Career development

 4w

I'm in my 40s and on my third career change. I got rejected from 83 jobs last month but I'm not losing hope.


In September I applied to over 80 jobs and didn't get any job offers.

In September, I applied to 83 jobs -- and got ghosted or rejected by every single one.

While I've been working since 2000 in different industries, I'm starting a new career following my passion in design. I have an internship, but need a full time job to cover the bills.

Job hunting at 43 has become a full-time hustle -- and... a brutal reminder that starting over never gets easier, no matter how many times you do it.

I was a bartender for 15 years before becoming a doula around 2015, diving into birth, postpartum, and end-of-life work and education. That work was deeply fulfilling. I supported people through life's most vulnerable moments, but the financial instability and long overnight shifts took their toll after nearly a decade.

When the pandemic hit New York City in 2020, doulas were temporarily banned from hospitals. Suddenly, I had time to reimagine what I wanted next. I'd always loved technology and computer science but figured that without a bachelor's degree, that dream wasn't for me.

But something shifted during the pandemic. My mindset changed from "Maybe someday" to "it's now or never."

I started doing things that scared me: trying pole dancing, saying no without guilt, and pursuing a career that many would say I wasn't "qualified" for.

Fast forward to November 2022, I enrolled in Springboard's UX/UI Design Career Track. I felt it in my gut, this was the right move. But I also knew I needed to make a financial shift from being an independent contractor (as a doula) to earning steady hourly pay. I transitioned into studio management and slowly began planning my exit from birth work.

By 2024, I had fully retired from my doula career. Working hourly jobs brought new challenges, but I learned how to advocate for myself, negotiate raises, and apply both soft and technical skills to every new role. I've now changed paid positions three times not because I'm inconsistent, but because I've fought for growth, for better pay, and for opportunities to use my design and management skills.

In September 2025, I made it my mission to apply to at least three companies every night. My résumé looked strong, my portfolio was solid for my level of experience, and my determination was unshakable.

Still, the rejections piled up. Eighty-three applications later, I hadn't received a single interview. Not one.

What I find most disturbing about this product design job-hunting saga is that I've applied to nearly a hundred positions and have nothing to show for it.

Making a career change in 2025 shouldn't feel this impossible.

I have close friends in tech, engineers and product designers, who remind me that breaking in takes time, persistence, and resilience. I've experienced this wave of disappointment before: when I became a bartender, when I transitioned to being a doula, and now as a product designer. Each time, I started from scratch, built new skills, and found my footing.

Right now, I'm working as an executive assistant, a role that combines many of the skills I've developed over the years: empathy, organization, communication, and creative problem-solving. And I'm still designing part-time at 5wins, staying connected to the craft and community that remind me why I chose this path in the first place.

The truth is, rejection still stings. But I've learned that every "no" brings me closer to the right "yes." Reinvention isn't easy, it takes courage, grit, and the ability to rebuild your sense of worth again and again. I may be on my third career change, but I'm far from done. more
17   

  • Sheila Milburn

    17
    3w

    Have you asked those at your internship if they know of any paid internships. Also, from reading your post it seems you are all over the place. I... would be asking if you were in Manage-ment, health, administration or
    design? Potential employers may be thinking you won't stay long or are indecisive. Try to find a common theme (word) or 3 from the job description that you can highlight throughout the
    job write-ups in your resume. Like: creative, Manage. Customer service. Then update your application to highlight those attributes. Goodluck      more

  • Rebecca Erinah

    2
    3w

    Let me stop loosing hope it's now 4 years without working ever since my grad

    1
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Career development

 4d

I'm 47 and quit my job without having anything else lined up. I didn't want to live a life with regrets.


Even though people close to me advised me against quitting, I am excited to pursue meaningful work.

For years, I had wanted to resign from my job as a business school professor at a small private university. Yet I didn't have the courage. My salary was decent, my hours were flexible, and I had friendly coworkers.

From the outside, it made no sense for me to leave my job. I was unhappy, but most... people seem dissatisfied with their work.

With recent news stories about quiet quitting, job-hugging, and significant organizational layoffs, coupled with increased daily living expenses, I knew I should be grateful for employment. As someone who teaches Organizational Learning, Performance, and Change, I knew it was not advisable to leave a job without filling a gap in my résumé by securing another position.

Yet I was unhappy and unfulfilled in my role. When a large round of layoffs occurred over a year ago, many of my peers and friends left the organization, leaving me with an unreasonable workload for one person. In addition, my family had unexpected health issues, and I needed to be more at home.

I got burned out. My work was out of alignment, and my personal values did not align with those of the organization.

I dreamed of flying to another universe on the magical, luck-bringing dragon-like creature from the 1980s movie The NeverEnding Story, or purchasing a ticket to Europe or a beach destination and going on an extended vacation.

Life is short, and many of us are living on autopilot. We dream of retirement, but for most of us, that is many years away. I did not want to look back on my life and have regrets.

So, I quit. When I sent off my resignation letter, I felt a weight lift from my shoulders, and it felt so good.

My husband and I figured out our new budget and made some lifestyle adjustments to allow me to re-energize, spend quality time with my family, and figure out my next professional steps.

I have seen many stories of people who quit their jobs and travel the world. While this sounds dreamy, being a mom of three active kids, having a husband with a non-remote job, and older parents I want to support, the Eat, Pray, Love lifestyle was not in the cards for me.

Since I quit, I have been leaning into work and experiences I enjoy. I am writing my next book, have been teaching as an adjunct, earned a new executive coaching certification, and have done some corporate speaking and consulting. I am relaunching my business and am having fun.

My kids and I have also been doing some budget-friendly traveling. I have a 4th grader, and we have been using the Every Kid Outdoors program, sponsored by the National Parks, which gives 4th graders and their families free entry to national parks.

We visited family in California, drove to Yellowstone National Park, and did some amazing hikes. We also took a road trip to Yellowstone National Park, where we saw Old Faithful and learned about the geothermal activity.

I helped my son publish his first children's book, "Tommy the Tap-Dancing T-Rex," which then inspired my older son to finish his book, too.

While I am not yet earning the same amount of money I earned in my salaried job, I am following the energy of what lights me up.

My new office is at the kitchen table. While my workspace may not be glamorous, I appreciate the flexibility to pick up my kids from school and have my dog by my side.

Change can be scary, but sometimes it's the push we need for growth.

I still struggle with career and identity, juggling both professional and personal identities and supporting my family doing work I enjoy, and being in the role of a parent, daughter, and spouse.

I hope quitting was the right move and am trusting that the right opportunities will reveal themselves as long as I keep showing up and putting in consistent action.

We get this one life, so it's up to us to make the most of it. I am redefining my definition of success to include a life well lived, both professionally and personally. more
7   

  • Mabisi Francis

    5h

    Wow 👌

  • kasiku mwitumwa

    1
    1d

    It is the opposite of me I have quite looking for a job/s. One for like 4 interviews never picked dispite the papers. So I have decided to shape my... path way and career wise. I do not know how but some how some where I will figure it out. Indeed life is short. more

    1
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Tom Lockridge


Career development 2w
Yesterday during an important meeting with some clients, I accidentally broke a glass and ended up spilling champagne on a couple of people.
First, the director practically burned a hole through me with his stare and now our accounting department wants to deduct the cost of the glass from my salary. And honestly, it seems like they’re planning to fire me.
But seriously, can someone really lose... his job over such a small thing? It could happen to anyone, right?

 more
2   

  • Sarah Toku

    6h

    This is unfair. It's a mistake not intentionally

  • Arikoj Jennifer

    2w

    There is more to this than just breaking a glass ,apologize let them decide and move on

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Martin Waters


Career development 4d
I’m 25 years old and have been working as a junior manager in a trading company for 4 years. Recently, our internal email said that another department is looking for a new boss. I sent my resume. But HR and the deputy director laughed at me and said I’m too young, even though I’m sure I can do the job.
I feel upset, because we already have some department heads who are 26-27.
Now I don’t know... what to do. Should I stay and wait until I’m older or look for another company that respects young, active workers? Thanks more
8   

  • Rigor Data Analyst

    7h

    Thank you for sharing your situation. I understand why you feel disappointed; it can be discouraging when your capability is dismissed based on age... rather than performance. The fact that there are already managers in your company who are 26–27 shows that age alone shouldn’t be a barrier, so your reaction is completely valid.
    It may help to reflect on two things:
    (1) whether the company has a consistent, fair process for internal progression, and
    (2) whether your skills and achievements are being meaningfully recognised.
    There is no harm in having ambition at 25. In fact, your initiative to apply shows maturity. If your current environment undervalues young talent or fails to give you a clear pathway for growth, it’s reasonable to explore other companies that appreciate drive, competence, and potential.

    At the same time, you could use this moment to request constructive feedback:
    “What skills or experience should I build to be seriously considered for such roles in the near future?” A professional company should welcome that question. If their response remains dismissive or disrespectful, then your instinct may be right, it might be time to consider an environment where your contributions are respected. Ultimately, focus on where you can grow, be valued, and advance based on merit, not age.     more

  • Jennifer Knight

    20h

    How dare HR even bring up age, that is unprofessional, unacceptable and discriminatory. I agree with Brent (above); request a meeting to discuss your... qualifications, your career goals, and show them what you got!  more

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Career development

 11h

Job & Internship Application Assistant (Remote)


Description: Seeking a reliable student (12th pass or currently pursuing a degree) to assist with applying for internships and job openings in the United States. Work involves tailoring resumes and submitting applications on US job portals such as LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, Handshake, Wellfound, CareerBuilder, and similar platforms. Key Responsibilities: - Apply to 20-25 US... job/internship listings daily using the provided resume and cover letters. - Customize resume and cover letters to match job descriptions and meet ATS requirements. - Use AI tools (ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.) to refine wording and relevance. - Ensure correct grammar and professional presentation. - Track every submission via a Google Form with a screenshot. - Submit a minimum of 600 applications per month. - Maintain strict confidentiality of all personal data. - Work 3 to 3.5 hours per day. - Sign a confidentiality agreement before starting. Payment Structure: - ₹2400 INR / $30 USD per month for 600 verified applications. - Performance bonus up to ₹1200 INR / $15 USD. - Potential earnings: ₹3600 INR / $45 USD monthly. Requirements: - 12th pass or undergraduate student preferred. - Strong command of written English. - Familiarity with Microsoft Word and major US job portals. - Ability to use AI prompts for tailoring resumes and cover letters. - Optional advantage: Experience with Overleaf/LaTeX resume templates. - Daily availability of at least 3 hours. - Must sign a monthly contract. Additional Notes: - Guidance and templates will be provided. - Minimum one-month commitment; extension possible. - Confidentiality is mandatory and legally enforced. If interested, provide a brief introduction and your daily availability. more

Career development

 13h

Resume & LinkedIn Refresh


I have two separate mid-level résumés that need a full polish and modern formatting: one positions me for HVAC management roles, the other for broader business leadership posts. In parallel, I'd like my LinkedIn profile overhauled so it mirrors the strongest points from both CVs and is optimised to attract recruiters. What matters to me: * Clear, accomplishment-driven bullet points that speak to... mid-level decision-makers. * Language tailored to HVAC operations on one résumé and general business strategy on the other, while keeping tone and branding consistent. * Strategic keyword placement so both documents pass common ATS screens. * A LinkedIn rewrite (headline, About section, key experience entries) that aligns with the new documents and boosts search visibility. Please share a brief outline of your approach and a sample of similar work -- especially if you've written for technical or operational managers before. Once we agree on structure, I'll supply the current drafts and profile access so you can begin. more

Career development

 16h

Finance Job Application Assistance - 08/12/2025 17:34 EST


I'm ready to move forward with new opportunities in the finance sector and want a seasoned pair of eyes -- and hands -- to get my online application forms absolutely right. The focus is purely on that step: translating my résumé and background into the exact fields, keywords, and short-answer responses each employer's portal demands, ensuring nothing is missed and everything is worded for maximum... impact. Here's how I picture our collaboration: you guide me through or directly complete each form, tailoring answers to the role while keeping them consistent with my résumé. Wherever a question calls for narrative detail, you'll craft concise, compelling wording that aligns with finance-industry expectations and applicant-tracking-system best practices. Once we've finished a form, I should feel confident that it is 100 % ready to hit "Submit." Deliverable: fully populated, proof-read application forms for the finance positions I provide, delivered back to me in the employer's portal or, when needed, in a shareable document for my final review. If this sounds like your expertise, let's get started right away -- I have several openings queued up and want to move quickly. more

Career development

 20h

Podcast: Focus on Your Story, Not Your Résumé


Laura PAVIN: Suzanne Muchin has a bone to pick with how a lot of us talk about our careers.

Suzanne MUCHIN: You always talk about a career path, your career journey, your career trajectory. They're all a vocabulary that suggests you're supposed to get onto a road and then ride it.

PAVIN: This language -- that suggests you're on a linear path or a road -- is a crippling narrative that can become... a self-fulfilling prophecy if you aren't careful, corralling you into a lane and keeping you there. Leaving no room for veering. Forever the director of marketing, and that's that.

Muchin is a professor who teaches management and leadership development here at Kellogg. And she sees this happening all the time with leaders. They think of their careers as a series of titles that follow a logical sequence, like a résumé, until eventually, something shifts.

MUCHIN: You do get to this moment where you ask yourself, am I mattering? Is there more?

PAVIN: You're listening to The Insightful Leader. I'm Laura Pavin.

Today, Muchin offers tips for rewriting your professional narrative -- one that proves to others, and more importantly to yourself, that you're capable of doing more than what you put on your LinkedIn bio. Think of it as creative nonfiction that manifests. It can even help you weather professional setbacks better, because you'll think about them differently.

Muchin gives us some exercises for getting there -- and shares her own story along the way.

PAVIN: Muchin is quite the accomplished leader. She's led and co-founded strategic communications agencies, social-impact organizations; she mentors entrepreneurs, is an award-winning clinical professor at Kellogg. I could go on. She does, and has done, a whole lot.

But growing up, other people didn't seem to think too much about her aspirations.

MUCHIN (Alumni Talk): I don't know if it was because I was a child, a girl, it was the seventies -- I'm not sure. But no one really after that ever asked me, "So what do you want to do? What do you want to be?" I remember my brother was asked that many times, but I was not asked that very often.

PAVIN: This is a talk she gave to a group of business-school alumni earlier this year. And I wanted you to hear some of it before we got to anything else, because it's kind of the origin story behind how she wants us to think about our professions.

So she says that people weren't totally invested in what she wanted to do with her life growing up. Which wasn't great on its face, but it actually ended up being really serendipitous for her.

MUCHIN (Alumni Talk): Part of me felt like, well, no one's watching. So if no one's watching and no one's asking, then I might as well, for the first many years of my career, just do things.

PAVIN: So she followed her heart. She was on the founding team of a national teacher corps. She was a social-impact brand strategist. She had an incubator for profit-generating impact ventures.

Of course, when people asked Muchin what she did for a living, she got blank stares. None of these things really fit cleanly into a path of any kind.

But Muchin, for her part, was confused by their confusion.

MUCHIN (Alumni Talk): I was always only one thing to me, and I was actually doing it wherever I went. Whether I was a professor, whether I was an entrepreneur, whether I was on the radio -- I was always trying to unleash ideas that matter.

PAVIN: She put up a slide on a projector that said: "I unleash ideas that matter, so that they matter to more people."

It's a powerful statement because it wasn't a restricting title or a path with a static end point. And it allowed her to craft a career on her own terms.

This is the place Muchin wants the rest of us to get to -- stripped of a paralyzing label and empowered by possibility. To do that, Muchin says you'll want to start by rewriting your narrative through a different lens. And that lens is your purpose.

Here's how Muchin wants you to think about it.

MUCHIN: So my favorite question -- which sounds easy, but it's more nuanced -- is: What is yours to do?

"What is yours to do?" has a lot to do with what you would do when you're not being asked to do it. "What is yours to do?" is the thing that, when you're not being paid to do it, you do it anyway.

PAVIN: It's basically the thing that you like to do and that you're good at doing. And importantly, it has nothing to do with your title.

Another way to think about it, Muchin says, is to imagine you're a contestant on the reality TV series Survivor -- which, sidebar, she's a big fan of.

MUCHIN: If you got dropped off on the island with nothing, the thing that you did when you had nothing -- the thing where you were like, "This is mine to do. I will be this particular persona" -- that's a big key into what is yours to do.

PAVIN: Now, Muchin says she's definitely not an expert on "finding your purpose," but the idea is that, to write an empowering professional narrative for yourself, it needs to start from a genuine, passionate place -- so that you can find the opportunities you're actually excited about.

And, importantly, it should be general enough for you to transpose onto different contexts.

I actually have some experience here.

I was a journalist before this -- print, digital, radio. But at a certain point, I felt like ... something's not working for me here. After some soul-searching, I realized: You know what? "Journalism" is a really narrow way of looking at what is mine to do. It's really just the storytelling. Seeing my skillset in this more-expansive way allowed me to pivot here -- become a multimedia editor at a business school, where I still tell stories. And if I left? And I don't plan on it -- but if I did -- storytelling is a purpose I can retrofit across so many contexts.

...

PAVIN: You can start to see how a lot of what Muchin's advice is, is about your mindset. It can change what you think you can do, which affects what you actually do.

It can even change how you interact with professional setbacks -- allow you to stay in the driver's seat of your own narrative.

Muchin's passion for making meaningful ideas matter to more people eventually compelled her to co-found a company called Bonfire. It was a talent-development accelerator for women in the workforce.

MUCHIN: So our customers were companies who were paying us to train their women. And we had a curriculum for them, and it was a beautiful setup where they could identify high-performing women who were emerging as high performers and send them to us over a period of about six months.

PAVIN: Things were great. The company was growing. They'd done their Series A in August of 2024. But then January 2025 rolled around, and the presidential administration took aim at Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion -- or DEI -- initiatives across the country. Initiatives that included giving women a leg up. That was bad for Bonfire.

MUCHIN: We lost over $2 million of business in about a month from companies who could no longer provide, or felt they were at risk if they did provide, programming to women separately as an individual group. And that was devastating to our business model.

PAVIN: Muchin and her partner had to mothball the company, let their entire staff go with the exception of one person, because they didn't know how things would shake out.

MUCHIN: Would businesses change their minds? Would we have companies providing programming for talent development to women again? We didn't know.

PAVIN: Very quickly, Muchin went from feeling like things were right for her professionally to feeling like they weren't.

But it's what she did next -- and is still doing today -- that matters for us. Something that kept her in control of her professional narrative.

MUCHIN: I had to shift gears into an influence mode because I didn't give up on the mission. I still believe very much that the rising generation of women in the workforce are those who will shape the architecture of the workplace of the future. But if I can't do it through my company anymore, it doesn't mean I just go, "Oh, well, that idea's over," right? I have to find another way to work.

PAVIN: She asked herself the question, "What is mine to do at a time such as this?" And her answer was, "Still this! But in a different way."

Instead of directly impacting women in the workforce through Bonfire, Muchin is currently trying to get at the issue from another angle -- one that relies more on influencing people than impacting them directly. The vulnerable part of all of this is that she doesn't know how the whole thing will end up. She's building the story as she goes. But it's the story she wants to tell and, in the process, hopefully turn into a reality.

Her lesson here is that a door closing doesn't have to be the end of your story. You can get at things from a different angle. In other words ...

MUCHIN: What you're doing has a different 'how,' but the 'why' stays the same.

PAVIN: And that's why Muchin wants you to add a second part to the question, "What is mine to do?" And that is, "at a time such as this."

"What is mine to do at a time such as this?"

When you don't do that? Well, you might find yourself in a situation Muchin was in years ago, when she was the CEO of an education startup -- a startup that was pretty well-aligned with what she felt was hers to do.

MUCHIN: We were building out something very important in the field of early childhood development.

MUCHIN: I was unhappy during a lot of it. I was working hours that made no sense to me -- especially because my family was growing. I was unhappy because there were dramas and conflicts that were internal and hard for me to handle. I was unhappy at times because our projects weren't always in our control.

PAVIN: But she realizes now -- she did. She wishes she'd trusted how she was feeling and left sooner. Wishes she had asked herself, at various points, "What is mine to do ... at a time such as this?"

MUCHIN: I would have either been entrepreneurial enough to create my own gig separate and apart from that entity; or I would've left altogether; or I would've started a consulting firm -- so I would've moved up and out and then looked down and consulted. I would've done a lot of things rather than staying in the driver's seat as a CEO.

PAVIN: She had options -- but hadn't allowed herself to see them. Thought she had to ride things out, because, technically, she was doing what was hers to do -- but the company just wasn't the right vessel for that anymore. Her answer to "What is mine to do ... at a time such as this?" had changed. She had to tell herself a different story, one where she could get at that from a different angle.

...

PAVIN: When you do what's yours to do -- and retrofit that to where you're at in your life -- things will start to feel more "right," professionally. And when they don't? Get to the bottom of that feeling.

MUCHIN: You can ask yourself, "Is this a moment for an exit path?" And your exit path, by the way, can actually mean, "I'm ready to leave this company this moment," or "I'm ready to shift into another gear -- maybe another role, maybe another position. But I'm done doing what I was doing the way I was doing it."

PAVIN: The key is to know that you're in control. And you don't have to just endure something when things start feeling off.

PAVIN: This episode of The Insightful Leader was produced by Nancy Rosenbaum and mixed by Andrew Meriwether. It was produced and edited by Laura Pavin, Rob Mitchum, Fred Schmalz, Abraham Kim, Maja Kos, and Blake Goble. Special thanks to Suzanne Muchin. Want more The Insightful Leader episodes? You can find us on iTunes, Spotify, or our website: insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu.

We're going to take a little break, but we'll be back in the new year with more episodes! See you then! more

Career development

 22h

15+ Hiring managers who had unforgettable interviews with job candidates: 'A girl stopped me mid-question to ask my star sign'


We all know that it's hard to get a job right now, and these hiring managers are sharing the exact reasons why they rejected certain candidates.

Nailing a job interview is very difficult, even if you spend hours practicing and know all the right things to say. Sometimes you're super confident going into the interview, but when you don't know the answer to an important question, it makes you... self-conscious for the rest of the questions. Some of the best advice I've seen is to try and view the whole thing as a conversation instead of an interrogation. Sure, there are lots of questions being thrown at you, but you can also ask questions of the interviewer to assess the company culture and make sure it's the right fit for you.

Now, as these hiring managers will tell you, there are some candidates who get immediately flagged as a "no." For example, if you're dressed in a very inappropriate manner, like wearing a shirt with a swear word on it to the interview, there's just no chance you're getting through to round #2. If you whine about how you hate waking up early, or complain about your chosen career path, that'll make the interviewer crumple your resume and toss it in the trash. And those are just some mild examples! Keep reading and have a laugh at all of the ways that job seekers are failing their interviews in hilariously shortsighted ways. more

Career development

 22h

No-Code AI Resume Builder MVP


I'm ready to move fast on an MVP that lets job-seekers build stronger résumés without touching a single line of code. The flow is simple: a visitor lands on the web app, signs up with an email and password, and immediately sees a clean dashboard. From there they can upload an existing CV or start from scratch, watch an AI engine suggest tighter wording and stronger bullet points, swap between... modern templates, make final text edits in an inline editor, then export the result as a polished PDF or Word document. Core requirements * Web-only experience to start. * Email-and-password authentication with standard "forgot password" recovery. * Dashboard showing stored résumés and quick actions (create, duplicate, delete, export). * AI-powered content improvements triggered on demand -- think concise rewrites, keyword boosts, tone adjustments. * Template library with at least three starter designs; switching templates should preserve the user's content. * Rich-text editing so users can tweak headings, sections, fonts and spacing before hitting "export". * Exports must render flawlessly in both PDF and .docx formats. Tech approach I want this built on a no-code stack -- Bubble, Webflow + Make, or a similar platform you're comfortable with -- so I can iterate quickly after delivery. OpenAI or comparable APIs can drive the copy suggestions; a plugin or custom integration is fine as long as it stays within a no-code mindset. Acceptance A working link to the live web app, access to the underlying project so I can duplicate it, and a brief hand-off video (screen share is fine) walking me through how to add templates and tweak the AI prompts will mark the job complete. If this sounds up your alley, let's chat and dive deeper into timelines and milestones. more

Career development

 1d

Notes on sending thank-you notes


Send a smartly written note. It's an effective way to extend the conversation and reinforce your message that you're the right person for the job.

I realize that the concept of mailing a handwritten thank-you note after a job interview sounds really old-fashioned.

But I still believe that sending such notes - even to an avatar - conveys more than mere courtesy. It's an effective way to extend... the conversation and reinforce your message that you're the right person for the job.

Not long ago, I thought that sending an emailed thank-you note wasn't good enough.

But lately I've changed my mind because so much has changed, especially for high tech companies that don't acknowledge that handwriting even exists anymore. Heck, most elementary schools don't even teach cursive.

Now I recommend taking a two-step approach: First, send an emailed thank-you note to courteously acknowledge having the interview, closely followed by a handwritten note -- because I'll always believe in the emotional value of handwritten notes.

If you have lousy handwriting, go slow, because a note that's illegible is worse than not sending a note at all. After all, if the recipient can't read what you've written, what's the point?

Remember that an employer will also regard your note as an example of your work. You send me a sloppy note, I'll assume you'd be a sloppy employee.

Be brief. It's a note, not a treatise.

Be specific. Refer to actual elements of a conversation or meeting. Let the recipient know you weren't just listening but that you were also thinking.

Do send thank-you notes to everyone you interviewed with, not just HR.

The fact that several people were either on a panel or met with you privately during the day means they'll likely have input on the decision to hire you or someone else.

If you were interviewed by a robot, surely at least one human who oversees hiring exists in the company. Get a name and send him/her/it a written thank-you note.

You might be the only candidate who takes that extra step.

Too frequently, I get meaningless notes like this:

"Dear Mr. Blair, Thank you so much for the excellent seminar today. I liked your ideas. Thank you again, XXX."

That says nothing except that the sender attended a seminar. I don't know what seminar he's talking about, let alone his notion of "great ideas."

He could hardly be less memorable - except that he said "thank you" twice. Once is enough.

I usually don't remember applicants who don't send thank-you notes, but I'll likely remember those that do, and maybe favorably.

Some examples of actual thank-you notes I've received:

GOOD:

Dear Phil, Thank you for providing great insider tips, suggestions and enthusiasm at the recent Job Search/Skill-Building seminar. You inspired me. Your idea about putting keywords on resumes was particularly enlightening. I appreciate the renewed spirit you bring to all of us "Career Managers" as we search for our next opportunity.

Dear Phil, I wanted to take this moment to express my appreciation for your time and advice last week. It was very good and I have taken it much to heart. I am sure it will help me moving forward.

Love, _____

The merit and demerits of the notes above should be pretty obvious.

In the "good" note, the writer gets straight to the point, specifically mentions an event and something she learned and refers to a key philosophy: We must all proactively manage our careers. I know she paid attention and valued my time.

The "bad" note barely qualifies as a note. The language is too casual, too vague (no reference to when the actual meeting occurred), and insultingly bland.

This person would have been better off not sending a note. Saying something is "interesting" is another way of saying you don't have much to say.

Finally, the "awful" note is too wishy-washy. But where it truly bombs is in the closing. A professional thank-you note is no place for love.

Be careful with your words. Make sure they say what you mean and that you mean what you say.

Thank you for writing. more

Career development

 1d

Your next job interview could be with an AI. Here's how to nail it


Five years ago, an algorithm decided whether your résumé ever reached a recruiter. Now, it might be the one asking you the questions.

It can feel unsettling to imagine a machine assessing not just what you say, but how you say it: tone, cadence, word choice, even microexpressions. These patterns feed models that generate a "fit" score, determining whether you ever reach a human being.

Agentic AI... allows what appears to be a genuine two-way conversation, simulating a first-round interview more realistically than the one-way video prompts of the past. Companies are drawn to it for clear reasons: speed, consistency, and scale.

But that efficiency comes with tradeoffs. Human interviewers rely on intuition, while AI systems are built on structure. They detect clarity, confidence, and organization, which are valuable traits, but they sometimes miss creativity, empathy, or cultural fit. The challenge for candidates is to make those traits visible within a digital format. more

Career development

 1d

25 Of The Most Unhinged Questions Interviewees Have Asked Recruiters | DeMilked


Recruiters usually recommend doing something to stand out from the rest of the crowd when interviewing for a particular job role. Some interviewees' interpretations of this advice are so eccentric that we have dedicated a whole list to them.

What is the official policy regarding office romances.

Legit this guy asked me "What did you have for dinner last night?"

I responded with "shepherd's... pie".

He said - "ahh banging, cheese on top ?"

A bit after the end of an interview and happened to a co-worker, but it deserves an honorable mention.

A guy stole the HR managers wallet from the orientation and bought beer with his credit card. Manager went to the store, got to see the tape, then went across the street to where the new hire was drinking the beer and demanded his wallet back. After denying it at first, the new hire eventualy gives the wallet back. He then asks the HR manager if he can keep his job.

I interviewed a guy a few years back for an IT position, he was qualified but you could tell he had problems with social contact, he mumbled a lot, no eye contact, and he'd look literally anywhere but at me. Super nervous, but still seemed like a nice guy, just awkward. Before leaving he sheepishly asked 'what's the company jorts policy?' He got hired a few days later and we all came to know him as 'Jorts, from IT'.

I've never really had a terrible question asked at the end of a job interview, as most of the time we both have an idea of whether or not they're getting a job before I let the interview end.

The funniest was when an applicant who grew up in Utah asked, "So is every day Hawaiian shirt day?" (I live in Hawaii) I was amused, but also knew it was going to be a bit of a culture shock for her. Everyone who gets their work done early gets to leave early because we all love to go surfing around 3 or 4 in the afternoon.

I interviewed a gentleman older than I once who continuously asked who the boss was. I said I was the manager and left it at that. He wasn't satisfied and went on and on about what a jerk the owner was. I own the company, started it from scratch. Said the owner screwed him out of a job once ( never applied before). So I was just finishing the interview out of curtesy and my own pettiness. As I asked when and where he met the owner I see my frantic husband walk in the front door and a few employees go with him. So I'm half listening to this guy ramble on about meeting in Vegas, and so much other nonsense, as an employee burst into the office and says that I'm needed up front.

I politely but quickly excuse myself to go out front to see my kid busted his nose bleeding everywhere.

I go back in and explain I would cut the interview short and said I needed to run my child to the ER. This POS thought saying "that's why women make bad management " was a smart choice. It wasn't. First off I own this company from the idea to every last brick, I've never been to Vegas and you have never applied here. He stood dumbfounded and walked out.

The next week he called asking for status of his application 🤣😂.

My aunt would ask "Do you have profit sharing or do you live off the blood of the workers?" According to my Father, she may not have actually wanted to get a job. She's the only woman I know who passed the bar, but never worked a day in her life.

Girl who used her status as a single mom the ENTIRE interview, during a group interview at a bank.

Very end: When do I start?

Interviewer: we will review candidates and contact the candidates we feel are qualified.

Her: yeah, okay, but I am a single mom, I need to know now so I can find a baby sitter.

Interviewer: Like I said..

Her: I didnt ask for lip I told you to tell me when I start

I got the job btw, but man, watching her go nuts over that was insane!

"Do any women work here? They're attracted to me like bees to honey. I find it better to not work around them than to be hit on constantly."

I (male) was in the interview with a candidate (female) who was on layoff status, meaning they were preferred for re-hire over other candidates for some period after their not-for-cause termination, as a company policy.

The candidate wasn't terrible, but also not outstanding and completely wrong for the position. The biggest problem was her skill set really wasn't a match - she was a mechanical engineer, we needed software. But her layoff status ensured she would get an interview for any position she wanted to try for, enforced by H.R.

I can guess she could tell she wasn't a fit, I mean the questioning about software and her lack of practice in that area of engineering should have given the clue to anyone. She did have some interesting technical achievements in her area of mechanics. Up until the very end, I was internally wishing her success in finding something worthy of her expertise.

I guess she was also desperate, because as we were wrapping up, she leaned across the table we faced each other at, took my hand which was on a stack of papers, and said, "I'll do absolutely anything to get this job. Absolutely. Anything."

I immediately jumped up and opened the conference room door and asked my boss, who was outside down that hall a short distance, to step in and help me wrap up. My boss was confused but complied. I didn't mention a word about the last utterance from the candidate, and we escorted her out of the building as if nothing had happened. I told my boss afterward the why and he was totally understanding and supportive.

All I could think of, was the kind of crazy or desperate person who would make such an offer was also the sort who wouldn't shrink from accusing me of demanding what she was volunteering, and my word against hers. Win or lose that situation, and you've still lost.

I was recently interviewing for an engineering position with one of my colleagues. The last question the guy asked was, "This isn't one of those vaccine and masks companies, is it?"

We make devices used to test for covid. It's a pretty heavily scientific company. He was barely scraping by the interview, but we were both considering pulling him through because we're filling a lot of positions.

Not me, but my coworker: "so will it be a problem if I call out a lot?".

Not as an interviewer, but the worst question I asked...

My first job interview ever. It went really well. I didn't really understand how employment worked in general, and I was scared of getting locked into a multi-year contract. I'd previously been looking at the Air Force, which in my country has a minimum time commitment.

At the end, I wanted to ask about this. So of course I posed it as a hypothetical: "if I get the job am I allowed to leave after a couple of weeks if I change my mind?"

I immediately knew how much I'd messed up. The interviewers looked at each other and said, "well... yes...".

Ooooh I got a good one. I was doing a technical question for an engineer. We start really basic and then move on to moderate problems. This candidate was really struggling, it was clear it was not going to work out. As I try to move things along so that we might be able to wrap up early, the candidate asks "can you solve it wrong and I will tell you what's wrong with your solution?"

A lady asked my boss what the dress code was. Completely normal, acceptable question.

But after my boss told her it was business causal she slams her feet on my boss's desk and says "good, because this is the only pair of shoes I own and I'm only going to buy shoes that look like this".

Well, normally we don't for entry level retail, but if you had any shot in hell of getting this job, I would now. He wasn't getting the job anyway after he gleefully answered my question about difficult situations by recounting the most recent time he beat someone.

Don't call us, we won't call you.

I felt that the interview wasnt really going well and didnt think i would get the job. So I asked if they would like me to recommend ppl (friends that i knew were looking for similar jobs) that i felt would be perfect for the position i was applying for.

They said, sure, but why would you sabotage your own chances?

"How would you catch an employee stealing money and where might your gaps be"....granted the position was for fraud detection but this had nothing to do with the position. This was his only question and he grew frustrated that I wouldn't divulge specifics. Either he was planning on stealing or he was absolutely clueless. Hard pass...

"Are all the women who work here hot?"

I was not leading the interview, merely taking notes. I crossed that man's name off on my notes.

Me: mid-30's. Him: probably over 50. "If I get hired, will I have to work for a young punk like you?".

He made the hair on my neck stand up when he walked in, so the odds already weren't in his favor. He also asked this as a minor was cleaning a table next to us.

Technically the worst I guess, but also the funniest:

Candidate asked me what it would take for him to be doing my job in 3-4 years, I told him there's only one spot for my role and I'd either need to leave or have an accident.

So what exactly does the job entail? (as we were about to shake hands). We'd just spent half an hour going over it in detail but it's fair to say she wasn't getting it anyway.

Asked by the *mother* of the 28 year old man I was interviewing for a tech position, who had insisted on being present for the interview, and who tried to answer every question for him. more

Career development

 1d

How to Post Research on LinkedIn


Since my college years, I've always had the habit of reading research papers and exploring new ideas in different fields. But I never actually shared what I was learning.

That changed when I finished my thesis. I realized I didn't just want to submit it to my university and let it collect digital dust. I wanted to put it out into the world -- where the right people could read it, discuss it, and... maybe even build on it.

Instagram didn't feel right. Twitter felt too crowded. But LinkedIn, with its professional network of academics, researchers, and industry leaders, seemed like the perfect place. So I posted my thesis in a structured way -- and to my surprise, the engagement was far better than I imagined.

Not only did people react, but they also commented, asked questions, and even messaged me privately.

That's when I realized: sharing research on LinkedIn isn't about just dropping a link, it's about presenting your work in a way that invites interaction.

Why LinkedIn Is the Best Place for Research

LinkedIn has evolved beyond a digital résumé. Today, it's one of the largest professional networking platforms, with over 1 billion members worldwide. Unlike other platforms, people come to LinkedIn specifically to:

- Discover professional insights.

- Stay updated on industry trends.

- Connect with researchers, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders.

For researchers, this is gold. By posting your findings on LinkedIn, you:

- Build credibility: Sharing research shows you're active in your field.

- Reach decision-makers: Professionals and academics who can amplify or apply your findings.

- Create opportunities: Invitations to collaborate, speak at events, or even job offers.

Imagine researching sustainable energy and posting your key insights on LinkedIn. That one post could catch the attention of an energy startup founder, a policymaker, or a university professor looking for collaboration.

How to Prepare Your Research for LinkedIn

Posting your research isn't just about copying a PDF or pasting your abstract. LinkedIn is a professional but social platform. Your post needs to be readable, engaging, and visually clear.

Here's how to do it:

1. Simplify Your Language: Academic writing is full of jargon, but most people on LinkedIn don't want to decode it.

❌ Instead of: "This research examines the epistemological framework underpinning..."

✅ Try: "I studied how people's belief systems affect their everyday decision-making."

Simplifying makes your work understandable beyond your academic niche, which dramatically increases engagement.

2. Highlight Key Takeaways: Share the "so what?" of your research.

Example: "We discovered that employees who take 15-minute outdoor breaks report 23% higher productivity."

Readers quickly see the value of your work without needing to read the full paper.

3. Add Visuals: Use charts, graphs, or infographics.

Example: Instead of describing a growth trend, show it in a simple line graph.

Visuals increase comprehension, retention, and make posts stand out in busy feeds.

4. Provide Context: Explain why this research is relevant now.

Example: "This thesis wasn't just about numbers -- it's about how we can design workplaces that keep employees healthier and happier."

Context bridges the gap between data and real-world impact.

Professional Tips for a Strong Research Post

Posting research on LinkedIn is different from publishing in a journal. The goal isn't just to share -- it's to communicate in a way that attracts attention, encourages discussion, and delivers impact.

1. Start With a Powerful Hook

The first two lines of your LinkedIn post are crucial because they appear above the "see more" fold. If you don't grab attention there, people won't open the rest.

That's why starting with a bold question, an unexpected statistic, or even a counterintuitive statement makes all the difference. Instead of blending into the feed, your post immediately sparks curiosity.

✉️ Example: "Did you know that companies lose $1.8 trillion every year due to poor data management? My research dives into why this happens."

2. Tell a Story, Not Just a Study

Even the most data-heavy research has a human story behind it -- an observation that started it all, a challenge you faced, or a surprising moment during the process.

Turning your research into a story gives readers something to relate to. Instead of being a wall of academic information, your work becomes a narrative they can follow and remember.

💡Benefit: Storytelling makes your research more approachable, which means people outside your immediate academic field can still connect with it.

3. Use the Right Format

LinkedIn offers different post types for a reason, and your choice can decide whether your research resonates.

❇️ A short text post is perfect for a single insight, while a LinkedIn Article allows you to go deep into your methodology and implications.

❇️ Carousels work well if you want to break your findings into visual slides, and a short video lets people hear directly from you.

By picking the right format, you adapt your content to how people actually consume information on LinkedIn.

✉️ Example: Turning your "Results" section into a three-slide carousel makes it easy to skim and more shareable than a block of text.

4. Break Complex Research Into a Series

Your thesis or research paper likely has too many details for a single post. Instead of overwhelming people, divide your work into digestible pieces -- a post on your research question, another on your method, a separate one for each key finding, and one on the broader implications.

This gives people time to reflect on each stage and keeps them curious for the next update.

💡Benefit: A series positions you as a consistent voice in your field rather than someone who posts once and disappears.

5. Tag the Right People and Institutions

LinkedIn is a network-driven platform, and tagging is one of the easiest ways to expand your reach.

📬 If you worked with an advisor, co-authors, or an institution, mentioning them in your post not only gives credit but also notifies them directly.

When they engage, your research is exposed to their networks as well, creating a ripple effect.

✉️ Example: "Grateful to @Dr.Smith and @XYZUniversity for their support throughout this research journey."

6. Use Hashtags With Intention

Hashtags aren't decoration -- they're how LinkedIn's algorithm categorizes content and shows it to people searching or following certain topics.

Using a thoughtful mix of broad and niche hashtags ensures your research appears in both general conversations and specialized communities. Overdoing it with 15 tags, however, looks spammy and confuses the algorithm.

💡Benefit: With the right 3-5 hashtags, your post can reach people outside your network who would never have seen it otherwise.

7. Add Visuals That Simplify

People process visuals much faster than text, and LinkedIn is a feed filled with competing content. By adding a chart, infographic, or even a clean cover image for your research, you make your post stand out instantly.

Visuals also help simplify complex findings -- turning raw numbers into something anyone can grasp at a glance.

✉️Example: A simple before-and-after bar graph showing the impact of your experiment will draw more engagement than a paragraph describing the same results.

8. End With a Clear Call-to-Action (CTA)

Sharing research isn't the end goal -- sparking discussion is. Ending your post with a clear question or an invitation to engage tells readers how they can be part of the conversation.

Without it, most people will read, nod, and move on. With it, they're more likely to comment, share, or even message you privately.

💡Benefit: A strong CTA increases interaction, which not only builds conversations but also boosts your post's reach through LinkedIn's algorithm.

How I Used Circleboom to Share My Thesis on LinkedIn

When I decided to share my thesis, I knew it wasn't just about writing a good post -- it was about posting strategically. That's when I turned to Circleboom, a publishing tool designed for professionals.

The most valuable part? It let me schedule posts for the times when my audience was most active. That alone increased my reach. But Circleboom offered more than that.

Here's how I used it step by step:

Step #1: Log in to Circleboom Publish with your account.

If you don't already have a Circleboom account, you can get one in seconds for free!

If this is your first time using Circleboom Publish, you will see several options for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Bluesky, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, and Google Business Profile.

Select LinkedIn and connect your Profiles and Company Pages. You can add multiple accounts from each platform.

Step #2: You should click on the "Create New Post" button to create your social media posts. As you see, there are specific post options for each platform. You can choose "LinkedIn Specific Post or Poll," too.

You'll proceed to account selection.

Step #3: Social media image generator on Circleboom has 5 options: Canva, Unsplash, Giphy, Carousel Generator and Google Photos. You can also upload your own files to send them directly.

Canva is where you can curate and design images as you wish. You can apply ready-made templates, filters, effects, and other kinds of elements to edit your image.

Also, you can use Unsplash to find auto-generated, high-quality images to share on your LinkedIn accounts.

Giphy is where you can generate high-quality GIF images for your auto-generated LinkedIn posts.

Step #4: Next station is the social media text generator.

Thanks to OpenAI integration, you can create auto-generated social media descriptions, captions, texts, and all kinds of texts enriched by AI-generated hashtags, emojis, and other extras like grammar checks or translations.

You can define the style of your words, warmth, etc., on Circleboom Publish.

And, you can enrich your auto-generated LinkedIn posts with extras.

Step #5: You can also use Circleboom Publish's native LinkedIn hashtag generator to find, create, and save relevant and popular hashtag groups for your auto-generated LinkedIn content.

You can find the best hashtags for your LinkedIn posts with the LinkedIn tag finder.

Step #6: Once you generate your LinkedIn posts, you can share them immediately. Alternatively, you can schedule them for the future.

You can also set time intervals and automate your LinkedIn posts.

✅ Result: People didn't just "like" the posts -- they commented, shared, and messaged me privately about collaboration opportunities.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Even with good research, some mistakes kill engagement:

❌ Posting PDFs without explanation.

❌ Using overly academic tone.

❌ Posting at random times when your audience is offline.

❌ Ignoring comments after publishing.

Why Sharing Research Matters

Your research deserves more than to sit in a library archive. Posting it on LinkedIn expands its reach, turns you into a thought leader in your field, and creates opportunities you might never expect.

With smart preparation -- and with tools like Circleboom to help -- you can make sure your work isn't just read, but discussed, shared, and acted on.

✅ Don't let your thesis or research stay hidden. Post it on LinkedIn, frame it for engagement, and watch your work create real-world impact. more

Career development

 1d

The Last Rung


The graduate's dilemma has never been starker. Fresh from university with a degree in hand, they discover that the entry-level positions that once promised a foothold in their chosen profession have vanished -- not outsourced, not downsized, but automated away entirely. Where junior analysts once spent months learning to parse data and spot patterns, algorithms now deliver insights in... milliseconds. Where apprentice designers once honed their craft through repetitive tasks, AI tools generate iterations at unprecedented speed. The traditional career ladder, with its predictable progression from novice to expert, is missing its bottom rungs. This isn't a distant future scenario -- it's happening now, forcing a fundamental reckoning with how we prepare young people for careers in an age of artificial intelligence.

The transformation isn't subtle. Across industries, the routine cognitive tasks that traditionally formed the backbone of entry-level work are being systematically automated. Junior accountants who once spent years mastering spreadsheet manipulation find that AI can process financial data with greater accuracy and speed. Marketing assistants who built expertise through campaign analysis discover that machine learning algorithms can identify patterns in consumer behaviour that would take human analysts months to uncover.

This shift creates what researchers are calling a "skills chasm" -- a widening gap between what educational institutions teach and what employers now expect from new hires. The problem isn't simply that AI is taking jobs; it's that it's eliminating the very positions where people traditionally learned to do those jobs. Companies that once hired graduates with the expectation of training them through progressively complex assignments now find themselves needing workers who can hit the ground running with advanced skills.

The pharmaceutical industry exemplifies this challenge. Where drug discovery once relied on armies of junior researchers conducting systematic literature reviews and basic experimental work, AI systems now screen millions of molecular compounds in the time it would take a human to evaluate hundreds. The entry-level positions that allowed new graduates to learn the fundamentals of drug development while contributing meaningful work have largely disappeared. Yet the industry still needs experts who understand both the science and the technology -- they just can't rely on traditional pathways to develop them.

This isn't merely about technical skills. The soft skills that professionals developed through years of routine work -- project management, client interaction, problem-solving under pressure -- were often acquired through tasks that no longer exist. A junior consultant who once spent months preparing presentations and analysing client data developed not just technical competence but also an understanding of business dynamics, client psychology, and professional communication. When AI handles the data analysis and presentation creation, these crucial learning opportunities evaporate.

The consequences extend beyond individual career prospects. Industries face a looming expertise gap as the pathways that traditionally produced senior professionals become obsolete. The institutional knowledge that once passed naturally from experienced workers to newcomers through collaborative projects and mentorship relationships risks being lost when there are no newcomers performing the foundational work that creates those relationships.

Against this backdrop, apprenticeships are experiencing an unexpected renaissance. Once viewed as an alternative for those not suited to university education, they're increasingly seen as a sophisticated response to the changing nature of work itself. The model's emphasis on learning through doing, combined with formal instruction, offers a potential solution to the skills chasm that traditional education struggles to bridge.

The National Health Service in the United Kingdom provides a compelling example of this shift in thinking. Faced with chronic staffing shortages and the recognition that healthcare delivery is becoming increasingly complex, the NHS has embarked on an ambitious expansion of apprenticeship programmes. Their Long Term Workforce Plan explicitly positions apprenticeships not as a secondary pathway but as a primary route to developing the next generation of healthcare professionals, from nurses to advanced practitioners.

What makes these modern apprenticeships different from their historical predecessors is their integration with emerging technologies rather than resistance to them. Healthcare apprentices learn to work alongside AI diagnostic tools, understanding both their capabilities and limitations. They develop skills in human-AI collaboration that no traditional educational programme currently teaches. This approach recognises that the future workforce won't compete with AI but will need to work effectively with it.

The model is spreading beyond traditional trades. Technology companies, financial services firms, and consulting organisations are developing apprenticeship programmes that combine hands-on experience with formal learning in ways that universities struggle to replicate. These programmes often involve rotations through different departments, exposure to real client work, and mentorship from senior professionals -- creating the kind of comprehensive learning environment that entry-level positions once provided.

Crucially, successful apprenticeship programmes are designed with clear progression pathways. Participants don't simply learn to perform specific tasks; they develop the foundational knowledge and problem-solving abilities that enable them to advance to senior roles. The best programmes include explicit leadership development components, recognising that today's apprentices must be prepared to become tomorrow's managers and decision-makers.

The financial model also represents a significant shift. Unlike traditional education, where students accumulate debt while learning, apprenticeships allow participants to earn while they learn. This "earn-and-learn" approach not only makes career development more accessible but also ensures that learning is immediately applicable and valuable to employers. Companies invest in apprentices knowing they're developing skills directly relevant to their needs, creating a more efficient alignment between education and employment.

The rise of apprenticeships coincides with growing questions about higher education's effectiveness in preparing students for modern careers. The criticism isn't that universities are failing entirely, but that their traditional model -- broad theoretical knowledge delivered through lectures and assessments -- is increasingly misaligned with the practical, technology-integrated skills that employers need.

The problem is particularly acute in technology-related fields. Computer science programmes often focus on theoretical foundations while students graduate without experience in the collaborative development practices, cloud technologies, or AI integration techniques that define modern software development. Business schools teach case studies from previous decades while the actual practice of business becomes increasingly data-driven and automated.

This misalignment has prompted some universities to fundamentally rethink their approach. Rather than simply adding technology modules to existing curricula, forward-thinking institutions are restructuring entire programmes around project-based learning, industry partnerships, and real-world problem-solving. These programmes blur the line between education and professional experience, creating environments where students work on actual challenges faced by partner organisations.

The most innovative approaches combine the theoretical depth of university education with the practical focus of apprenticeships. Students might spend part of their time in traditional academic settings and part in professional environments, moving fluidly between learning and application. This hybrid model recognises that both theoretical understanding and practical experience are essential, but that the traditional sequence -- theory first, then application -- may no longer be optimal.

Some institutions are going further, partnering directly with employers to create degree apprenticeships that combine university-level academic study with professional training. These programmes typically take longer than traditional degrees but produce graduates with both theoretical knowledge and proven practical capabilities. Participants graduate with work experience, professional networks, and often guaranteed employment -- advantages that traditional university graduates increasingly struggle to achieve.

The shift also reflects changing employer attitudes towards credentials. While degrees remain important, many organisations are placing greater emphasis on demonstrable skills and practical experience. This trend accelerates as AI makes it easier to assess actual capabilities rather than relying on educational credentials as proxies for ability. Companies can now use sophisticated simulations and practical assessments to evaluate candidates' problem-solving abilities, technical skills, and potential for growth.

The transformation of career pathways raises profound questions about equity and access. Traditional entry-level positions, despite their limitations, provided a relatively clear route for social mobility. A motivated individual could start in a junior role and, through dedication and skill development, advance to senior positions regardless of their educational background or social connections.

The new landscape is more complex and potentially more exclusionary. Apprenticeship programmes, while promising, often require cultural capital -- knowledge of how to navigate application processes, professional networks, and workplace norms -- that may not be equally distributed across society. Young people from families without professional experience may struggle to access these opportunities or succeed within them.

The challenge is particularly acute for underrepresented groups who already face barriers in traditional career pathways. Research by the Center for American Progress highlights how systematic inequalities in education, networking opportunities, and workplace experiences compound over time. If new career pathways aren't deliberately designed to address these inequalities, they risk creating even greater disparities.

The geographic dimension adds another layer of complexity. Apprenticeship opportunities tend to concentrate in major metropolitan areas where large employers are based, potentially limiting access for young people in smaller communities. Remote work, accelerated by the pandemic, offers some solutions but also requires digital literacy and home environments conducive to professional development -- resources that aren't equally available to all.

Successful equity initiatives require intentional design and sustained commitment. The most effective programmes actively recruit from underrepresented communities, provide additional support during the application process, and create inclusive workplace cultures that enable all participants to thrive. Some organisations partner with community colleges, community organisations, and social services agencies to reach candidates who might not otherwise learn about opportunities.

Mentorship becomes particularly crucial in this context. When career pathways become less standardised, having someone who can provide guidance, advocacy, and professional networks becomes even more valuable. Formal mentorship programmes can help level the playing field, but they require careful design to ensure that mentors represent diverse backgrounds and can relate to the challenges faced by participants from different communities.

The financial aspects also matter significantly. While apprenticeships typically provide income, the amounts may not be sufficient for individuals supporting families or facing significant financial pressures. Supplementary support -- housing assistance, childcare, transportation -- may be necessary to make opportunities truly accessible to those who need them most.

The pace of technological change means that career preparation can no longer focus solely on specific skills or knowledge sets. Instead, educational systems must develop learners' capacity for continuous adaptation and learning. This shift requires fundamental changes in how we think about curriculum design, assessment, and the relationship between formal education and professional development.

The foundation begins in early childhood education, where research from the National Academies emphasises the importance of developing cognitive flexibility, emotional regulation, and social skills that enable lifelong learning. These capabilities become increasingly valuable as AI handles routine cognitive tasks, leaving humans to focus on creative problem-solving, interpersonal communication, and complex decision-making.

Primary and secondary education systems are beginning to integrate these insights, moving away from rote learning towards approaches that emphasise critical thinking, collaboration, and adaptability. Project-based learning, where students work on complex, open-ended challenges, helps develop the kind of integrative thinking that remains distinctly human. These approaches also introduce students to the iterative process of learning from failure and refining solutions -- skills essential for working in rapidly evolving professional environments.

The integration of technology into learning must be thoughtful rather than superficial. Simply adding computers to classrooms or teaching basic coding skills isn't sufficient. Students need to understand how to leverage technology as a tool for learning and problem-solving while developing the judgment to know when human insight is irreplaceable. This includes understanding AI's capabilities and limitations, learning to prompt and guide AI systems effectively, and maintaining the critical thinking skills necessary to evaluate AI-generated outputs.

Assessment systems also require transformation. Traditional testing methods that emphasise memorisation and standardised responses become less relevant when information is instantly accessible and AI can perform many analytical tasks. Instead, assessment must focus on higher-order thinking skills, creativity, and the ability to apply knowledge in novel situations. Portfolio-based assessment, where students demonstrate learning through projects and real-world applications, offers a more authentic measure of capabilities.

Professional development throughout careers becomes continuous rather than front-loaded. The half-life of specific technical skills continues to shrink, making the ability to quickly acquire new competencies more valuable than mastery of any particular tool or technique. This reality requires new models of workplace learning that integrate seamlessly with professional responsibilities rather than requiring separate training periods.

Forward-thinking employers aren't waiting for educational institutions to adapt -- they're creating their own solutions. These industry-led initiatives offer insights into what effective career development might look like in an AI-transformed economy. The most successful programmes share common characteristics: they're hands-on, immediately applicable, and designed with clear progression pathways.

Technology companies have been pioneers in this space, partly because they face the most acute skills shortages and partly because they have the resources to experiment with new approaches. Major firms have developed comprehensive internal academies that combine technical training with business skills development. These programmes often include rotational assignments, cross-functional projects, and exposure to senior leadership -- creating the kind of comprehensive professional development that traditional entry-level positions once provided.

The financial services industry has taken a different approach, partnering with universities to create specialised programmes that combine academic rigour with practical application. These partnerships often involve industry professionals teaching alongside academic faculty, ensuring that theoretical knowledge is grounded in current practice. Students work on real client projects while completing their studies, graduating with both credentials and proven experience.

Healthcare organisations face unique challenges because of regulatory requirements and the life-or-death nature of their work. Their response has been to create extended apprenticeship programmes that combine clinical training with technology education. Participants learn to work with AI diagnostic tools, electronic health records, and telemedicine platforms while developing the clinical judgment and patient interaction skills that remain fundamentally human.

Manufacturing industries are reimagining apprenticeships for the digital age. Modern manufacturing apprentices learn not just traditional machining and assembly skills but also robotics programming, quality control systems, and data analysis. These programmes recognise that future manufacturing workers will be as much technology operators as craftspeople, requiring both technical skills and systems thinking.

The most innovative programmes create clear pathways from apprenticeship to leadership. Participants who demonstrate aptitude and commitment can advance to supervisory roles, specialised technical positions, or management tracks. Some organisations have restructured their entire career development systems around these principles, creating multiple pathways to senior roles that don't all require traditional university education.

The challenge of preparing workers for an AI-transformed economy isn't unique to any single country, but different nations are approaching it with varying strategies and levels of urgency. These diverse approaches offer valuable insights into what works and what doesn't in different cultural and economic contexts.

Germany's dual education system, which combines classroom learning with workplace training, has long been held up as a model for other countries. The system's emphasis on practical skills development alongside theoretical knowledge creates workers who are both technically competent and adaptable. German companies report high levels of satisfaction with graduates from these programmes, and youth unemployment rates remain relatively low even as AI adoption accelerates.

Singapore has taken a more centralised approach, with government agencies working closely with employers to identify skills gaps and develop targeted training programmes. The country's SkillsFuture initiative provides credits that citizens can use throughout their careers for approved training programmes, recognising that career development must be continuous rather than front-loaded. This approach has enabled rapid adaptation to technological change while maintaining high employment levels.

South Korea's emphasis on technology integration in education has created a generation comfortable with digital tools and AI systems. However, the country also faces challenges in ensuring that this technological fluency translates into practical workplace skills. Recent initiatives focus on bridging this gap through expanded internship programmes and closer university-industry collaboration.

Nordic countries have emphasised the social dimensions of career development, ensuring that new pathways remain accessible to all citizens regardless of background. Their approaches often include comprehensive support systems -- financial assistance, career counselling, and social services -- that enable individuals to pursue training and career changes without facing economic hardship.

Developing economies face different challenges, often lacking the institutional infrastructure to support large-scale apprenticeship programmes or the employer base to provide sufficient opportunities. However, some have found innovative solutions through public-private partnerships and international collaboration. Mobile technology and online learning platforms enable skills development even in areas with limited physical infrastructure.

While AI creates challenges for traditional career development, it also offers new tools for learning and skill development. Virtual reality simulations allow students to practice complex procedures without real-world consequences. AI tutoring systems provide personalised instruction adapted to individual learning styles and paces. Online platforms enable collaboration between learners across geographic boundaries, creating global communities of practice.

The most promising applications use AI to enhance rather than replace human learning. Intelligent tutoring systems can identify knowledge gaps and suggest targeted learning activities, while natural language processing tools help students develop communication skills through practice and feedback. Virtual reality environments allow safe practice of high-stakes procedures, from surgical techniques to emergency response protocols.

Adaptive learning platforms adjust content and pacing based on individual progress, ensuring that no student falls behind while allowing advanced learners to move quickly through material they've mastered. These systems can track learning patterns over time, identifying the most effective approaches for different types of content and different types of learners.

AI-powered assessment tools can evaluate complex skills like critical thinking and creativity in ways that traditional testing cannot. By analysing patterns in student work, these systems can provide detailed feedback on reasoning processes, not just final answers. This capability enables more sophisticated understanding of student capabilities and more targeted support for improvement.

The technology also enables new forms of collaborative learning. AI can match learners with complementary skills and interests, facilitating peer learning relationships that might not otherwise develop. Virtual collaboration tools allow students to work together on complex projects regardless of physical location, preparing them for increasingly distributed work environments.

However, the integration of technology into learning must be thoughtful and purposeful. Technology for its own sake doesn't improve educational outcomes; it must be deployed in service of clear learning objectives and pedagogical principles. The most effective programmes use technology to amplify human capabilities rather than attempting to replace human judgment and creativity.

Traditional metrics for educational and career success -- graduation rates, employment statistics, starting salaries -- may not capture the full picture in an AI-transformed economy. New approaches to measurement must account for adaptability, continuous learning, and the ability to work effectively with AI systems.

Competency-based assessment focuses on what individuals can actually do rather than what credentials they hold. This approach requires detailed frameworks that define specific skills and knowledge areas, along with methods for assessing proficiency in real-world contexts. Portfolio-based evaluation, where individuals demonstrate capabilities through collections of work samples, offers one promising approach.

Long-term career tracking becomes more important as traditional career paths become less predictable. Following individuals over extended periods can reveal which educational approaches best prepare people for career success and adaptation. This longitudinal perspective is essential for understanding the effectiveness of new programmes and identifying areas for improvement.

Employer satisfaction metrics provide crucial feedback on programme effectiveness. Regular surveys and focus groups with hiring managers can identify gaps between programme outcomes and workplace needs. This feedback loop enables continuous programme improvement and ensures that training remains relevant to actual job requirements.

Student and participant satisfaction measures remain important but must be interpreted carefully. Immediate satisfaction with a programme may not correlate with long-term career success, particularly when programmes challenge participants to develop new ways of thinking and working. Delayed satisfaction surveys, conducted months or years after programme completion, often provide more meaningful insights.

The measurement challenge extends to societal outcomes. Educational systems must track not just individual success but also broader impacts on economic mobility, social equity, and community development. These macro-level indicators help ensure that new approaches to career development serve broader social goals, not just economic efficiency.

The transformation of career pathways in response to AI requires coordinated action across multiple sectors and stakeholders. Educational institutions, employers, government agencies, and community organisations must work together to create coherent systems that serve both individual aspirations and societal needs.

Policy frameworks need updating to support new models of career development. Funding mechanisms designed for traditional higher education may not work for apprenticeship programmes or hybrid learning models. Regulatory structures must evolve to recognise new forms of credentials and competency demonstration. Labour laws may need adjustment to accommodate the extended learning periods and multiple transitions that characterise modern careers.

Employer engagement is crucial but requires careful cultivation. Companies must see clear benefits from investing in apprenticeship programmes and alternative career pathways. This often means demonstrating return on investment through reduced recruitment costs, improved employee retention, and enhanced organisational capabilities. Successful programmes create value for employers while providing meaningful opportunities for participants.

Community partnerships can help ensure that new career pathways serve diverse populations and local needs. Community colleges, workforce development agencies, and social service organisations often have deep relationships with underrepresented communities and can help connect individuals to opportunities. These partnerships also help address practical barriers -- transportation, childcare, financial support -- that might otherwise prevent participation.

The international dimension becomes increasingly important as AI adoption accelerates globally. Countries that successfully adapt their career development systems will have competitive advantages in attracting investment and developing innovative industries. International collaboration can help share best practices and avoid duplicating expensive pilot programmes.

The elimination of traditional entry-level positions by AI represents both a crisis and an opportunity. The crisis is real -- young people face unprecedented challenges in launching careers and developing the expertise that society needs. Traditional pathways that served previous generations are disappearing faster than new ones are being created.

But the opportunity is equally significant. By reimagining how people develop careers, society can create systems that are more equitable, more responsive to individual needs, and better aligned with the realities of modern work. Apprenticeships, hybrid learning models, and industry partnerships offer promising alternatives to educational approaches that no longer serve their intended purposes.

Success requires recognising that this transformation is about more than job training or educational reform. It's about creating new social institutions that can adapt to technological change while preserving human potential and dignity. The young people entering the workforce today will face career challenges that previous generations couldn't imagine, but they'll also have opportunities to shape their professional development in ways that were previously impossible.

The stakes couldn't be higher. Get this right, and society can harness AI's power while ensuring that human expertise and leadership continue to flourish. Get it wrong, and we risk creating a generation unable to develop the capabilities that society needs to thrive in an AI-augmented world.

The transformation is already underway. The question isn't whether career pathways will change, but whether society will actively shape that change to serve human flourishing or simply react to technological imperatives. The choices made today will determine whether AI becomes a tool for human empowerment or a source of unprecedented inequality and social disruption.

The path forward requires courage to abandon systems that no longer work, wisdom to preserve what remains valuable, and creativity to imagine new possibilities. Most importantly, it requires commitment to ensuring that every young person has the opportunity to develop their potential and contribute to society, regardless of how dramatically the nature of work continues to evolve.

Primary Sources:

National Center for Biotechnology Information. "The Nursing Workforce - The Future of Nursing 2020-2030." Available at: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Achieve Partners. "News and Industry Analysis." Available at: www.achievepartners.com

Center for American Progress. "Systematic Inequality Research and Analysis." Available at: www.americanprogress.org

NHS England. "NHS Long Term Workforce Plan." Available at: www.england.nhs.uk

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. "Child Development and Early Learning | Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8." Available at: nap.nationalacademies.org

Additional Reading:

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). "The Future of Work: OECD Employment Outlook 2019." OECD Publishing, 2019.

World Economic Forum. "The Future of Jobs Report 2023." World Economic Forum, 2023.

McKinsey Global Institute. "The Age of AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work." McKinsey & Company, 2023.

Brookings Institution. "Automation and the Future of Work." Brookings Institution Press, 2019.

MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future. "The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines." MIT Press, 2020.

Government and Policy Resources:

UK Department for Education. "Apprenticeship and Technical Education Reform." Gov.uk, 2023.

US Department of Labor. "Apprenticeship: Closing the Skills Gap." DOL Employment and Training Administration, 2023.

European Commission. "Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027." European Commission, 2021.

Industry and Professional Organisation Reports:

Confederation of British Industry. "Education and Skills Survey 2023." CBI, 2023.

Association of Graduate Recruiters. "The AGR Graduate Recruitment Survey 2023." AGR, 2023.

Institute for the Future. "Future Work Skills 2030." Institute for the Future, 2021.

Tim explores the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, and posthuman ethics. His work, published at smarterarticles.co.uk, challenges dominant narratives of technological progress while proposing interdisciplinary frameworks for collective intelligence and digital stewardship.

His writing has been featured on Ground News and shared by independent researchers across both academic and technological communities. more

Career development

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An IDP for Career Development Professionals (opinion)


When was the last time you filled out an individual development plan for yourself? As professionals across career development and academic administration, we support and guide others toward growth and opportunity. Yet in today's higher education landscape, marked by rapid advances in artificial intelligence, shifting institutional priorities, budget cuts and rising rates of burnout, our own growth... often takes a back seat. The truth is, we face the same need for intentional career planning that we champion for our students, postdocs and faculty.

That is why the Graduate Career Consortium's Professional Development Committee spent the past three years creating an Individual Development Plan tool tailored specifically for those working in, or entering, the career and professional development field. Adapted from the foundational IDP model that has been used for two decades to help trainees identify their goals and plan their career transitions, this version addresses the realities we face as educators and academic administrators: navigating unclear career paths, balancing evolving skill demands and working in roles that are often undervalued despite their impact.

The Value of Planning Our Own Development

Just as we advise our students and postdocs, there is value in periodically assessing our values, interests, strengths and progress. We can benefit from reflecting on our next career steps, defining goals and seeking input from mentors. An IDP process offers clear, actionable insights into your strengths and priorities, fosters a sense of agency and brings greater clarity to your career trajectory. It can boost confidence in professional decisions, help you cultivate mentor relationships and contribute to long-term career satisfaction.

A Tool Tailored to Our Field

How is this tool tailored for academic administrators in career and professional development? This IDP tool centers the realities of our field and the skills we need to thrive, giving us a practical framework for building the fulfilling careers we envision for ourselves. The IDP framework may look familiar -- it follows the same structure as the well-researched IDP tools designed for early-career researchers. However, the prompts and resources in this tool are designed to address the unique needs and challenges we face.

Inside the Tool

This IDP tool is organized into four sections, each building on the last: Self-Assessment, Career Vision, Goal-Setting and Action Planning, and Mentorship.

Self-assessment provides a foundation: You are asked to assess your skills, reflect on what you enjoy in your work (career advising, workshop design, etc.) and consider your work-related values (advancing inclusive practices, collaborating within a team, maintaining work flexibility, etc.). The self-assessment step is tailored to our field by linking to the GCC's Graduate Professional and Career Development Competencies self-assessment, which provides a list of skills and tasks fundamental to career development roles.

Next, you are invited to envision your career, such as by expanding your role or exploring new directions. The tool provides resources to help explore options, such as ImaginePhD's "Higher Education Administration" job family. In the Goal-Setting and Action Planning section, you will draw on earlier reflections to create goals and an action plan -- while accounting for common constraints in our field. With goals established, you are then encouraged to leverage your mentorship network -- and the tool offers ways to expand your network, including strategies for informational interviews. Professional organizations can play a valuable role here -- for example, the GCC offers a mentoring program and communities of practice. The tailored prompts in the IDP are designed to get you thinking and excited about career possibilities, all while empowering you with an action plan and field-specific resources.

Whom This Tool Is For

The IDP process is one that we can return to periodically throughout our careers. As such, we developed this tool with multiple career stages in mind -- from those wanting to transition into the field to those who are midcareer and established. For example, a program manager coordinating career development programming may develop an IDP to help them take on more leadership responsibilities. An associate director interested in studying the outcomes of their programming may want to grow their skills in educational evaluation, reporting or scholarship. A graduate student or postdoc in the sciences or humanities may be interested in transitioning into a career development or academic administration role.

While designed for career development professionals, the prompts can resonate with academic administrators and educators more broadly. Whatever your goals, this IDP tool can guide your reflection and help you develop an action plan.

Taking the Next Step

As career development professionals, we invite you to take the next step in your own professional development. Set aside time to explore this IDP and complete it for yourself or with the guidance of a trusted colleague or mentor. Use it as an opportunity to pause, reflect and identify areas for professional growth. You may use it as a quarterly check-in guide for yourself to ask whether or not your work and goals are aligned closely with your career aspirations.

Whether we are advising a graduate student or mentoring an early-career professional, commitment to self-reflection and goal-setting enables us to communicate better with those who are seeking guidance and direction. Engaging in this process can not only support your own career progression and satisfaction but also strengthen your ability to guide others in doing the same.

Conclusion

In a field marked by evolving demands and uncertain paths, investing in our own growth isn't indulgent -- it is essential. We encourage you to share this IDP tool with your colleagues and across professional networks. Whether you are brand-new to academic administration or an established leader at your institution, this tool can help clarify goals, identify new opportunities and renew a sense of purpose in our work. By embracing the same career planning mindset that we champion for students and postdocs, we can model career development as an iterative process and strengthen our community of practice along the way. We ask our students and postdocs to reflect, to grow, to evolve. Isn't it time we did the same? more

Career development

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Multi Skilled Engineer Job In Essex


Our client is a leading food manufacturing business, supplying into a range of retailers wholesalers. We're working in partnership to assist them in recruiting a Multi Skilled Engineer (Mech Bias) to join their Engineering team. This is a fantastic opportunity to join a business who are investing heavily and growing. They can offer genuine career development and progression.

Role Purpose:

To... provide Engineering resource in carrying out planned and reactive maintenance activities to minimise downtime and reduce quality issues. To strive towards Continuous improvement of machinery equipment and ways of working in line with the business strategy.

Mechanical Bias ideally... you'll need to have similar food or FMCG experience. All experience considered as full machine and product training given, along with an in-depth on-boarding programme. The company will also fund further engineering training / courses as required.

Hours / Shifts:

Early & Late rotating shift pattern

Monday to Friday - 6am-2.15pm / 2pm-10.15pm

Overtime is available

Fantastic benefits including Bonus scheme, matched Private Pension, 25 days Holiday + BH's, Medical cash plan

Multi Skilled Engineer - Summary of core responsibilities:

Required skills & experience:

Ideally Mech Bias, but Multi skilled. This role would be perfect for an engineer who is happy to be hands-on, but also carry out machine condition monitoring, asset care management & project work. Strong mechanical fault finding & repairs skills - hydraulics, gearboxes, bearings, shafts, drives. NVQ Level 3 / ONC / HNC Engineering more

Career development

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Level Up Your Career: Using Copilot for Interview Prep & Self-Assessment


In today's fast-evolving job market, it's not enough to simply update your resume when you're actively job hunting. I've found it invaluable to periodically "benchmark" myself -- preparing for interviews every 18-20 months, even if I'm not planning a move. This habit helps me reflect on how I've upskilled, stay attuned to current market trends, and ensure I'm aligned with the latest in company... culture and compensation benchmarks.

Regular interview prep isn't just about readiness for new opportunities; it's about understanding where you stand, what the market values, and how your growth matches up with industry expectations. It's a proactive way to identify skill gaps, discover new in-demand tools or frameworks, and make sure your career trajectory remains competitive and fulfilling.

With the advent of tools like M365 Copilot, this process has become more structured and insightful. Copilot can help you analyze job descriptions, tailor your resume and cover letter, and even simulate interview scenarios -- making your periodic self-assessment both efficient and actionable.

In this article, I'll walk you through how to use Copilot to prepare for a job interview, starting with tailoring your resume and cover letter. I'll also share practical prompts you can use as part of your own prep routine.

The Copilot-Powered Interview Prep Workflow:

Preparing for a job interview is a multi-step journey, and leveraging Copilot can make each stage more focused and effective. The process begins with researching the role and company to understand what employers are seeking. Next, you tailor your resume to highlight the most relevant skills and experiences. After that, you craft a compelling cover letter that connects your story to the organization's mission. Finally, you prepare for interview questions, ensuring you're ready to showcase your strengths and fit. Here's a visual overview of this workflow:

Tailoring Resume:

Tailoring your resume is about more than just keyword-matching -- it's about presenting your experience in a way that resonates with recruiters and aligns with the specific needs of the role. This prompt leverages Copilot's ability to analyze, compare, and provide actionable feedback, making your resume refinement process both data-driven and recruiter-focused.

What this prompt guides you with

Reassess post Resume Updates:

Resume tailoring is rarely a one-and-done task. By reassessing after each round of edits, you ensure your resume is as compelling and relevant as possible for the specific role. Copilot's structured feedback helps you focus on what matters most to recruiters, making your application sharper and more competitive with each iteration.

This step would help you to assess how the modification has improved the chances

Targeted Enhancement: Asks for specific, actionable advice on further strengthening your resume.

Prioritization & Consolidation: Focuses on making your resume concise and relevant, ensuring the most important qualifications stand out.

Cover Letter :

Not every job application requires a cover letter, but reaching out for an informational meeting can be a powerful way to learn more about the role and make a positive impression. If you spot an opportunity to connect with the hiring manager, consider using Copilot to help you draft a concise, warm, and purposeful email.

This approach helps you build rapport, gain insider insights, and demonstrate initiative -- often making you a more memorable candidate, even before the formal interview process begins.

Prepare for Interview Questions:

Interview preparation isn't just about rehearsing answers -- it's about understanding who you're speaking with, what they value, and how you can connect your story to the role and team. Copilot acts as a strategic partner, helping you prepare with empathy, insight, and precision.

This prompt enables Copilot acts as a strategic partner, helping you prepare with empathy, insight, and precision.

Closing Thoughts:

M365 Copilot isn't just a productivity tool -- it's a collaborative assistant that helps you structure your thinking, refine your materials, and prepare with confidence. But remember: while Copilot can guide and support you, your unique voice, experiences, and perspective are what truly make your application stand out.

Whether you're actively job hunting or simply benchmarking yourself against the market, these prompts offer a structured way to reflect, improve, and grow. I encourage you to try them out, adapt them to your own style, and see how Copilot can elevate your interview prep journey.Share your experience or favorite prompt in the comments -- I'd love to hear how you're using AI to level up your career. more

Career development

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The in-between years: Navigating life's transition seasons


We must use this period to position ourselves for a better next step; the low wage doesn't mean our value is low. Guard your self-worth jealously.

For most of us, the time between after school but before graduation remains yet the most challenging period of the life after school. I will refer to this period as the transition period.

This is the bridge between school and after school. The... transition period doesn't actually come with a fixed timeline (as it may appear), there is no assurance that the coming of the transcript will make things better.

When we finish our last paper, dreams are very big. Little do we know that we are finishing school to step into yet another school called employment. During this transition period, a few lucky and or connected individuals get placements in companies and organisations that offer on-the-job training opportunities while the rest of us remain waiting, searching.

This transition period is more than just a short interlude but a period where one experiences the frustrations of job hunting, under employment and underpayment.

There is a mismatch between what education offers and what is required in the job market. Individuals leave school with the best grades but lack the practical skills and experience required at jobs, hence the common phrase "Jobs need experience, yet we require jobs to get experience", a very absurd reality.

This in-between period is frustrating because you are no longer a full-time student but a job seeker, and you feel you ought to be working, earning and contributing, yet you are not. If you are, it is not what you anticipated. The process of job seeking is in itself a full-time job.

You send out CVs, attend interviews if you are lucky, you try networking, you update your LinkedIn daily, and yet still face the reality of rejection and silence from employers.

This forces many of us to accept jobs that barely cover the basics like rent, food and transport. This underpayment, coupled with the ever-increasing cost of living and job insecurity or absence, means many of us feel like we are being treated like the available, abundant, unskilled, cheap and undervalued labour we studied about in secondary school.

A recent study report in June 2023 showed that 49 percent of Ugandans in informal employment earned less than Shs168,000 per month, which is not even enough to afford basic needs in this economy.

The problem of unemployment can be seen to present itself in form of a job but not worth much.

When one has spent 20+ years studying, and they've invested time and resources, the expectation is that one's first "real job" will at least reflect some returns. But where are the returns if the "real job" in itself is not there? This is why many people in Uganda today refer to qualifications as "just papers".

Despite the fact that many others have gone to school, found jobs in their fields of training and are earning decent money, a bigger part of us have ended up resentful, demoralised and stuck. One starts to ask themselves questions like 'Why did I study this?' 'Where are the returns?' 'Will I be stuck here forever?'

This period of transition is one in which many of us go astray and even end up in very different career paths than we always imagined. This is because, as you step out of school, you realise the job market is different, it is smaller, slower and most of all in Uganda, it is network-driven.

As time goes by and graduation approaches, you fear because you will not only be called jobless but also a jobless graduate engineer! You look forward and see colleagues who graduated two years ago still competing with you for the same jobs, you look behind and see a class of yet to be fresh graduates that you left at school also approaching.

In this period of transition, many of us succumb to short term gigs, which are also the welcome song to the so-called hustle economy because we have bills to pay and we have expectations.

It is no longer just the period between study and job; it is a test of identity, self-worth and resilience.

Underpayment is not just earning very little, it is more of not earning enough to reflect one's effort, education and work hours. We resent the system for promising growth and delivering none, promising advancement yet delivering delay. We expect our qualifications to open doors, yet we find them closed, heavily restricted or non-existent.

In the meantime, the clock is ticking, and we watch our most youthful and productive years slip away day by day.

All this said, we must not let the transition period define us; we can make choices within this period that will set our trajectory for better days.

These include, among others, building valuable or employable skills like communication, time consciousness, soft skills, seeking networks and useful mentors who will link us to better opportunities, and being realistic about wages and what we can accept in the future (but also strategic).

We must use this period to position ourselves for a better next step; the low wage doesn't mean our value is low. Guard your self-worth jealously.

Racheal Akamumpa, [email protected]

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Career development

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How to answer "Why did you leave your last job"?
Just say you left to find new challenges and get more responsibility etc...
Never negative about your past employers!
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  • Captain bulemu Ezra

    16
    1d

    To build your carrier you must have worked in some other places which build your experience in working so if you have negative attitude to the... previous places you worked in how will your recommendations from those places read and be? so never overlook those past places they must have done something in your carrier more

  • Captain bulemu Ezra

    16
    1d

    To build your carrier you must have worked in some other places which build your experience in working so if you have negative attitude to the... previous places you worked in how will your recommendations from those places read and be? so never overlook those past places they must have done something in your carrier more

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