profiles. The site partnered with AI tools like Descript, Lovable, and Replit to confirm a person's proficiency based on how they actually use the tools, using AI to assess how well the person can use them. "There is a shift happening from surface level signals like titles or keywords to this deeper evidence of capability," Pat Whelan, product manager at LinkedIn. A résumé is "still a helpful signal, but it's just one. Employers want to know the next level of detail, like the projects you've worked on, the skills you've gained, the context and scale of your experience."

For six months, Indeed has been running a beta program that speeds up the interview process, allowing people to apply for entry-level roles in fields like retail and hospitality and immediately interview if a recruiter is online. It's a model that harkens back to the old days of walking into a business and submitting an application face-to-face. The job site found candidates were waiting longer to hear back from recruiters and falling into the "the black hole problem," says Connie Cheng, a senior product manager at Indeed, tells me. The goal was to compress the time between submitting applications and scheduling calls, but the virtual interview process also allows job seekers "to be able to put their best foot forward and for them to be able to stand out beyond just their typical application," Cheng says.

Not everyone has a star résumé. Basing hiring decisions on skills might open doors to candidates previously overlooked, but perhaps the best workers aren't publishing their work online, and the most creative problem solvers might not post regularly on LinkedIn or feel comfortable spilling their thoughts on camera. Not everyone has access to robust networking events where they live or time to attend if they're balancing work with other responsibilities like school or caregiving. Paid work trials might be great for candidates and employers to see if there's a good fit, but companies won't offer them to many prospective workers. The new ways of hiring could exclude people just as biased résumé reading has, but it will take time for us to see the effects.

"We've seen innocent looking or innocuous proxies that actually turn out to be very biased, and you only know that because somebody checked, and unfortunately often nobody checks," says Hilke Schellmann, author of "The Algorithm," a book that examines the decisions AI makes about who gets hired, promoted, or fired. The technology behind candidate evaluations isn't necessarily a problem when paired with a sharp human recruiter, but it can't be made strictly in the name of efficiency for the hiring process. "There needs to be a technological solution, but I actually think what it might be is not one technological solution, but a much more holistic assessment of candidates." For now, jobs might not make you upload a résumé, but that doesn't mean landing a job will get easier overnight. more

Career development

12h

The latest casualty in the white-collar job apocalypse: Résumés

This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in.

A decade ago, I walked into an office to interview for my first newsroom internship. Wearing a millennial-core business casual H&M pencil skirt and Steve Madden flats, I handed my résumé -- neatly spaced Arial font, carefully considered, and kept crisp in its... designated folder -- to the editor. Without looking up from her computer, she said, "I don't read résumés," and flicked the paper to the floor.

If you've ever assumed an automated applicant tracking system has thrown out your résumé, I can tell you it feels just as demoralizing to watch it happen IRL. Today, more hiring managers and recruiters are following that approach. Now that anyone can spin up a buzzword-filled résumé and cover letter in seconds with ChatGPT, doctor a flawless headshot, or cheat a coding test, faked or embellished applications have become indiscernible from quality candidates.

The résumé has been relegated.

"Resume not your thing? That's great, we don't really read them anyway!" reads a job post for an engineer at Expensify. "While we know you're awesome, it's actually really hard and time consuming to find you in the midst of literally hundreds of other applications we get from everyone else." The post goes on to list five questions applications should answer to be considered. "We don't require a résumé, and we don't expect one," notes a software engineering job at Automattic, which owns WordPress.com and Tumblr.

Some employers are focusing more on a person's enthusiasm and skills than shiny credentials. E-commerce platform Gumroad asks prospective software engineers to send an email detailing why they want to work there, what they've built, and, if selected, to participate in a paid four-to-six-week work trial.

Research has long shown that résumés alone with impressive companies and years of experience aren't great predictors of success in a new job. Now, in the age of Gen AI slop, "the résumé is almost worthless because they all read the same," says Michelle Volberg, founder and CEO of Twill, a recruiting software company. She compares AI-edited résumés to going to a restaurant where "the menu looked really beautiful and had all these amazing ingredients and dishes, but there was no one there actually making the food."

Volberg tells me she's seen a shift just in the past three months: some companies she works with are opting to extend paid work trials for as long as a month to evaluate a candidate. Some are focused more on workers' real-time abilities than if they've worked at a Big Tech company or went to an Ivy League school. A new survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that 70% of employers say they're using skills-based hiring, which prioritizes practical abilities and aptitudes over credentials like degrees and years of experience. A résumé might still be used to identify and track a candidate, Volberg says, but AI résumés aren't wowing recruiters.

In a callous job market where it can feel like everyone's hungry and nobody's making it to the table, recruiters and job seekers alike are looking for a shakeup. But anytime the rules of the game change, there's bound to be new winners and losers.

For more than a decade, AI tools that evaluate résumés and cover letters have made biased choices, preferring male candidates or the applicants seen earlier in the process. Recruiters and job seekers have complained to me about AI-generated and cover letters hitting AI résumé readers -- overwhelming recruiters with unqualified applicants and demoralizing job seekers who had been looking for work for months. As the labor market tightened after 2022, the problem worsened. Mass layoffs in the tech industry shifted the power from a worker market to an employer one, and it wasn't feasible for many human recruiters to review all the inbound applications they received, says Stephanie Alston, CEO of staffing firm BGG Enterprises. Software engineers started using AI to cheat their way through coding tests, leaving hiring managers to come up with novel ways to evaluate candidates. Realizing how easy it had become to apply for a role and how that had become a problem rather than an asset always, LinkedIn started using AI to compare profiles and job descriptions, encouraging people to apply for jobs they might be a better fit for, rather than following the age-old career advice of just throwing an application in the ring.

Recruiters have increasingly moved away from relying on application portals to instead actively source candidates from LinkedIn or their own networks. "There's a lot of frustration on both ends, and I'm just wondering at what point will it all just come to a crash," Alston says.

Résumé fluffing and editing has broken down trust between employers and job seekers. Bolun Li tells me he ran into this disconnect when he was working on his first fintech startup in college. He would hire engineers with the "perfect résumé" from Duke University, where he was also enrolled, but found his hires "couldn't build anything," he tells me. "You can't look at people's résumés to know if they're good at what they do. I always had this notion that I need to look at people's work to hire someone, versus looking at what they say they've done."

That frustration inspired his new startup, Vamo, which searches GitHub to find software developers who have completed projects similar to what a company needs. Li, now 27, launched it last month, after using an early model of the concept to make his own hires. Among them is Alex Vasquez, 23, who became the company's founding engineer after Li found a past project he made on GitHub. Vasquez, who attended the University of Massachusetts Lowell, applied to plenty of jobs, but felt he was lost in automated applicant systems. He kept tinkering and building projects that interested him on his own, and that's how Li found him. "I definitely didn't stand a chance, even if I was very capable," Vasquez tells me of other jobs for which he applied. Li tells me never even saw Vasquez's résumé.

Showing skills rather than listing them could become the new normal, even outside of technical fields, J.T. O'Donnell, founder of Work It Daily, a career coaching platform, tells me. Companies are shifting away from posting jobs on career sites, and instead opting for internal promotions or having recruiters do cold outreach in fields where the number of applicants far surpasses the open jobs. It's a trend O'Donnell calls "quiet hiring," and to succeed, she says, job seekers have to market themselves by posting about their projects and thoughts on LinkedIn. O'Donnell thinks posting videos will become crucial ways for people to showcase their knowledge, personality, and signal that they're human. "When you're talking about your industry and your skill sets, you're actually feeding the database so that recruiters can find you in the quiet hiring era, and that's where you're gonna see a big shift in how people get hired," she says.

LinkedIn has also noticed the change. The company announced a new feature for job seekers to verify skills listed on their profiles. The site partnered with AI tools like Descript, Lovable, and Replit to confirm a person's proficiency based on how they actually use the tools, using AI to assess how well the person can use them. "There is a shift happening from surface level signals like titles or keywords to this deeper evidence of capability," Pat Whelan, product manager at LinkedIn. A résumé is "still a helpful signal, but it's just one. Employers want to know the next level of detail, like the projects you've worked on, the skills you've gained, the context and scale of your experience."

For six months, Indeed has been running a beta program that speeds up the interview process, allowing people to apply for entry-level roles in fields like retail and hospitality and immediately interview if a recruiter is online. It's a model that harkens back to the old days of walking into a business and submitting an application face-to-face. The job site found candidates were waiting longer to hear back from recruiters and falling into the "the black hole problem," says Connie Cheng, a senior product manager at Indeed, tells me. The goal was to compress the time between submitting applications and scheduling calls, but the virtual interview process also allows job seekers "to be able to put their best foot forward and for them to be able to stand out beyond just their typical application," Cheng says.

Not everyone has a star résumé. Basing hiring decisions on skills might open doors to candidates previously overlooked, but perhaps the best workers aren't publishing their work online, and the most creative problem solvers might not post regularly on LinkedIn or feel comfortable spilling their thoughts on camera. Not everyone has access to robust networking events where they live or time to attend if they're balancing work with other responsibilities like school or caregiving. Paid work trials might be great for candidates and employers to see if there's a good fit, but companies won't offer them to many prospective workers. The new ways of hiring could exclude people just as biased résumé reading has, but it will take time for us to see the effects.

"We've seen innocent looking or innocuous proxies that actually turn out to be very biased, and you only know that because somebody checked, and unfortunately often nobody checks," says Hilke Schellmann, author of "The Algorithm," a book that examines the decisions AI makes about who gets hired, promoted, or fired. The technology behind candidate evaluations isn't necessarily a problem when paired with a sharp human recruiter, but it can't be made strictly in the name of efficiency for the hiring process. "There needs to be a technological solution, but I actually think what it might be is not one technological solution, but a much more holistic assessment of candidates." For now, jobs might not make you upload a résumé, but that doesn't mean landing a job will get easier overnight. more

Career development

16h

Beyond the Hedges Prepares Rice Student-Athletes for Professional Success - Rice University Athletics

Rice University student-athletes gained hands-on experience in professional interviewing and networking at Beyond the Hedges, a career development event hosted by the SOAR Office of Student-Athlete Development and Letterwinner Engagement.

The evening began with student-athletes receiving professional headshots before rotating to assigned interview tables organized by industry and career... interests. Athletics leadership welcomed attendees and emphasized the importance of preparing student-athletes for life beyond competition through intentional professional development opportunities.

"Beyond the Hedges ensures our student-athletes gain real interview experience before it matters most, equipping them with the confidence and skills needed for life after sport and life after Rice." said , Assistant Director of Student-Athlete Development and Letterwinner Engagement.

The program featured three rounds of eight-minute mock interviews conducted in a speed-interview format. Professionals evaluated student-athletes on response relevance, clarity, confidence and composure, and self-awareness, providing written feedback after each round. Student-athletes also reflected on their performance in their newly gifted padfolios, noting strengths and identifying areas for growth.

"I am very grateful to have attended Beyond the Hedges this year, as it gave me the opportunity to practice my interview skills and build confidence in a professional setting, helping prepare me for future career interviews. The chance to network with professionals who are currently in roles I aspire to pursue was both insightful and extremely beneficial," said Dayo Tennyson, soccer student-athlete and first-time attendee.

The mock interviews were designed as a low-pressure learning environment, reinforcing that the objective was growth and preparation -- not perfection.

The event was supported by Thrivent, Capco, and BELFOR Property Restoration, whose partnership helped make the evening possible. Representatives from Thrivent also shared information about career pathways and opportunities within their organization.

Following the interview rounds, student-athletes and professionals connected during an open networking reception. Many participants used this time to continue conversations, practice professional communication, and expand their networks. As a result, several student-athletes left the event with follow-up interviews for internships, invitations for a specialized medical school tour, and scheduled coffee chats with industry leaders.

The SOAR Office extends its sincere thanks to all professionals who volunteered their time and expertise, as well as to event sponsors Thrivent, Capco, and BELFOR, for their continued support of Rice student-athletes and their professional development.

Browse photos from the event HERE. more

Career development

16h

$13,000 in Debt, Zero Programming Skills.

$13,000 in Debt, Zero Programming Skills. Can a Former Construction Worker Build a SaaS Using Only AI?

The entire process of a non-coder building a real product with AI -- failures and all.

31 years old. $13,000 in debt. Programming skills: zero.

That's my current status.

Let me tell you a truth that nobody on Medium wants to admit.

Most "how I built a SaaS" articles are written by people who... already knew how to code.

They had savings. They had connections. They had a safety net.

I have none of that.

What I do have is $13,000 in debt, a dead-end office job, and an AI assistant that doesn't care about my résumé.

This is the story of how I got here -- and why, starting today, I'm betting everything on building my first SaaS product using AI.

Chapter 1: Hard Lessons from the Hard Hat

After graduating from university, I joined a general contractor and spent four years working as a construction site supervisor. It was never exactly my dream job.

I ended up there because I had an engineering degree and the pay was good.

The hours were brutal -- waking up at 5:30 or 6:00 every morning to get to the site. Most days, I wouldn't get home until 11 PM, sometimes past midnight.

The pay was decent -- better than most of my college classmates, actually -- but I could rarely take a day off. Every single day was consumed by work.

Still, there was something deeply satisfying about watching a building come to life. I once worked on a hotel construction project, and after it was finished, my mother and sister stayed there as guests. That's a memory I'll always treasure.

Through this job, I learned the joy and sense of accomplishment that comes from building something big, step by step, over time. I also learned how to solve problems one by one by communicating with the skilled tradespeople on-site.

But I realized I couldn't keep living like this for decades. The time demands were destroying me -- mentally and physically.

I wanted freedom.

So I quit.

Chapter 2: The Price Tag of $13,000

After leaving the company, I became a sole proprietor doing sales work. I was 27, and every day was filled with anxiety and self-doubt -- could I really make it on my own, without a company backing me?

As expected, with no product of my own and no real business model, I was just burning through cash.

Rent, transportation, phone bills -- expenses kept piling up while my income stayed near zero.

Two years later, all I had left was $13,000 in debt and a shattered sense of pride.

I went back to being an employee. Not as a site supervisor managing major projects this time -- just an office worker. My paycheck barely covered day-to-day living expenses.

Scrolling through social media, I saw old classmates from my hometown getting married and having kids. Everyone else seemed to be climbing the ladder of life while I was being left behind.

In every possible way, it felt like I had gone backwards.

Chapter 3: The Moment Everything Changed

One night, as I was nearly breaking under the weight of my desk job, I was scrolling through my phone and stumbled upon a video about AI coding assistants.

Someone with absolutely no programming experience had built a working web application in just half an afternoon.

Not a toy. A real product that people would pay for.

I watched that video three times.

Honestly, I got chills. I was speechless in front of my screen at how far AI had come.

Then I thought back to my days on the construction site.

What was I actually doing back then?

I wasn't laying the bricks myself. I wasn't running all the electrical wiring with my own hands.

I was communicating with skilled tradespeople and coordinating them to build something far too large for any single person to create alone.

What if AI could be another "tradesperson" for me to manage?

What if the skills I learned managing construction sites -- breaking down big problems into small steps, giving clear instructions, checking quality -- were exactly the skills needed to build software with AI?

If that person in the video could do it, why couldn't I?

That night, I opened my laptop and typed my very first prompt into an AI coding assistant.

Chapter 4: Why I'm Building in Public

Here's what I've decided.

Starting from absolute zero coding knowledge, I'm going to build my first SaaS product using AI -- and I'm going to document every single step right here on Medium.

This is not a success story.

Not yet.

I don't know if it will work. I don't know if I'll ever earn a single dollar from it. But here's what I do know:

The barrier to software development has never been lower.

AI coding assistants can now generate, debug, and deploy complete applications based on natural language instructions.

You don't need to be a programmer.

You just need to be a great project manager. And that's exactly what I was trained to do.

Debt is the greatest motivator I've ever had.

When your back is against the wall, you either collapse -- or you swing the bat. I'm swinging.

Chapter 5: The Plan Going Forward

Here's my 90-day roadmap:

Month 1: Learn & Prototype

- Master one AI coding tool (starting with an AI pair-programming assistant)

- Identify a real-world problem worth solving

- Build an MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

Month 2: Launch & Iterate

- Release the MVP to the public

- Gather feedback from real users

- Fix bugs and improve features

Month 3: Monetize

- Add a payment system

- Write about the entire journey

- Goal: Acquire my first paying customer

Every week, I'll share my progress. Real numbers. Real failures. And real code -- written not by me, but by AI.

What I'm Building (and Why)

I'm considering two SaaS ideas, both inspired by my real-life experience:

Idea A: AI Quote Generator for Small Businesses

When I was doing sales, creating quotes was one of the most tedious and time-consuming parts of the job. I'd spend hours formatting documents that looked different every single time. What if there was a simple tool where you just input your industry and a few details, and AI generates a professional, branded quote in seconds?

Idea B: AI Prompt Manager

As I started using AI tools, I realized I kept losing track of my best prompts. I'd copy them into random notepads and forget which ones actually worked well. What if there was a tool to save, organize, rate, and share AI prompts? Think of it as a bookmark manager -- but for AI instructions.

Over the next two weeks, I'll validate both ideas and choose one. I'll share the entire decision-making process with you.

To Everyone Who Feels Stuck

If you're reading this and thinking, "A guy with zero IT background trying to build software? That's insane" -- you're probably right.

But here's what I've learned from failure:

The worst thing that can happen isn't failing. It's staying exactly where you are.

I've already lost everything. I've already hit rock bottom. The only direction left is up.

And for the first time in history, there exists an AI that can actually help someone like me -- someone with no connections, no money, and no computer science degree -- build a real product.

If a former construction worker with $13,000 in debt can do this, what's stopping you?

In my next article, I'll validate both SaaS ideas and decide which one to build. I'll share the methodology, the criteria, and all the results -- nothing held back.

If you want to see how this story ends, follow me so you don't miss a thing. more

Career development

23h

Why Skills-Based Hiring is Stalling: New University of Phoenix Career Institute® Report Finds Employers Aren't Set Up for Success

Employers want skills-first hiring -- but without consistent standards, training, and tools, effective skills evaluation still isn't happening at scale.

PHOENIX, March 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- University of Phoenix Career Institute® today released its latest installment in The Career Optimism Special Report™ Series: The Illusion of Progress in Skills-Based Hiring, finding that while skills-based... approaches are gaining in momentum, many employers still lack clear standards and consistent tools to evaluate candidates' skills effectively.

Although 82% of hiring stakeholders say their organization's hiring process is shifting toward a more skills-based approach, 53% of employers report a lack of standardized hiring practices, and 57% of hiring stakeholders say they need better training to evaluate candidates' skills -- highlighting a gap between intent and implementation. The result is a hiring system in limbo, where an illusion of progress towards skills-based models is fueling dysfunction across the talent pipeline.

This comes as job applications surge -- up 31% last year, far outpacing the 7% growth in openings -- with AI tools making it easier to apply en masse, according to Workday's Global Workforce Report. But with job openings flatlining at the end of 2025 (per the latest JOLTS data), both hiring teams and job seekers are feeling the squeeze: more résumés, less clarity, and mounting pressure on systems never built for this scale.

Key Findings

* Skills Lost in Translation: 22% of hiring stakeholders say poorly designed application systems may be filtering out good candidates -- helping to explain why 58% of job seekers say they're being rejected despite being qualified for a role. Even when candidates have the right capabilities, 48% of hiring stakeholders admit they can still miss out simply because these candidates struggle to demonstrate their skills clearly in the hiring process.

* Referrals Still Rule: Despite 3 in 4 hiring stakeholders (75%) saying personal connections aren't important to the hiring process, 79% admit that final hiring decisions are influenced by personal referrals.

* AI Is Creating a Trust Divide: 57% of job seekers and 47% of hiring stakeholders believe AI introduces bias into the hiring process -- yet just 1 in 3 companies (37%) audit their tools for this.

* The Manager Training Gap: 1 in 4 non-HR hiring stakeholders (24%) receive no training before interviewing job candidates -- yet many own the final hiring call.

"Skills-based hiring can be a powerful driver of economic mobility and can help employers access overlooked talent -- but only if intent and infrastructure are aligned," says Alison Lands, VP of Employer Mobilization at Jobs for the Future. "That means measuring and hiring for what predicts success on the job, supported by clear standards and consistent evaluation."

The Stakes

"The Illusion of Progress in Skills-Based Hiring reveals a hiring ecosystem looking to evolve while struggling to keep pace with rising expectations. Employers want to prioritize skills -- but without consistent training, clear standards, or unbiased tools, the process risks becoming even more opaque," says Cheryl Naumann, Chief Human Resources Officer, University of Phoenix. "At University of Phoenix, we're at the start of that journey as well, which is why we launched this report - to understand the landscape where progress is being made, where critical gaps remain, and what it will take to make skills-based hiring work in practice. There's a real opportunity for business and education to align on the frameworks needed to make skills-first hiring a reality, and we're committed to continuing this important dialogue while preparing our students with the skills to thrive in today's talent market, including how to market their skills effectively."

The Call-to-Action

* C-Suite: Redefine what 'qualified' means. Build hiring systems that match internal training -- and avoid leaving talent behind.

* HR: Empower stakeholders with consistent tools and lead the charge on structure, not just compliance.

* Higher Ed: Hardwire real-world experience and adaptability into every program and help your grads articulate relevant hard and soft skills.

* Job Seekers: Lead with your hard and soft skills to demonstrate what you've built, learned, and solved -- even outside traditional learning paths -- to make sure you aren't overlooked.

Download the complete whitepaper at https://www.phoenix.edu/career-institute.html.

ABOUT THE CAREER OPTIMISM SPECIAL REPORT™ SERIES: THE ILLUSION OF PROGRESS IN SKILLS-BASED HIRING

The Career Optimism Special Report™ Series: The Illusion of Progress in Skills-Based Hiring compromised of a 20-minute online survey conducted among 2,000 U.S. adults in two categories including n=1,000 Job Seekers and n=1,000 Hiring Stakeholders. Job Seekers were U.S. adults (ages 18 and up) who were recently hired or actively seeking employment at the time of research and Hiring Stakeholders were U.S. adults (ages 25 and older) who were employed full-time and had influence (participated in an interview, gave feedback on a candidate during the process, etc.) over hiring decisions at their company at the time of the research. Fieldwork was conducted from June 2-13, 2025.

The survey was designed to assess the state of the hiring process, the direction it's headed, and the barriers that get in the way, both for candidates trying to break through and hiring managers trying to find the right talent. The quantitative survey was supplemented with 10 qualitative one-on-one video interviews with Hiring Stakeholders from the survey respondents who agreed to be recontacted for additional research.

ABOUT UNIVERSITY OF PHOENIX CAREER INSTITUTE®

Housed within the university's College of Doctoral Studies, the Career Institute conducts impactful research and collaborates with leading organizations to explore broad and persistent barriers to career growth. Through annual studies like the Career Optimism Index® and targeted reports, the Institute shares actionable insights to inform solutions. For more information, visit www.phoenix.edu/career-institute.

ABOUT UNIVERSITY OF PHOENIX

University of Phoenix innovates to help working adults enhance their careers and develop skills in a rapidly changing world. Flexible schedules, relevant courses, interactive learning, skills-mapped curriculum for our bachelor's and master's degree programs, and a Career Services for Life® commitment help students more effectively pursue career and personal aspirations while balancing their busy lives. For more information, visit phoenix.edu.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/why-skills-based-hiring-is-stalling-new-university-of-phoenix-career-institute-report-finds-employers-arent-set-up-for-success-302701603.html more

Career development

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9 Elements Every Successful Career Portfolio Needs

In today's competitive job market, having a well-structured career portfolio can significantly enhance your employability and professional reputation. A career portfolio showcases your skills, experiences, and achievements in a tangible way, allowing potential employers or clients to assess your qualifications at a glance. Here are nine essential elements every successful career portfolio should... include.

1. Personal Branding Statement

At the heart of your career portfolio lies your personal branding statement. This statement encapsulates who you are as a professional, what you do, and what makes you unique. It should articulate your values, expertise, and https://www.behance.net/johnlowryspartancapi?locale=en_US career aspirations in a concise manner. Crafting a strong personal branding statement not only sets the tone for your portfolio but also ensures that all subsequent information aligns with your professional identity.

Example:

"I am a dedicated marketing professional with over five years of experience in digital strategy, specializing in data-driven campaigns that enhance brand visibility and drive engagement. My passion lies in merging creativity with analytics to deliver measurable results."

2. Comprehensive Resume

Your portfolio should feature an up-to-date resume that highlights your work experience, education, skills, and certifications. Unlike a traditional resume, your career portfolio can include more detail about specific roles or projects, spotlighting your unique contributions and achievements. Utilize bullet points for clarity and consider tailoring your resume format to reflect your personal branding.

Tips:

* Keep the design clean and professional.

* Use relevant keywords that align with your target position.

* Include quantifiable results wherever possible to substantiate your accomplishments.

3. Work Samples

One of the most impactful components of your career portfolio is a collection of work samples that showcase your skills and expertise. This could include reports, presentations, design works, writing samples, or anything else that relates to your field. Ensure that each sample is presented professionally, and consider explaining https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/john-lowry-spartan-capital-individual-biopdf/256694384 role in the project and the outcomes achieved.

Suggestions:

* Choose work samples that are relevant to the positions you're targeting.

* If possible, include a mix of individual and collaborative works to demonstrate teamwork and leadership skills.

4. Case Studies

Incorporating case studies into your portfolio can offer deeper insights into how you approach problem-solving and project management. A case study describes a particular project from inception to completion, detailing the challenges faced, strategies implemented, and results achieved. This format allows you to showcase your critical thinking and analytical skills, making it especially appealing to employers looking for tangible evidence of your success.

Structure:

* Title: Clearly state the project name.

* Challenge: Describe the problem you were solving.

* Approach: Explain the strategies you employed.

* Results: Quantify your achievements.

5. Testimonials and Endorsements

Including testimonials from colleagues, supervisors, or clients can add credibility to your portfolio. These endorsements speak to your character, work ethic, and professionalism, serving as powerful references that back up your claims. Choose testimonials that highlight specific skills or achievements relevant to your career goals.

Tips:

* Ensure that testimonials are up-to-date and from credible sources.

* Use quotes or paraphrases to make them more impactful.

* If possible, include a photo of the person giving the testimonial to enhance credibility.

6. Certifications and Professional Development

A section dedicated to certifications and professional development can significantly enhance your credentials. List any relevant certifications, licenses, or training programs you've completed. This demonstrates your commitment to continuous learning and staying current in your field. Include dates and the organizations that issued the certifications.

Suggestions:

* Highlight certifications that are particularly relevant to your industry or target job.

* Consider showcasing ongoing training or skills improvement initiatives.

7. Portfolio Projects

If your career involves creative work, such as graphic design, writing, photography, or software development, consider including a distinct section dedicated to portfolio projects. This space allows you to curate comprehensive examples of your best work, providing a visually appealing showcase. Each project should include:

* A brief description of the project.

* Your specific role and contributions.

* Relevant tools or technologies used.

8. Professional Network

Including a list of professional organizations you belong to, as well as any leadership roles you've held, can demonstrate your involvement in your field. Membership in reputable organizations can indicate your professionalism and dedication. Additionally, you can highlight any conferences or workshops you've participated in, showcasing your engagement with industry developments.

Example:

* Organizations: American Marketing Association, Project Management Institute

* Roles: Committee Chair for Annual Conference Planning

9. Future Goals and Aspirations

Concluding your career portfolio with a section on your future goals can round out your professional narrative. This element allows you to express your ambitions and how they relate to the positions you are pursuing. Clearly articulating your career objectives demonstrates foresight and commitment to professional growth.

Tips:

* Align your goals with the sectors or roles you are applying for.

* Keep this section concise yet impactful, reflecting your passion and dedication.

Conclusion

Creating a successful career portfolio involves a thoughtful blend of personal branding, professional experience, and a demonstration of skills. By incorporating these nine essential elements, you can build a powerful portfolio that not only showcases your qualifications but also tells a compelling story about your career journey. As you update or refine your portfolio, remember that it should be a living document, adapting to reflect your evolving skills and achievements. In a competitive job market, a well-organized and vibrant career portfolio can make all the difference in landing your next opportunity. more

Career development

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Women in Petfood Leadership debuts at Interzoo 2026

A networking and career development initiative for women in the global pet food industry will make its European debut in Nuremberg this May.

Women in Petfood Leadership (WIPL) will hold its first-ever European event at Interzoo 2026, bringing together women across the global pet food industry for a morning of leadership programming, career development content and networking.

The event is... scheduled for Wednesday, May 13, from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. in the Istanbul Room, NCC Ost, Nuremberg Messe. A light breakfast will be provided. Attendance is by RSVP.

"We're looking forward to building on the success of Women in Petfood Leadership in North America by expanding it into Europe," Debbie Phillips-Donaldson, editor-in-chief of Petfood Industry and Petfood Forum. "It's really exciting to have the first event for the program outside of North America at Interzoo, where so many women and their allies in the industry network and do business."

WIPL is an initiative that brings together professional women in pet food to build community through networking, career planning, leadership development and professional support. The program is open to all women -- and men -- who support the principles of cooperation, education, mentoring and encouragement for women to grow professionally throughout the pet food industry.

The Interzoo event marks the program's debut outside North America. Speaker details will be announced soon. more

Career development

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Apply APM Jobs For Me

I want to ramp up my search for Associate Product Manager or junior Product Manager roles without spending every evening filling out forms. I already have a polished résumé and a basic cover-letter template that highlights my entry-level product-management experience; what I need now is someone to handle the actual application pipeline end-to-end. Here's the flow I have in mind: you identify... suitable openings, adapt my materials so each submission feels personal, complete the online applications (LinkedIn, Indeed, company ATS portals, etc.), and keep a living tracker so I can see what went out and when. Whenever a posting requests additional questions, short essays, or take-home tasks, flag them for me and add any context you can gather about the role so I can respond quickly. Deliverables each week * 20+ tailored applications submitted, with links and timestamps * Updated spreadsheet (Google Sheets) showing job title, company, location (remote/onsite), status, and next action * Copies of customized cover letters and any screening responses you drafted Acceptance criteria * All applications clearly reference the correct company and role -- no generic copy-paste errors * Cover letters stay within one page and preserve my original tone while reflecting the job description's keywords * Tracker is updated in real time and shared with me continuously I'll provide my résumé, template, and login credentials once we start. Experience with product-management jargon, strong written English, and diligence navigating applicant-tracking systems will set you up for success. more

Career development

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Expert Signs a Workplace Is Toxic When Job Hunting - Sibizi Magazine

Job hunting is often framed as an opportunity-filled process, but experts warn that candidates should pay as much attention to warning signs as they do to job offers. A toxic workplace can damage mental health, stall career growth and lead to burnout, sometimes within months of starting.

Here are some of the biggest giveaways that a workplace may be toxic, according to career coaches, HR... specialists and organisational psychologists.

1. High Staff Turnover Is Normalised

If interviewers casually mention that "people don't stay long" or that the role is constantly open, it's a major red flag. Experts agree that frequent resignations often point to poor leadership, unrealistic expectations or a hostile culture.

2. Vague Job Descriptions and Shifting Expectations

When responsibilities are unclear or change during the interview process, it may signal disorganisation or role overload. Toxic environments often expect employees to "figure it out" without support, leading to stress and blame when targets aren't met.

3. Negative Talk About Former Employees

If hiring managers criticise previous staff, label them as "lazy" or "unable to cope," experts warn this reflects a culture that avoids accountability. The same narrative is likely to be used about you once problems arise.

4. Glorifying Overwork

Statements like "We work hard and play hard," "We're like a family," or "You must be available at all times" can mask unhealthy boundaries. Experts caution that constant urgency and unpaid overtime are hallmarks of toxic work environments.

5. Lack of Psychological Safety

During interviews, notice whether your questions are welcomed or brushed aside. A dismissive or defensive tone can indicate a culture where speaking up is discouraged, a key contributor to workplace toxicity.

6. No Growth, Feedback or Structure

If there's no clear performance feedback process, development plan or opportunity for learning, experts suggest this may be a stagnant environment where employees are used rather than developed.

A job offer should feel like progress, not survival. In today's job market, choosing the right workplace is just as important as landing the role. Spotting toxicity early can save your career momentum -- and your well-being -- in the long run. more

Career development

1d

Expert Signs a Workplace Is Toxic When Job Hunting

Job hunting is often framed as an opportunity-filled process, but experts warn that candidates should pay as much attention to warning signs as they do to job offers. A toxic workplace can damage mental health, stall career growth and lead to burnout, sometimes within months of starting.

Here are some of the biggest giveaways that a workplace may be toxic, according to career coaches, HR... specialists and organisational psychologists.

1. High Staff Turnover Is Normalised

If interviewers casually mention that "people don't stay long" or that the role is constantly open, it's a major red flag. Experts agree that frequent resignations often point to poor leadership, unrealistic expectations or a hostile culture.

2. Vague Job Descriptions and Shifting Expectations

When responsibilities are unclear or change during the interview process, it may signal disorganisation or role overload. Toxic environments often expect employees to "figure it out" without support, leading to stress and blame when targets aren't met.

3. Negative Talk About Former Employees

If hiring managers criticise previous staff, label them as "lazy" or "unable to cope," experts warn this reflects a culture that avoids accountability. The same narrative is likely to be used about you once problems arise.

4. Glorifying Overwork

Statements like "We work hard and play hard," "We're like a family," or "You must be available at all times" can mask unhealthy boundaries. Experts caution that constant urgency and unpaid overtime are hallmarks of toxic work environments.

5. Lack of Psychological Safety

During interviews, notice whether your questions are welcomed or brushed aside. A dismissive or defensive tone can indicate a culture where speaking up is discouraged, a key contributor to workplace toxicity.

6. No Growth, Feedback or Structure

If there's no clear performance feedback process, development plan or opportunity for learning, experts suggest this may be a stagnant environment where employees are used rather than developed.

A job offer should feel like progress, not survival. In today's job market, choosing the right workplace is just as important as landing the role. Spotting toxicity early can save your career momentum -- and your well-being -- in the long run. more

Career development

1d

Your Résumé Is Now Being Graded by a Machine -- And the Machine Might Be Getting It Wrong

For decades, the hiring process followed a familiar rhythm: a candidate submitted a résumé, a human recruiter scanned it, and a decision was made -- sometimes fairly, sometimes not. Now, a growing number of companies are handing that first critical screening to artificial intelligence systems, and the consequences for job seekers are becoming impossible to ignore. According to recent reporting and... industry data, AI-powered applicant tracking systems are filtering out qualified candidates at alarming rates, raising serious questions about whether automation is solving the hiring problem or simply creating a new one.

A recent report from Mashable laid bare the scope of the issue: AI tools used to screen job applications are now ubiquitous among large employers, with an estimated 99% of Fortune 500 companies using some form of automated applicant tracking system (ATS). These systems are designed to reduce the burden on human recruiters who may receive hundreds or even thousands of applications for a single position. But the technology's blunt-force approach to filtering candidates has sparked a backlash among job seekers, career coaches, and even some hiring managers who worry that good talent is being systematically excluded.

The Rise of the Algorithmic Gatekeeper

The logic behind AI-powered hiring tools is straightforward enough. When a company posts a job opening, it can be inundated with applications within hours. Human recruiters simply cannot read every résumé in detail, so companies have turned to software that scans documents for keywords, qualifications, and formatting cues. Candidates whose résumés don't match the algorithm's criteria are rejected automatically -- often without any human ever seeing their application.

The problem, as Mashable reported, is that these systems are far from perfect. Studies have shown that qualified candidates are routinely screened out because their résumés don't contain the exact phrasing the algorithm is looking for, or because their formatting confuses the software. A Harvard Business School study found that automated screening systems reject more than 10 million workers per year who would otherwise be qualified for the roles they applied to. The study described these individuals as "hidden workers" -- people with the skills and experience to do the job, but who are invisible to the machines making the first cut.

How Keywords Became King -- and Why That's a Problem

The keyword-matching approach that underpins most ATS platforms has created a strange new dynamic in the labor market. Job seekers are now advised by career coaches to tailor their résumés obsessively to each job posting, stuffing their documents with specific terms pulled directly from the listing. An entire cottage industry of résumé optimization services has sprung up, promising to help candidates "beat the bots." Some services charge hundreds of dollars to reformat and rewrite résumés so they are more likely to pass through automated filters.

This arms race between applicants and algorithms has produced absurd outcomes. Some candidates have resorted to hiding keywords in white text on their résumés -- invisible to the human eye but readable by machines. Others have reported being rejected from jobs for which they are overqualified, simply because they used a slightly different job title or described their experience in a way the software didn't recognize. The situation has become so pervasive that it has fueled widespread frustration on platforms like LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter), where job seekers regularly share stories of applying to dozens or even hundreds of positions without receiving a single response.

Bias Baked Into the Code

Beyond the keyword problem, there are deeper concerns about bias embedded in AI hiring tools. Because these systems are often trained on historical hiring data, they can perpetuate and even amplify existing patterns of discrimination. Amazon famously scrapped an internal AI recruiting tool in 2018 after discovering it systematically downgraded résumés from women. The system had been trained on a decade of hiring data that reflected the company's historically male-dominated workforce, and it learned to penalize résumés that included words like "women's" -- as in "women's chess club captain."

The Amazon case was a high-profile example, but researchers say the problem is widespread. A 2024 report from the Brookings Institution noted that AI hiring tools can discriminate based on race, gender, age, and disability status in ways that are difficult to detect and even harder to challenge. Because the algorithms operate as black boxes, candidates who are rejected rarely know why, and they have limited recourse to appeal. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has signaled increased scrutiny of AI in hiring, but regulatory frameworks remain patchy and largely untested in court.

The Job Seeker's Mounting Frustration

The human toll of automated screening is significant. According to data cited by multiple outlets, the average corporate job posting now attracts around 250 applications, and the average applicant sends out dozens of résumés before landing an interview. For many workers -- particularly those re-entering the workforce, changing careers, or coming from non-traditional backgrounds -- the AI filter has become an almost impenetrable barrier.

Career coaches and workforce development experts have begun sounding alarms. The issue is not just that qualified people are being rejected; it's that the rejection is silent. Most ATS platforms send generic "we've decided to move forward with other candidates" emails, if they send anything at all. Job seekers are left in a void, unable to determine whether their application was reviewed by a person, flagged by an algorithm, or simply lost in a digital queue. This opacity breeds cynicism and disengagement, particularly among younger workers who are entering the job market for the first time and finding it bewilderingly unresponsive.

Companies Are Starting to Reconsider

Some employers are beginning to acknowledge that their reliance on AI screening may be costing them talent. A growing number of mid-sized firms have started experimenting with alternative approaches, including skills-based assessments, structured interviews conducted earlier in the process, and even returning to more human-intensive initial reviews for critical roles. The logic is simple: if the automated filter is rejecting 75% of applicants before a recruiter ever sees them, the company may be losing access to the very candidates it needs most.

There is also a growing movement among HR technology vendors to build more nuanced AI tools. Some newer platforms claim to evaluate candidates based on skills and potential rather than keyword matching alone, using natural language processing to understand the substance of a résumé rather than just scanning for specific terms. Whether these next-generation tools will meaningfully improve outcomes remains to be seen, but the market demand for better solutions is clear.

Regulation Lags Behind the Technology

Governments are slowly waking up to the implications of AI in hiring. New York City implemented Local Law 144 in 2023, which requires employers using automated employment decision tools to conduct annual bias audits and notify candidates when AI is being used to evaluate them. The European Union's AI Act, which is being phased in through 2026, classifies AI systems used in employment as "high-risk" and imposes strict transparency and accountability requirements. Illinois and Maryland have also passed laws restricting certain uses of AI in hiring, particularly the use of AI-analyzed video interviews.

But enforcement remains a challenge. Many companies are unsure how to comply with the new rules, and the technology is evolving faster than regulators can keep up. Legal experts say it may take years of litigation before clear standards emerge for what constitutes lawful use of AI in employment decisions. In the meantime, millions of job seekers are left to contend with a system that was designed to make hiring more efficient but may, in practice, be making it less fair.

What Job Seekers Can Do Right Now

While the systemic issues are unlikely to be resolved quickly, career experts offer practical advice for candidates trying to get past the AI gatekeepers. First, they recommend using standard résumé formats -- no tables, columns, headers, footers, or graphics that might confuse parsing software. Second, candidates should mirror the language of the job posting as closely as possible, incorporating specific terms and phrases that the ATS is likely programmed to detect. Third, networking remains the single most effective way to bypass automated screening entirely; a referral from an existing employee can move a résumé directly to a hiring manager's desk.

The broader question, though, is whether a hiring system that requires candidates to game an algorithm just to be seen by a human being is one that serves anyone well -- employers included. As the labor market tightens in certain sectors and companies struggle to fill skilled positions, the cost of over-reliance on automated screening is becoming harder to ignore. The machines were supposed to find the best candidates faster. Instead, they may be ensuring that the best candidates never get found at all. more

Career development

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Amid bleak job market forecast, FAMU students press their suits and their chances at Career Expo

As more than 1,800 FAMU students and recent graduates streamed into the Al Lawson Center in mid-February for the university's annual Career & Internship Expo, they carried not just résumés, but the weight of a daunting national outlook. The job market awaiting the Class of 2026 is projected to be the most challenging in years, with hiring expected to grow just 1.6% over the previous year, the most... conservative forecast since the pandemic.

Against this backdrop, nearly 200 employers still came, many drawn by what they call the distinctive preparation and professionalism of FAMU graduates. But the stakes were palpable. A recent National Association of Colleges and Employers survey found more than half of employers rate the job market for new graduates as poor or fair, the most pessimistic outlook since 2020.

"It absolutely is the caring with excellence that FAMU provides that keeps us coming back," said Lt. Cmdr. Brianna Vegas of the U.S. Coast Guard, herself an alumna. Like many recruiters present, she emphasized that in a cooling economy, companies are prioritizing candidates with experience, technical skills, and AI proficiency over academic pedigree alone.

The event itself was tailored for endurance. A new student lounge offered breakfast and hydration stations, a nod to the reality that students often skip meals to network. "We wanted to give them a little extra protein to help them stay fueled," said Tamara K. Taylor, director of the Career and Professional Development Center.

For many, the expo was a critical opportunity to stand out not only to employers, but against a growing pool of competitors that now includes recently laid-off junior professionals. Major firms from Amazon to Verizon have announced sweeping cuts in recent months, deepening uncertainty for those entering the workforce.

Ceasar Mackee, a 2024 FAMU graduate who now recruits for Cintas, understands the shift better than most. He started as an intern. "FAMU's rigorous work really prepared me," he said. "Everything I did as an intern prepared me for my full-time role." Now, he returns to scout for talent that can adapt quickly, a necessity in an era where artificial intelligence is reshaping entry-level tasks.

Students like Cornelius Pace, a graduate architecture student set to finish in May, is acutely aware of the fierce competition. "You didn't see all these companies online," he said. "It's very important to actually show up." He left with three target employers in mind, a small but meaningful advantage in a tight field.

As the event wound down, the atmosphere was one of determined optimism. Résumés had been exchanged, connections made, and for a few hours, the pressures of the national hiring climate felt softened by the solidarity of the Rattler network.

One message resonated above the murmur of conversations: in a flatlining job market, showing up -- with polish, purpose, and professional poise, might just be what makes all the difference. more

Career development

1d

Finance Job Search Support

I need practical help landing a full-time position in the finance sector. My background fits several paths -- Financial Analyst, Accountant, even Investment Banking -- so I'm open to whichever track aligns best with my skills once you review my résumé. Here's what I'd like from you: * Audit and strengthen my current CV and LinkedIn profile so they speak the language hiring managers expect. *... Pinpoint suitable openings at reputable firms, filter by location and level, and prepare a tracker I can update daily. * Tailor one solid cover-letter template that can be swiftly adjusted for each posting, plus concise talking points to use during screening calls. * Provide application guidance -- keywords to include, ATS optimization tips, and an action plan that keeps me moving instead of scrolling endlessly. I'm committed to securing a role quickly, so I'll respond promptly to your questions and supply any documents you need. Let's put a clear, repeatable job-search system in place and get those interviews scheduled. more

Career development

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HR won't stop talking about skills-based hiring. So why isn't it happening? | Fortune

HR won't stop talking about skills-based hiring. So why isn't it happening?Getty Images

It's one of the biggest buzzwords in HR right now: Skills-based hiring. For years, HR leaders championed the idea of evaluating candidates based on skills rather than degrees listed on résumés.

But despite widespread claims of adoption, many organizations aren't equipped to follow through, creating what a new... study calls an illusion of progress.

Some 53% of employers say their organizations lack standardized hiring practices, according to the University of Phoenix report based on a survey of 2,000 U.S. hiring stakeholders and job seekers. That means no consistent criteria, evaluation frameworks, or interviewer training to support a meaningful shift toward skills-based hiring, the report found.

One huge barrier: interviewer preparedness. Hiring decisions are often made by non-HR employees, yet nearly one in five receive no interview training, according to the study.

"It's a pretty high risk thing to not train someone to do an interview because a lot of things can go wrong," says Cheryl Naumann, CHRO at the University of Phoenix, noting that untrained interviewers can easily ask problematic questions that undermine the process.

Without structured evaluation frameworks or proper training, interviews can quickly drift toward subjective -- and potentially biased -- judgements. Interviewers may favor candidates who share their alma mater or communication style, mistaking familiarity for fit, Naumann says.

To make skills-based hiring work, organizations first need clear definitions of what they are hiring for. Naumann recommends starting with the roles a company fills most frequently, and identifying the skills and proficiency levels required. Crowdsourcing input from across the organization, including employees currently in those roles, can help create more accurate benchmarks.

Then, decide how to quantifiably measure these skills. Many companies still rely on candidates' self-assessments, Naumann says. Instead, organizations should determine whether interviewers need standardized questions or whether candidates should complete skills tests -- while ensuring compliance with state laws governing pre-employment assessments.

"A lot of interviewers are being asked to interview because they are good at their jobs, not because they're good interviewers," Naumann adds. "But those [steps and training] are the subtle pieces that we do need to build competence in order to see the results we want."

Nestlé restructured its bonus plan, increasing payouts for top performers and cutting bonuses for low performers. Bloomberg

Landing a remote role is four times harder for job seekers than in-office or hybrid one. Wall Street Journal more

Career development

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Industry Advice on Answering 'What Is Your Greatest Achievement?'

Career development

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10 Inspiring Examples of Surveys and Questionnaires You Can Use

Surveys and questionnaires are crucial tools that can provide valuable insights across various sectors. Whether you're looking to assess customer satisfaction or gauge employee engagement, there's a survey type customized to your needs. Each example serves a unique purpose, from measuring user experience to comprehending brand awareness. By exploring these ten inspiring examples, you can improve... your decision-making processes and drive enhancements in your organization. Which survey type will be most beneficial for your goals?

Use rating scale questions, allowing customers to quantify their experiences from 1 to 10, which helps identify areas needing improvement. Including qualitative survey questions, such as "What could be improved in our service?" gives customers the chance to provide detailed feedback.

Post-interaction surveys can assess immediate satisfaction with specific aspects like response time and issue resolution effectiveness, gathering actionable data. Additionally, implementing Net Promoter Score (NPS) questions can help gauge customer loyalty by asking how likely they're to recommend your service to others.

These survey questions for qualitative research provide critical insights into customer sentiment, helping you improve and adapt your services based on real feedback.

You'll additionally want to assess team collaboration, which can highlight how effectively you work with your colleagues and contribute to a supportive environment.

Finally, exploring career development opportunities allows you to evaluate whether the organization is helping you grow professionally, ensuring your long-term engagement and satisfaction.

Measuring job satisfaction is critical for comprehending employee engagement and improving workplace dynamics.

Employee engagement surveys often use Likert scale questions to evaluate job satisfaction, allowing you to express your feelings about work-life balance, communication, and professional development opportunities.

Furthermore, evaluating job security and organizational commitment provides valuable insights into how you perceive your role and the company culture.

By combining open-ended questions with quantitative scales, you can offer rich qualitative feedback, helping organizations pinpoint specific areas for improvement.

Regularly measuring job satisfaction can lead to better retention rates, as organizations that actively seek feedback experience a 14.9% lower turnover rate.

Key metrics like the Net Promoter Score (NPS) likewise help gauge your likelihood of recommending the organization as a great workplace.

How can organizations effectively assess team collaboration to improve employee engagement? By using effective employee engagement surveys that include both quantitative and qualitative survey questions examples. Incorporate Likert scale questions like, "My team collaborates effectively on projects," alongside open-ended prompts such as, "What challenges do you face in collaborating with your team?" This approach yields actionable insights that can improve team dynamics.

Here's a simple table to illustrate collaboration assessment:

Evaluating career development opportunities within an organization plays a significant role in enhancing employee engagement and retention.

Employee engagement surveys can effectively assess perceptions of available growth paths, identifying areas for improvement. You should include questions about access to training programs, mentorship availability, and clarity of career trajectories to gauge employee satisfaction.

Utilizing Likert scale questions, like "I feel supported in pursuing my career goals," quantifies sentiment toward the company's commitment. Furthermore, qualitative research survey questions examples, such as "What extra resources would you find beneficial for your career growth?" can provide valuable insights into employee needs.

Regularly analyzing these survey results helps align development opportunities with workforce expectations, ultimately boosting engagement and retention.

When you conduct user experience surveys, choosing the right question types is essential for gathering meaningful insights.

Effective methods like Likert scales, open-ended questions, and matrix questions help you measure usability and assess user engagement thoroughly.

What types of questions can you use to gather meaningful insights in user experience surveys? Effective user experience surveys often include a mix of qualitative and quantitative research questions.

For instance, Likert scale questions can help you measure satisfaction levels, like asking users to rate navigation ease from 1 to 5. Open-ended questions, such as "What improvements would you suggest for our app?" offer valuable qualitative insights into user pain points.

Rating scale questions allow respondents to score aspects like design aesthetics from 0 to 10. Matrix questions let users evaluate multiple product features simultaneously, whereas picture choice questions improve engagement by allowing visual preferences.

Together, these question types improve your survey definition in research, leading to actionable insights.

To effectively measure usability insights, it is essential to utilize a variety of question types in your user experience surveys. This approach allows you to gather both quantitative and qualitative data. For instance, qualitative survey examples might include open-ended questions in qualitative research, enabling users to provide detailed feedback. Furthermore, employing rating scale questions can help assess specific features, whereas matrix questions streamline feedback collection.

Making your usability surveys mobile-friendly guarantees higher response rates, allowing for more accurate insights into user interactions.

How can you effectively improve user engagement through surveys? Start by implementing user experience surveys that blend various question types, including Likert scales and open-ended questions. This approach helps you gather both quantitative data and qualitative insights on user satisfaction.

Focus on specific aspects, such as navigation ease and visual appeal, to pinpoint usability issues and areas needing improvement. Incorporating interactive question formats, like sliders or click maps, makes the survey process enjoyable, which can boost response rates.

Moreover, consider using follow-up questions based on initial answers to explore deeper into user experiences. Regularly analyzing feedback allows you to track changes in user satisfaction over time and make informed decisions to improve the overall user experience effectively.

When you're looking to gather valuable insights after an event, a well-structured post-event feedback survey is vital.

These surveys typically use close-ended questions to quickly assess attendee satisfaction levels. Common queries include overall event ratings, staff helpfulness, and the likelihood of future attendance. Such questions provide a clear picture of participant experiences.

To maximize response rates, consider designing your post-event feedback surveys for mobile completion, allowing attendees to share their thoughts on-the-go.

Including a comments section is important, as it encourages qualitative feedback that uncovers specific areas needing improvement -- insights often missed by quantitative measures alone.

When you conduct market research surveys, identifying key objectives is essential for gathering relevant data.

Comprehending your target audience helps you tailor questions that reveal valuable insights about their preferences and behaviors.

Utilizing effective data collection techniques, such as multiple-choice and rating scale questions, enables you to quantify responses and analyze trends effectively.

These objectives can guide you in creating effective surveys, such as qualitative research survey examples or sample questionnaires for qualitative research.

Utilizing these strategies guarantees you gain meaningful data, helping you make informed decisions about your products and services.

How can you gain a deeper comprehension of your target audience? Conducting a market research survey is a valuable method to gather insights on customer preferences, demographics, and purchasing behaviors.

By incorporating open-ended qualitative questions into your qualitative questionnaire, you encourage respondents to share detailed feedback, providing rich qualitative data that can inform product development. This survey for qualitative research can reveal trends in customer expectations and satisfaction levels.

Furthermore, utilizing multiple-choice and rating scale questions allows for quick data collection and quantifiable metrics, which simplifies analysis. Benchmarking your results against industry standards helps identify your position in the market, enabling you to pinpoint areas for competitive advantage and better align your offerings with customer needs.

Data collection techniques play a crucial role in market research surveys, as they directly impact the quality and depth of insights gathered.

When designing your survey, consider these effective methods:

Understanding what's questionnaire survey method can help you choose the right formats.

Multiple-choice questions help streamline data collection, making it easier to analyze common trends.

Furthermore, rating scale questions, such as asking customers to rate usability from 1 to 10, provide specific insights for your product development team.

Consider using conditional questions to probe deeper based on initial responses, ensuring relevant and focused data collection.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys serve as a crucial tool for measuring customer loyalty, allowing businesses to gauge how likely customers are to recommend their products or services.

These surveys typically ask respondents to rate their likelihood on a scale from 0 to 10. To calculate NPS, you subtract the percentage of detractors (scores 0-6) from promoters (scores 9-10), offering a single metric that reflects overall customer sentiment.

Here are some effective NPS survey examples:

NPS surveys are quantitative, but combining them with qualitative inquiries can improve insights considerably.

How can businesses effectively gauge customer satisfaction? One way is through customer satisfaction surveys, which typically include questions about overall satisfaction and specific service experiences. By using formats like Likert scale and multiple-choice questions, you can measure satisfaction levels and pinpoint areas for improvement.

Timing is essential; sending surveys shortly after a purchase can yield more relevant responses. Analyzing these results helps track trends over time, measure changes, and benchmark against industry standards, eventually guiding your business strategies.

What methods can businesses use to assess brand awareness effectively? Brand awareness surveys are critical tools for this purpose.

You can create a thorough survey by including various question types, such as:

When planning an event, have you considered how valuable attendee feedback can be? Event planning surveys play a vital role in improving future events. Combining close-ended and open-ended questions helps capture both quantitative ratings and qualitative insights. Here's a simple layout for your survey:

Understanding the difference between a survey and a questionnaire is significant; surveys typically analyze data from multiple questions, whereas questionnaires gather responses. By utilizing these event planning surveys effectively, you can improve attendee experiences and tailor your events to their preferences.

To create effective survey questions, consider these five:

First, ask, "How satisfied are you with our service on a scale of 1 to 5?"

Finally, employ an NPS question: "How likely are you to recommend us?"

In today's world, various organizations utilize surveys to gather valuable insights.

For instance, e-commerce companies often use customer satisfaction surveys to assess user experiences and refine services. Tech platforms frequently engage users through feedback forms, asking for ratings on features.

Event organizers might send post-event surveys to measure attendee satisfaction and gather suggestions.

These surveys help businesses understand customer preferences, improve services, and ultimately nurture loyalty by addressing user needs effectively.

When designing a survey, consider incorporating fun questions to engage participants. You might ask, "If you could have any superpower, what would it be?" or "What's your guilty pleasure TV show?"

These questions not only spark creativity but furthermore offer relatable insights. In addition, whimsical prompts like "If you were a kitchen appliance, which one would you be?" can evoke amusing responses.

Such light-hearted questions can elevate participant enjoyment and improve overall completion rates.

You can consider a Customer Satisfaction Survey, which measures how satisfied you're with your overall experience using a product or service.

It often employs a Likert scale for quantifying feelings.

Another example is an Employee Engagement Survey, where you rate statements like "I feel valued at my workplace."

This helps organizations understand workforce morale and identify areas for improvement, ensuring a more engaged and productive work environment.

Incorporating diverse surveys and questionnaires can greatly improve your comprehension of various stakeholders, whether customers, employees, or event attendees. Each type serves a unique purpose, from measuring satisfaction to gathering feedback for improvement. By utilizing these tools effectively, you can propel informed decision-making and strategic improvements in your organization. Remember to prioritize clarity in your questions and consider the specific insights you aim to gain to maximize the value of your surveys and questionnaires. more

Career development

1d

Job hunting is tiring, so I'm developing Jobsy

Job hunting is scary nowadays. Endless job descriptions, requirements, and company research can feel overwhelming.

After checking one job description after another, it becomes really annoying to read through all that text. Sometimes, it's also hard to filter out the exact requirements and identify the skill gaps compared to our own skill set. That's why I'm developing Jobsy.

Users can post any... job description and upload their resume. With the help of an LLM API, Jobsy summarizes the job into clear expectations, highlights the skills the user already has, and identifies the skills they need to learn.

I've also added a new feature called Resume Reviewer. It provides an ATS score, section-wise scores, and improvement suggestions.

I'm still working on it, but I hope to make it live soon.

If you're also struggling with this, let us know your story! And, what do you think about this idea? more

Anonymous member

Career development

3d

What really is "overqualified"? Should one have to dumb down to secure a job?

1

Sheila Milburn
3d
Having a skill set far beyond what is needed for the position. Not including internships. For ex: an employer may think the code writer that accepts... a data entry job, is a risk. Because they don't expect them to stay in the position long. Which translates to another vacancy and $$s needed for another hiring event.
No, you shouldn't "dumb down".
Is how you end up in an overqualified status. more
2
jurica vrdoljak
3d
To znaci da ti lijepo daju do znanja da te nece zaposliti

Career development

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Anonymous member

Sheila Milburn

jurica vrdoljak