Mick Miles


Career development 2d
Would you accept a job that pays 30% more if it required you to be in the office five days a week instead of working remotely? What would ultimately drive your decision?
9   

  • Zara Aminu

    7m

    Yes off course

  • joel Mwangi

    4h

    Yes. My decision is based on whether 🏘 allowance is provided

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Career development

 1w

I got laid off from IBM over 2 years ago and I'm still unemployed. I don't want my kids to feel like anything is wrong.


This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Fatema Ali, a job seeker in her 30s who lives in Texas. She previously worked for IBM as a project manager before being laid off in 2024. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

In early 2024, I began to worry that my time at IBM could be coming to an end.

I was a delivery project manager based in the Dallas area and had been... working remotely since joining IBM in 2018. That January, IBM announced that all US managers would be required to report to an office or client location at least three days a week or risk losing their jobs. There was an office about 15 minutes from my home, and I started going in regularly.

In February, my manager started warning me that broader layoffs could be on the horizon. By the time I was laid off in April, I wasn't completely surprised.

More than two years later, I'm still looking for full-time work.

My husband and I were suddenly both out of work at the same time

What made the layoff more difficult was that a few months earlier, my husband had left his job to pursue a startup idea that wasn't yet generating income. We had three children to support, and suddenly neither of us had a traditional full-time job.

One thing working in our favor was that we had already paid off our house. That gave us some breathing room and relieved some financial pressure.

Even so, there was a lot of financial uncertainty. We cut back where we could and tried to live more simply, including traveling less with the kids. For a period, we were largely living off savings and the severance I received, which amounted to about three months of salary.

I started looking for work immediately, both inside and outside IBM. There was one promising internal opportunity I applied for, but it would've required me to move to North Carolina. I had recently bought a home in Texas, had family nearby, and didn't want to uproot my three children.

Instead, I focused on finding opportunities closer to home, primarily in project and program management, while also applying for roles in higher education, nonprofits, and government.

The job search feels harder than it did during the Great Recession

When I graduated from college in 2008 during the Great Recession, the job market was difficult. Looking back, it almost feels like a walk in the park compared with what I've experienced over the last two years. Back then, I was getting more interview opportunities.

One of the most frustrating parts of the process has been dealing with applicant tracking systems. I have dozens of résumé versions for different roles because I know résumés can be filtered out if they're missing the right keywords. It feels like strong candidates can be overlooked before anyone has a chance to review their experience.

I can spend hours tailoring an application and never speak with a human recruiter. It's become a nightmare.

I try to reach out to people in my network. If I see a mutual connection who works at an organization where I'm applying, I'll try to reconnect with them directly. Simply applying online without a referral has become one of my least effective job-search strategies.

I've landed a few interviews over the last two years and have made it through multiple rounds with some employers. In many cases, companies ultimately chose an internal candidate or someone with more experience in a specific area. Occasionally, I check LinkedIn to try to figure out who ended up getting the role based on their title and start date.

I've tried to make the most of my time away from work

While I've been looking for work since my layoff, I haven't always been consistent with my applications. I spent time helping my husband with his startup and devoted a lot of time to caring for my youngest child.

Last year, my husband decided to focus less on his startup and return to the workforce, landing a new job in November. That provided some financial relief for our family.

As my children have gotten older, I've also had more freedom to focus on my career again. By the middle of last year, I became much more consistent with my job search.

While I'm still looking for work, I've scaled back my job search somewhat in recent months to spend more time pursuing projects with my husband, notably P1loop, an app we launched together. My husband used his experience as an iOS developer to help build it.

The app is designed to help teams communicate about urgent operational issues. It isn't generating any income yet, but we're hopeful. My layoff experience has forced me to rethink stability, take a risk, and try to build something meaningful from scratch.

The biggest lesson I've learned is patience

I've been working since I was 19, and I'm looking forward to returning to work.

My job search has been stressful, but I didn't want that pressure to show on my face. I don't want my children to feel like there is anything wrong. I want to carry on with the day and stay grounded as best as I can.

Being unemployed hasn't felt like much of a break. When you're dealing with financial uncertainty, caring for children, looking for work, and trying to build something new, your mind is always racing.

My best advice to anyone going through this is to stay patient, whether you've worked really hard and things are going exactly the way you hoped, or things aren't falling into place yet.

While I'm still looking for the right opportunity, I've learned the importance of staying the course. more
11   

  • Naliaka Kisia

    1h

    Wow, I actually thought it was easier in the developed countries. Job hunting has become something else.

  • Debbie Satterfield

    6d

    I am in the same unemployed, physical, mental and financial situation for greater than a year. I've become numb to the rejection emails. Some days I... think it would be easier to get admitted to a mental institution.  more

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Nancy Stones


Career development 18h

If you found out a coworker with the same responsibilities was earning 25% more than you, would you ask for a raise immediately or start looking for a new job? Why?

  • jeff driscoll

    1h

    Start looking for a new job immediately. Once you have a prospect you can live with if needed, then you ask your current employer for a raise or... promotion. You can't threaten to leave if you're not prepared to carry it out, they will call your bluff. You don't have options if you don't have anywhere to go. Some employers might fire you immediately or begin "documenting" your failures to build a file that justifies your firing. You don't want to work for them! Always have a backup plan! more

  • christine kimuyu

    2h

    I would usually ask for a raise first before looking for a new job, but it depends on the circumstances.

    Why ask first?

    The pay difference may have... a legitimate explanation (more experience, specialized skills, longer tenure, different qualifications, or performance history).
    If your employer values you, they may correct the gap once it is brought to their attention.
    Staying can be less disruptive than changing jobs if you otherwise enjoy the role, team, and career opportunities.

    When I would start looking elsewhere:

    If the company refuses to discuss compensation transparently.
    If there is a pattern of undervaluing employees.
    If the pay gap appears unfair and there is no clear path to correcting it.
    If market salaries suggest you're significantly underpaid beyond this one comparison.

    A practical approach is to do both:

    Gather evidence of your contributions, performance, and market value.
    Request a compensation review.
    While waiting for the outcome, quietly explore other opportuni     more

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Jenson Lane


Career development 3d
Is job hopping every 2–3 years still the best way to grow your salary, or do employers see it as a red flag? I'm curious whether hiring managers and candidates view this differently.
2   

  • Hussaian Umar

    1h

    Depending on the job

  • Victor Akanbi

    2d

    0m
    HRM will always find fault with you jumping jobs. I faced similar scenerio in an interview where the senior HR critized my CV having worked for 3... companies in 4 years but the real question is are we supposed to miss opportunity that comes with more growth, more compensation but to just stick to the present role with less growth. more

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Anonymous member


Career development 1d
Have you ever stayed in a job you disliked simply because the market felt too risky to leave? At what point do you decide it's time to move on?
2   

  • kedi john

    3h

    I think the good approach is continuing earning from the job while searching for that of ur passion rather than quitting to sit back at home jobless

    1

  • EMMANUEL OKWARE

    3h

    Save for three months leaving expenses and now quit

Load more...

Career development

 16h

Mia Khalifa now: Her latest interview spills more - Film Daily


Mia Khalifa now shows a woman who still fields questions about a three-month adult-film stint from a decade ago. Her newest round of interviews, especially the 2024 New York Times sit-down and follow-up podcast clips, goes past the usual recap and lands on shame, therapy, and the daily friction of moving forward. Those details matter to readers who keep typing her name into search bars while she... posts runway shots and OnlyFans updates from Los Angeles.

Shame and the therapy room

In the New York Times interview, Khalifa describes the private work of unpacking public judgment. She talks about sessions that forced her to separate what strangers project onto her from the life she actually leads today. The conversation lands less like a celebrity confessional and more like a case study in long-tail internet fame.

Listeners on later podcast rounds hear the same thread. She notes that naming the feeling out loud helped shrink its power, even when clips of those admissions circulate again and start the cycle over. The repetition itself becomes part of the story she keeps returning to.

She frames the process as ongoing rather than finished. Therapy is not presented as a cure that erases the past; it functions as maintenance for someone whose early image still leads every background check and first impression.

Job interviews that double as interrogations

Khalifa's Call Her Daddy appearance supplies the clearest evidence that the past still shapes her present options. She recounts interviewers who recognize her immediately and steer the conversation toward the adult content they already watched. The questions rarely stay on her résumé or current projects.

Those exchanges illustrate a practical cost that headlines rarely capture. A recognizable face can open doors in content and fashion, yet the same recognition can close others in conventional hiring rooms. She describes the moment the tone shifts from professional to personal as both predictable and exhausting.

The pattern also highlights how little control she retains over first impressions. Even when she arrives prepared with talking points about activism or brand work, the interview often resets to the same three months in her early twenties.

OnlyFans as ongoing revenue

Despite the attempts at conventional career moves, Khalifa continues to monetize an OnlyFans account she describes as safe-for-work but still spicy. The platform supplies steady income without requiring her to rebuild an audience from scratch each time old clips resurface.

She positions the account as one tool among several rather than the centerpiece of her public identity. Subscribers receive lifestyle posts, occasional commentary, and direct access that bypasses the judgment loops of mainstream media. The arrangement keeps money flowing while she tests other lanes.

That balance reflects a larger shift in how former adult performers structure their finances. Khalifa treats the platform as infrastructure, not confession, and updates pricing and content cadence the way any creator would.

Activism and the Middle East focus

Recent interviews also cover her decision to speak publicly on Lebanon and broader regional issues. She links those comments to personal history and family ties rather than abstract politics. The stance draws both support and backlash in equal measure on social platforms.

Khalifa notes that visibility on these topics sometimes collides with the adult-industry narrative that still trails her. Critics dismiss the commentary as performative; supporters treat it as an extension of the same refusal to stay quiet that marked her earlier exit from the industry.

She has used fundraising drives tied to Lebanon relief as a way to redirect attention and revenue. Those campaigns sit alongside her regular content calendar and show how she routes public interest into concrete action.

Fashion week as current stage

In 2025 and 2026, Khalifa appeared at Paris and Milan shows, including KENZO and GCDS presentations. The images circulated quickly, resetting the visual narrative from archived clips to front-row seating and street-style shots.

These appearances function as proof-of-life updates for fans tracking her movements. They also generate fresh content that algorithms surface alongside older material, creating a mixed feed that keeps both timelines active at once.

She treats the events as work opportunities rather than pure spectacle. Brand partnerships and runway-adjacent projects sit alongside her commentary output, illustrating how she layers income streams without centering any single lane.

Social media as permanent record

Khalifa maintains active accounts on X, Instagram, and TikTok where style, food, and politics share space. The mix keeps engagement high while preventing any one topic from defining the feed entirely.

She acknowledges that every post enters a permanent archive that interviewers and strangers can reference later. That awareness shapes what she chooses to share and what she withholds, especially around personal relationships and daily logistics.

The strategy also demonstrates how creators now manage reputation in real time. Rather than waiting for legacy media to shape the story, she posts primary material that can be cited or clipped on her own terms.

Public judgment and free speech overlap

The New York Times framing highlights the tension between influence and exposure. Khalifa points out that visibility online requires constant negotiation around self-presentation, audience expectations, and the economic incentives that reward certain narratives over others.

She describes moments when speech on political topics triggers renewed interest in her adult past, as if one disqualifies the other. The overlap forces her to decide how much energy to spend correcting assumptions versus simply continuing the work.

Those calculations mirror broader platform dynamics where creators weigh engagement against mental load. Khalifa's case simply makes the math more visible because the source material remains easy to locate.

Media cycles that reset the clock

Each new interview or fashion appearance restarts the same set of questions from outlets and comment sections. Khalifa has learned to anticipate the reset and to keep answers ready that redirect toward current projects rather than past decisions.

The repetition also keeps her name in search results, which in turn feeds the OnlyFans and brand work. She treats the cycle as a feature of the attention economy rather than a glitch she can outrun.

Podcast and social clips from 2025 and 2026 show her refining the same talking points with slight variations. The consistency suggests a deliberate approach to managing a story that refuses to stay in the past.

Therapy language in public

Listeners notice how Khalifa imports clinical vocabulary into interviews without turning them into self-help segments. Terms like boundaries and projection appear alongside concrete examples from job interviews and comment threads.

She avoids positioning herself as an expert or spokesperson for others in similar situations. The language serves her own accounting rather than offering a roadmap, which keeps the focus on her specific circumstances.

That restraint distinguishes her recent comments from earlier, more sensational coverage. She supplies context without inviting readers to treat her disclosures as universal lessons.

Next moves in a mixed economy

Mia Khalifa now operates across several platforms that reward different skills. Fashion access, political commentary, and subscription content each carry their own audience expectations and revenue models. She continues to test which combinations hold steady when old footage resurfaces.

The latest interviews make clear that recognition remains both asset and obstacle. She documents the friction without promising a clean break, and the record shows she is still adjusting the mix rather than declaring any lane finished. more

Career development

 1d

I was laid off after 20 years at one company. It took me nearly a year to find a job -- and it wasn't through a job board.


* Michelle Keller was laid off in April 2025 from a company she'd worked at for 20 years.

* She applied to dozens of jobs online with no success until a friend told her that her company was hiring.

* Keller likens looking for a job to the dating market and encourages others to be vocal about their job search.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Michelle Keller, a 59-year-old... in Georgia who was laid off from her voice engineer job in 2025. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I lost my job after 20 years at the same company. I wouldn't have left if not for being laid off in April 2025.

I wasn't that sad that it was over. My father, who has Alzheimer's, had been living with my family for the past few years, so we saw the job change as a chance for me to slow down and focus on his caregiving.

However, I was still applying to jobs. I tried changing my résumé and removing things to make myself look younger, but I still wasn't getting interviews.

I had my first -- and only -- job offer as a billing clerk in March, after applying to dozens. It wasn't through any websites or job-search services; it was through the good ol' friends network.

I got the job through a friend

I thought I'd get something within the first month or two after being laid off. Then, when month three came and went, I decided to let my social networks know I was looking for a job.

A few months ago, in February, a friend on my tennis team told me that the small commercial insurance agency she worked at was hiring, so I talked to the HR person.

Despite my friend telling me there was an opening, it didn't boost my confidence. I still went into the interview nervous, but I got the job.

The salary was a little less than half what I was previously making, but I didn't care because at that point, it had been almost a year of not making any money.

I was interested in anything -- I just wanted to be useful again and to get out of the house. The toll of being at home and taking care of my father was hard. It's one thing when you're raising your children -- you know the value, and you see the learning -- but with the thankless job of caring for a parent, it wears on you.

Once I got the new job, I needed a caregiver to help with my dad

It's a hybrid role, so I'm only gone two days a week -- Tuesdays and Thursdays. I work from home the rest of the week.

I spent a couple of weeks researching assisted living, so I could get my dad out of the house. With him at home, I can't ever be away for the night. However, those options were too expensive.

My sister posted on Facebook looking for someone to take care of our father, and I did about four or five phone interviews.

Before I started my new role, I did a dry run, so my father would get to know her before I was totally gone. She came in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays for just a few hours while I tried out my commute to work or ran some errands.

We think about the cost of the care, but it's hard to put a price on my mental health

My son's and husband's schedules allow them to go home before 5 p.m., so it's usually not more than a seven-hour day. That's a godsend.

The arrangement has been working out. I don't want to give it up, but we have to be careful about keeping that balance between how much care costs versus how much I'm getting paid.

We're going to work on tweaking it; nothing's final or permanent. If this isn't working out, then we'll try something else.

It's hard to put a price on my mental health and my ability to get out of the house two days a week. I get to drive 45 minutes to the office, and the drive is like something out of a Hallmark movie. It's in the downtown area, where you can hear the church bells ring, and sometimes you hear a train. It's pretty magical.

My husband, who was previously working part-time, is working full time again, making the same amount as I do. Together, the two of us are making almost as much as I was making before. That's probably the biggest Band-Aid.

And I'll be 59½ in the fall, so I'll be able to start taking out my 401(k) money without penalty -- not that I would want to have to pay my mortgage with it, but it's there.

I would equate finding a job to the dating market

Your best bets are the people you know in your circle. If you're young and just finishing school, get to know your parents' circle because those are the people who have the jobs.

It's kind of like dating; some people use websites, while others go out to bars or networking functions to meet people.

In every facet of your life, you meet people for a reason -- whether it's a chess club, a tennis match, a dinner, or a church function.

The more you talk about being unemployed and the more you let people know, the better off your mental stability is. Your friends and family want to support you, but they don't want to ask you every week or every month, and people do sometimes forget.

It's hard after six months or so to continually say, "I still don't have a job," but you have to keep repeating it.

Read the original article on Business Insider more

Career development

 1d

How a Pune graduate went from a ₹6 LPA salary to earning ₹2 crore in the US


A social media post from a software professional has gone viral after she outlined the steps that helped her move from a ₹6 LPA entry-level job in India to a lucrative technology position in the United States. The post offers advice on job hunting, professional visibility, resume building and interview preparation.

Focus on recruiter visibility

A significant part of Bharatia's advice centred on... increasing professional visibility instead of depending exclusively on online job applications. According to her, candidates should continue applying for openings through platforms such as LinkedIn, but attracting direct recruiter interest can improve their chances of securing opportunities.

She recommended maintaining an active presence on LinkedIn through regular posts aimed at showcasing expertise and professional credibility. Bharatia noted that professionals do not need to become full-time content creators and suggested planning content in advance to maintain consistency.

The software professional also cautioned applicants about what she described as "ghost jobs", claiming that some advertised positions may not be actively hiring despite remaining listed online.

Resume and interview preparation

Bharatia said resumes should highlight more than work experience, particularly for candidates in the early stages of their careers. She encouraged applicants to showcase projects, hackathons and research work where relevant.

She further advised job seekers to customise resumes for individual roles by aligning them with job descriptions and paying attention to applicant tracking system optimisation and formatting.

On interview preparation, Bharatia pointed to areas such as data structures and algorithms, system design and business case-based assessments. She also said candidates can benefit from researching a company's products and challenges before interviews.

Also Read: 'Same rent, different lifestyle': Indian couple shares why they moved to Thailand

Reflecting on her journey

Concluding her post, Bharatia said a structured approach played a key role in shaping her professional growth. She expressed hope that sharing her experience would help others navigate their careers more efficiently and avoid some of the trial and error she encountered more

Career development

 1d

I was laid off after 20 years at one company. It took me nearly a year to find a job -- and it wasn't through a job board.


This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Michelle Keller, a 59-year-old in Georgia who was laid off from her voice engineer job in 2025. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I lost my job after 20 years at the same company. I wouldn't have left if not for being laid off in April 2025.

I wasn't that sad that it was over. My father, who has Alzheimer's, had been... living with my family for the past few years, so we saw the job change as a chance for me to slow down and focus on his caregiving.

However, I was still applying to jobs. I tried changing my résumé and removing things to make myself look younger, but I still wasn't getting interviews.

I had my first -- and only -- job offer as a billing clerk in March, after applying to dozens. It wasn't through any websites or job-search services; it was through the good ol' friends network.

I got the job through a friend

I thought I'd get something within the first month or two after being laid off. Then, when month three came and went, I decided to let my social networks know I was looking for a job.

A few months ago, in February, a friend on my tennis team told me that the small commercial insurance agency she worked at was hiring, so I talked to the HR person.

Despite my friend telling me there was an opening, it didn't boost my confidence. I still went into the interview nervous, but I got the job.

The salary was a little less than half what I was previously making, but I didn't care because at that point, it had been almost a year of not making any money.

I was interested in anything -- I just wanted to be useful again and to get out of the house. The toll of being at home and taking care of my father was hard. It's one thing when you're raising your children -- you know the value, and you see the learning -- but with the thankless job of caring for a parent, it wears on you.

Once I got the new job, I needed a caregiver to help with my dad

It's a hybrid role, so I'm only gone two days a week -- Tuesdays and Thursdays. I work from home the rest of the week.

I spent a couple of weeks researching assisted living, so I could get my dad out of the house. With him at home, I can't ever be away for the night. However, those options were too expensive.

My sister posted on Facebook looking for someone to take care of our father, and I did about four or five phone interviews.

Before I started my new role, I did a dry run, so my father would get to know her before I was totally gone. She came in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays for just a few hours while I tried out my commute to work or ran some errands.

We think about the cost of the care, but it's hard to put a price on my mental health

My son's and husband's schedules allow them to go home before 5 p.m., so it's usually not more than a seven-hour day. That's a godsend.

The arrangement has been working out. I don't want to give it up, but we have to be careful about keeping that balance between how much care costs versus how much I'm getting paid.

We're going to work on tweaking it; nothing's final or permanent. If this isn't working out, then we'll try something else.

It's hard to put a price on my mental health and my ability to get out of the house two days a week. I get to drive 45 minutes to the office, and the drive is like something out of a Hallmark movie. It's in the downtown area, where you can hear the church bells ring, and sometimes you hear a train. It's pretty magical.

My husband, who was previously working part-time, is working full time again, making the same amount as I do. Together, the two of us are making almost as much as I was making before. That's probably the biggest Band-Aid.

And I'll be 59½ in the fall, so I'll be able to start taking out my 401(k) money without penalty -- not that I would want to have to pay my mortgage with it, but it's there.

I would equate finding a job to the dating market

Your best bets are the people you know in your circle. If you're young and just finishing school, get to know your parents' circle because those are the people who have the jobs.

It's kind of like dating; some people use websites, while others go out to bars or networking functions to meet people.

In every facet of your life, you meet people for a reason -- whether it's a chess club, a tennis match, a dinner, or a church function.

The more you talk about being unemployed and the more you let people know, the better off your mental stability is. Your friends and family want to support you, but they don't want to ask you every week or every month, and people do sometimes forget.

It's hard after six months or so to continually say, "I still don't have a job," but you have to keep repeating it. more

Career development

 1d

Enabling Career Development in the Self-Storage Industry


In today's self-storage workplace, the term "career development" is widely used but can mean different things. In a traditional sense, it relates to climbing the corporate ladder, earning higher pay and gaining better benefits. However, expectations have shifted. Employees now view growth through a broader lens, seeking opportunities to learn new skills, take on greater responsibilities, build... meaningful relationships, grow behaviorally and gain leadership experience.

Whether you operate two self-storage facilities or 200, your team members want chances to advance. In a competitive labor market, investing in employee growth isn't just a perk, it's a strategic necessity. It helps reduce turnover and reliance on external hiring and fulfills people's natural desire to improve.

Self-storage employers who embrace a thoughtful approach to career progression enjoy longer employee tenure, stronger internal talent pipelines and more consistent property performance. The best part? Any business, regardless of size, budget or structure, can implement a framework for advancement and enjoy these rewards.

The Human Side of Career Development

The human side of team growth is critical and can't be ignored. Any professional-development framework should take into account the tools you have to shape employee behaviors and address what team members need to feel committed to your self-storage organization.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs reminds us that people must feel prepared, supported and safe before they can truly grow. Addressing these foundational needs -- such as fair pay, job stability and a safe workplace -- sets the stage for meaningful progress and long-term success.

In self-storage, many employees begin in hourly or entry-level roles, often without much exposure to structured career paths. For them to focus on growth, they first need to trust their team and feel that trust is mutual. Building that foundation is what sets the stage for real development. Here are the key elements:

Safety. You must ensure that your self-storage workplace is physically and psychologically safe. Is there security? Are proven policies and procedures in place? How are mistakes handled? Does the company offer health and wellness resources?

A sense of belonging. During the first 90 to 120 days of employment, focus on integrating new team members operationally and culturally to help them feel secure and supported. Growth-oriented individuals often seek to establish meaningful relationships (personal and professional) to expand their networks. Consider how you can actively engage team members and help them broaden their connections within the organization.

Self-esteem and -actualization. While advancement is often seen as the primary path to career growth, there's a saying: "Up is not the only way." Team members can feel empowered through avenues that go beyond traditional promotion, such as skill-building, taking on new challenges or contributing in meaningful ways within their current roles.

Companies often underestimate their influence of these fundamentals on a team member's progress. When their basic needs are met, employees can focus on performance. When they feel a sense of belonging and esteem, they're better prepared for leadership. And when pathways for growth are clear, they pursue advancement with confidence.

To ensure transparency, consistency and fairness in your self-storage company's growth opportunities, it's important to establish a clear philosophy and begin with a straightforward career-development framework. Below are six essential building blocks.

Comprehensive Compensation

Growth within your self-storage company starts with stability. You can provide this by clearly defining starting salaries and maximum earning potential for each role. This helps employees understand where they stand and what they can achieve financially.

Staff also need to know how much bonus income they can earn by meeting specific performance metrics, which can motivate them to excel. Present a comprehensive compensation framework that includes valued benefits like paid time off, health insurance, education assistance and other perks.

Additionally, highlight incentives tied to certifications or leadership-development programs. This is particularly impactful in the self-storage industry, where facility managers frequently function as business owners of their sites. Knowing what the next level looks like -- financially and operationally -- provides direction, reduces uncertainty and reinforces how their needs will be met.

Clear Career Pathways

To help your self-storage employees visualize their future, outline clear career pathways that show how roles evolve within your organization. Many team members start in entry-level positions and may not immediately see how they can evolve. A well-structured pathway shows them how to advance and highlights opportunities to move laterally into specialized roles that align with their interests and strengths. Here's an example of what your development layers might look like:

This structure helps team members visualize their career path -- not just upward, but also sideways into roles like training, auditing, customer experience, revenue management or marketing. It should also define the specific requirements for advancing to the next layer. For example, moving up might require completing certain training programs, achieving educational milestones, gaining years of experience or earning certifications. Employees need clarity on the milestones they must reach to achieve their goals.

Smaller self-storage operators with a simple organizational structure can focus on identifying operational gaps and helping team members develop the knowledge and skills to grow and add value to the business.

Internal Training and Development Programs

Once you know your organizational structure, you can create internal training programs tailored to each level. For inspiration, look at large companies like Amazon, Disney and McDonald's that invest heavily in programs to support career growth while adapting to evolving business needs. You can also look to large companies within the self-storage industry, like U-Haul, which has its own "university" offering online courses for personal and professional development.

The accompanying table shows an example of a self-storage career-development program and how to align it with growth opportunities.

Once you've created the program structure, you need content to support it. Creating it can be not only time-consuming but expensive to outsource; however, you can get around these challenges with internal resources or lower-cost options like:

Goal and Performance Tracking

Every self-storage team member should have measurable goals tied to facility operations and professional development. Examples of operational metrics include:

Professional-development metrics include completion of training modules, participation in leadership projects, mentorship or training hours, and aspirational goals.

Consider using a tracking system that provides a clear view of an employee's progress and quantifies the impact of these efforts on an individual and the organization. It also indicates when an employee is ready for advancement and identifies the biggest contributors.

Supervisor Investment

Career development doesn't happen in isolation. Guidance and support must come from company leadership. You can foster growth by:

Employees notice when leadership is visibly invested in their development. Their sense of belonging and esteem increases, performance improves and alignment with organizational goals becomes stronger.

Leadership-Competency Development

Making the leap from managing one self-storage facility to overseeing multiple locations requires new skills and competencies. Key shifts include:

Your company's career-development framework should be designed to gradually prepare team members for these transitions. Provide a comprehensive breakdown of the leadership competencies and attributes expected from the position such as communication, accountability, financial acumen, change management and people leadership. To ensure clarity and accessibility, it's even better to compile this information into a leadership-development manual team members can reference at any time.

The Best Investment

Career development in the self-storage industry isn't just about promotions; it's about creating a culture of growth, learning and empowerment. By addressing foundational needs, fostering meaningful relationships and providing clear pathways for advancement, you can build a framework that nurtures talent and drives organizational success.

Professional development doesn't require perfection, it requires action. Starting small and refining over time can lead to significant results. When self-storage leaders invest in their teams and integrate growth into the company culture, employees thrive and the business becomes more resilient and competitive in an ever-evolving industry.

Whitney Hamm is the executive vice president of people for Spartan Investment Group LLC, a self-storage development, management and real estate firm that operates the FreeUp Storage brand. With 15 years of experience, Hamm is responsible for ensuring that the company's operations run smoothly and providing a good experience for the team. She's dedicated to supporting Spartan in pursuit of its mission, vision, values and cultural goals. To reach her, email [email protected] or connect with her on LinkedIn. more

Richard Sabol


Career development 4d
I work as a gardener and groundskeeper worker at an apartment complex. I take care of the landscaping, order new plants and keep the flower beds looking nice. After this winter two of our four Japanese plum trees died because of the cold. I covered and protected them the same way I always do. So I don't think it was my fault.
Now the management wants me to pay for the two trees. Replacing them... would cost almost my salary. What can I do to protect myself and avoid paying for something that wasn't my fault? I like my job and don't want to lose it.

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Career development

 1d

Singaporeans share shocking job interview red flags that made them walk away: 'The interviewer told me they're going to work me like a slave'


SINGAPORE: Most people only spot a company's "red flags" after they've already started the job, but career coach Amanda Augustine, a resident expert at Resume.ai, says candidates can actually pick up on warning signs during the interview itself.

Speaking to CNBC, Augustine said that no matter how attractive a job looks on paper or how solid the company's reputation is, a bad interview experience... can be a preview of what's to come. In her words, if the interview and hiring process already feels off, chances are the day-to-day work won't be much better once you're in.

She pointed out a few things to watch for: hiring managers who can't clearly explain the role, interviewers who dodge tough questions, or a visibly tense workplace during in-person visits.

Her advice is for candidates to take these signals seriously and decide if the company is really the right fit.

Meanwhile, Singaporeans have also been sharing their own "red flags" and interview horror stories online, after a Reddit user, "Medical_Lecture_5922," posted on the r/asksg forum, asking: "What's the biggest red flag you've seen during a job interview?"

They then shared their own experience, writing: "During an interview, I asked why the position was vacant. The interviewer laughed and said, 'You're actually replacing the third person in this role this year.' He meant it as a joke, but the room went awkwardly silent after that."

The interviewer practically talked them out of taking the job

In the thread, one Redditor shared what might be the most confusing interview of all time.

Instead of selling the role, the interviewer spent half an hour listing all the reasons they should avoid it.

"The interviewer spent 30 mins telling me why I shouldn't join their company. Tell me they're going to work me like a slave, they're understaffed, things like that. The day after the interview, they rejected me. Waste of my time."

A hiring manager wouldn't let them finish a sentence

Another user recalled interviewing at a well-known local investment firm, where the hiring manager kept cutting them off

"The hiring manager kept interrupting me (quite rudely too, like 'ok ok ok no. no. stop') and trying to make me say the 'correct' answer. He was clearly looking for textbook answers, and at one point, he said, 'I like you, so I'm trying to help you.'

"That's not how investing works, and I could never work under someone who thinks otherwise. Was a blessing in disguise, though, ended up at a much better shop with an amazing boss and being paid much more."

HR manager fell asleep during the interview

One candidate said they had already explained to HR that they were applying for jobs because they had been laid off.

"The HR called me and asked me the reason I was applying. I decided to be honest and said I was laid off, thinking she would just acknowledge it and move on. Nope. She probed for how many months and all even though I wasn't comfortable. Was it 2 months...? Was it 3 months...? Was it 4...? I kinda brushed her off with a yeah..yeah."

During the interview itself, however, they were stunned when the HR manager appeared to fall asleep on camera.

"Like point blank, video on, head nodding and all. Just never snore only. There were only 3 people in the call, I was quite dumbfounded."

The candidate added that despite being promised an update within a week, they never heard back.

"Didn't get emailed the result of the interview," they said. "At that point, I was indifferent already. Championship calibre HR lady."

When "flexible role" means doing absolutely everything

One Redditor said they noticed that the job duties being discussed during the interview looked very different from the ones listed in the job advertisement.

"I asked them about the difference, and they were like, 'this is a all-can-do job,' which basically means they'll pay less, but you've got to do everything not stated in the job description."

They were asked an astrology question

Another user shared a rather unconventional interview experience that took place at a café.

Instead of discussing skills, experience, or career goals, the interviewer asked for their sun sign, moon sign, and rising sign to assess their personality.

"It was an informal interview at a cafe," they said. "The interview lasted so long, the cafe kicked us out (politely)."

We are like family here

One user shared that during an interview for their first job after university, the hiring team told them that the company was like a "family."

Back then, they took it as something warm and reassuring and accepted the offer, thinking it meant a supportive workplace. They stayed for three years... and quickly realised it wasn't exactly the wholesome "family" vibe they were sold.

"During that three years, so many people left. Some even came after me and left a few months later. Incompetent boss, unwilling to take feedback, SOP kept changing, backstabbing colleagues. Yeah, they sounded normal to some of you, but as my first job, I didn't feel that was normal."

Lack of professionalism

Another commenter brought up a different kind of red flag: pure lack of professionalism from the start. They said a hiring manager scheduled a video interview in the evening, then just didn't show up and later said he forgot. It got rescheduled to a weekend, but the same thing happened again. When the interview finally did happen, the manager reportedly turned up in a singlet.

"The boss clearly just played soccer/ was exercising and said, 'Oh, this is a screening call to see if I'm suitable for the firm,' as I looked at him in my office attire. Total lack of any decency and professionalism and a waste of my time."/TISG more

Career development

 1d

Intern's Incredible Work Ethic Backfires After Manager Accuses Them of Trying to 'Oust' the Staff


If you ever did an internship, you'll know how weirdly peripheral it can feel. You're employed, but not permanently. You're part of a company, but are you really? You're being trusted with jobs, but are they really important jobs or are they just tasks that no one else wants to do? And are you even being paid? Well it depends on the company, but if you are it's not likely to be much at... all.

However, as they say, internships could be your ticket to something much bigger. Maybe it's a rite of passage, maybe it's an underpaid role taking advantage of those privileged enough to even take them up - but at the very least, they give you some solid work experience for your resumé. So when the intern in this story landed a role in a bank office they were excited to get started, and with their future firmly ahead of them, they put everything into their work. Eventually the managers even took notice, but the hard work that they were doing? Well it might not have had such positive consequences after all.

Read on to find out what happened.

I am a temporary intern at a bank office.

After a month in, I kicked *** at my job and completed everything they wanted me to do, everything they hired me to do.

So one morning I showed up to work (fifteen minutes late) and I arrived to an empty office.

I meandered over to my desk and there was a sticky note on my monitor that told me there was a meeting going on in the conference room. Great.

Let's see what happened when this intern arrived late to the meeting.

I went over to the conference room and entered just as the department boss was talking. I'm shy and everyone was looking at me: not the best thing to calm my nerves.

I was directed to walk across the room to sit, and all the while all eyes were on me.

I sat down and the boss continued his conversation.

Basically what he said was I made all my coworkers look bad because I outperformed and set the new office standard for work ethic. Hooray for me, right? Wrong.

Uh-oh. Read on to find out what happened next.

When the boss left, the supervisor put the spotlight on me in a room full of people.

My supervisor thanked me, and I was too scared to thank him or say anything. I was frozen with fear like a deer in headlights.

I ended up looking down at the ground without saying a word. I looked dumb and that was incredibly embarrassing.

I left that room and everything went back to normal... I just worry about what my coworkers thought.

It's great that this intern has already made such an impression at the company.

However, it sucks that the boss put them on the spot like that, embarrassing them in front of everyone.

If the work culture isn't great and full of kind people, this could also turn their colleagues against them.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who is told to work a holiday without overtime pay, and how they ended up getting their money.

This person thought that they'd done well, but their management had done terribly.

And others called out the manager for not considering the shy intern's nature.

Meanwhile, this Redditor pointed out that doing a lot of work can sometimes be a negative thing.

If this intern is already showing up the full time permanent colleagues at the company, then they are clearly doing something right. It's great for the intern's resumé and future job prospects that they've already impressed - and even though they might not have enjoyed the feedback at the time, it's at least a sign that they are valued, even if they just work there temporarily. That's no bad thing, since there's a good chance that if they are a good fit for the company, they might be offered a more permanent job down the line.

But the irony of walking in fifteen minutes late to this sort of praise is hilarious, albeit presumably mortifying for the intern. For introverts and shy folk, we don't like being called out in front of everyone, even when it's for a positive thing, and we certainly don't like having a whole room full of eyes on us. It's a shame that the manager chose to give the intern praise in this way though, rather than in a way that might have been more personally preferable, since a good manager would actually consider the employee first.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee whose dietary restrictions caused the whole office to turn against her. more

Career development

 1d

programmer struggling through months of failed interviews walks into technical interview convinced he's about to embarrass himself, leaves with a job offer and higher salary: 'i start on monday'


Have job interviews become so brutal that a normal conversation feels surprising?

We can all agree that having a job interview is pretty nerve-racking. Being sat there, waiting for the managers or recruiters to come, it's just unpleasant. There are people out there who know exactly how to handle those moments, whereas others prefer to avoid them as much as possible. When it comes to interviews,... I'm pretty chill. I try to be myself and hope for the best.

I'm not going to lie: of course, I get nervous, and more often than not, it's the event of my day. No matter what I'm doing before or after the interview, I won't stop thinking about it, play speeches in my head, and prepare myself for the weirdest and most twisted questions (that no one really ever asks, to be honest). Needless to say, when I read this story, I totally relate.

If you've been unemployed for a while, or maybe just job searching, interviews are everything. You put so much expectation on them, and on yourself, that you forget they are not only meeting you: you are meeting them, too. I read somewhere that one thing that helps calm your nerves before an interview is understanding that you're interviewing them as well. You have to focus on the company, what they have to offer you, the salary expectation, etc.

I think that, in the end, it's just a normal conversation you're having with a stranger. Nothing crazy. Think about it like small talk. And if everything goes wrong, you just blew the whole thing, you are most likely never going to see them again. So, there's nothing really to lose.

A piece of advice I have for you is to treat interviews as actual practice. Even if you're happy with your current job and don't feel like changing anything, having one interview every couple of months will be helpful if you're ever in the job market again. And I think that is going to really help you see that they are just a conversation, and there's nothing to be afraid of. more

Career development

 2d

The University as Giant App


LARB publishes daily without a paywall as part of our mission to make rigorous, incisive, and engaging writing on every aspect of literature, culture, and the arts freely accessible to the public. Help us continue this work with your tax-deductible donation today!

THEO BAKER'S NEW memoir How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University has drawn unusual attention for a first... book by a previously unknown author, written mostly when he was in his first two years as an undergraduate at Stanford. It is not an SAT-to-riches saga, however; Baker's parents are seasoned New York Times reporters who met when they were at The Washington Post, and Baker himself is a product of Phillips Academy (a.k.a. Andover). He has already brushed off charges that he is a nepo baby. Still, someone who can refer to Professor Robert Reich of Labor Department fame as "Rob Reich" and who can get numerous scientists, lawyers, and journalists to assist his meteoric career at The Stanford Daily certainly reminds us that man does not live by résumés alone.

This catchily titled book, groomed for outsize success, betrays the avuncular touch of a village of Baker fans, from The New York Times to Penguin Press, and from the Stanford quad to Berkeley's Sproul Plaza. He is a Master of the Universe, disguised as a stressed-out, crusading, geeky Jewish kid who coded his way into Stanford and stumbled his way into a best-selling book, a major journalistic award, and national recognition by the time he was 21 years old. The book itself offers a deep dive into Stanford's role as Silicon Valley's tech incubator, a sunlit paradise of Geeks and Greeks. Baker fetishizes Stanford -- its hugely wealthy, stunning campus, its excellence as the national temple of silicon sana in corpore sano -- but he also shows us how venal, fake, immoral, and extractive its heart really is. How to Rule the World offers us the racy joys of television shows like Mad Men or Suits, with a good dose of The Social Network thrown in. There is something oddly retro about its style and about the Stanford it depicts. But this retro aesthetic slowly unfolds into something altogether darker.

The voice at times reminds me of an earlier cult classic in American literature, J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951), with Baker as Holden Caulfield teleported to Stanford in 2022. He is the all-knowing misfit, the spotter of phonies, the artist as young preppie. He has a mordant wit, and his target is adult pretense in every form, from faux socialites to fake bohemians, from insecure debutantes to Ivy League big men. Baker brings Caulfield's adolescent dyspepsia to the brand-conscious insider terminology, casual hedonism, and barely concealed greed of the most admired students and faculty at Stanford.

This slouchy, self-aware form of retro reportage fits the Stanford milieu in an eerie way, since the university itself, in Baker's vignettes, feels as if it is still stuck in the Eisenhower fifties. It is astoundingly conformist, claustrophobically cheerful, overwhelmingly white in spirit if not in demographics, and tightly regulated in the way that Disneyland, with its special brand of crew-cut good cheer and manicured good behavior, also is. Baker stresses how much Stanford invests in its physical beauty, its extensive panoramas and reality TV gestalt.

The midcentury morphing of the university's reputation from clubby regional institution to national powerhouse is crucially connected with Frederick Terman, dean of the engineering school and later provost, often referred to as "the father of Silicon Valley" because of his role in the university-industry partnership that turned the region into a global digital hub, whose career at Stanford extended for two decades after the end of World War II. One of my own siblings (long deceased) was at Stanford as a graduate student in political science in the early 1960s, and his letters to us offered glimpses of a university that was well on its way to shedding its image as a mostly white, conservative, Republican school for young Californians who wished to read Plato while enjoying fraternity parties. The playgrounds for its trustees were places like what was then known as "Squaw Valley," while fraternity parties still had themes like "Pearl Harbor," with fake tanks and camouflage for decor. Stanford students already spoke about their school as being more "bitchin'" than Harvard, and though the university was not yet the Skunk Works for Silicon Valley, the idea that it was a tech-driven alternative to the Ivy League had already taken root.

This Cold War version of Stanford was best symbolized by the Hoover Institution, which gradually became -- and remains -- a quasi-independent center for the study of the conservative angle on war, diplomacy, and international strategy. It remains the university's political beacon (as Hoover Tower is the heart of the campus), blessing and legitimizing the pedagogical investment in digital funding and innovation. Its current director is Condoleezza Rice, who embodies a tradition of fellows, visitors, and scholars that has included Ronald Reagan, George Shultz, and Milton Friedman. It is a living mecca of conservative thought, with remarkable autonomy under the broad Stanford umbrella. The Hoover Institution does not play a big role in Baker's book, but Rice does make a cameo appearance, showing that the military-industrial alliance still thrives at Stanford and provides ballast for the valley's tech adventurism.

¤

I saw a more mature version of this environment during my stay at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in 1984-85. Created in the 1950s as an independent center for sabbatical time for scholars around the country, CASBS was on Stanford land, and became slowly absorbed by the university, of which it is now a fully owned subsidiary. Poised on a hillside overlooking the campus, it had the feeling of an academic dude ranch, with fine food and a nice volleyball court, ideal for a carefully curated cohort of about 40 scholars per year. We lived in various quarters, had access to the university's recreational and library facilities, and were treated as honored sojourners in the suburban delights of Palo Alto.

What I could already see at the time was that Stanford did not hew to the model of Caltech, MIT, and other tech powerhouses that did a lot of work for the Pentagon and whose business models depended on those close ties to military research. Stanford broke this mold and was rapidly becoming a new species of institution, neither a private university nor a fully independent industrial research facility. It was a hybrid, a kind of breeder campus for Silicon Valley, with a growing indifference to the boundaries between its academic and technological functions. Industry powered its enormous wealth, and academic rankings and star faculty were this emperor's new clothes, fig leaves to disguise the school's primary function as a high-tech incubator. But what Stanford has become over the last half century is more than merely that, more than market-focused innovation and digital venture capital. It has become a breeder of students with the Right Stuff, what Baker calls the "Stanford inside Stanford," the superbright students who inhabit the school's secret clubs, keep its tightest gates, and scan freshmen for hidden signs of being the next unicorn. You enter this meta-club as a freshman or sophomore, because the VCs, whose spotters and touts comb the campus, believe that no one can show these superhuman qualities once they are juniors or seniors. By then, they are already helots.

Baker offers a shockingly frank look at a campus that is as tightly governed as a Siberian labor camp -- one perhaps designed by Sergey Brin. Baker reveals the extraordinary lengths to which the administrators go to guard against the smallest chances of drunken, bawdy, or intemperate forms of student life, making a simple campus party harder to organize than a political rally. Consent forms, monitors, and cameras lurk everywhere, and solicitous peers and proctors, like neighborhood grandmas in communist East Germany, report on any behavior likely to taint Stanford's reputation as the dedicated petri dish for Silicon Valley's finest. What Baker details is the stifling reality of Stanford's "War on Fun," the other side of its endless sunshine.

Once again, there is a literary preview of this type of sunny gulag, in Kazuo Ishiguro's heartbreaking 2005 novel Never Let Me Go, in which a sylvan British boarding school called Hailsham harbors students who are really clients cloned to be organ donors. The Ishiguro story was triggered for me by Baker's images of Stanford as a grooming machine, a segregated educational bubble under the techno-eugenic gaze of the likes of Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Elon Musk, and Sam Altman. In this pseudo-academic paddock, pronatalism, life extension, genetic engineering, and AI enjoy a high degree of co-produced credibility. Superrace ideologies, new-wave bionics, and new forms of social Darwinism are easy to read in Baker's sketches of his Stanford classmates, not to mention the faculty, trustees, and unicorn spotters who define and control the Stanford inside Stanford. In this respect, Baker's book is a terrifying act of whistleblowing.

Yet a reader might lose this thread in the more life-size villainy displayed in Baker's battle against Marc Tessier-Lavigne, the president of Stanford from 2016 to 2023, a golden boy of scientific research, administrative leadership, and scholarly prestige. Baker, as a Stanford freshman, threw himself into a massive journalistic effort to show that MTL (as Baker refers to him) was involved in an extended series of scientific frauds. These accusations had been swept under the rug by friends, peers, donors, science journal editors, and university leaders, many of whom enabled MTL to deflect criticism until Baker, writing for The Stanford Daily, got his teeth into him. The narrative of Baker's battle to air the full story of MTL's ethical and fiduciary bankruptcy, and the latter's concerted efforts to throw money and lawyers at Baker and silence those who gave him information, advice, and support, is reason alone to read this book.

MTL himself comes off as vaguely android -- perfectly programmed, never frazzled, a supercharged Master of Science. Baker catches him with his mask down a few times, but only fleetingly. Fired by the Stanford trustees when he became a ticking time bomb threatening the university's biggest asset, its winner-take-all reputation, MTL moved on to promote and lead his own company, Xaira Therapeutics, which raised one billion dollars in 2024, with barely a murmur from its heavyweight Bay Area investors about its founder's tainted scientific record.

What Baker shows beyond any quibbling is that the beating heart of Stanford is its near monopoly on the New Silicon Man, its breeder reactor for the production of unicorns. Every one of these exceptional creatures stands out against the backdrop of a vast army of impostors, wannabes, and failures, who rush seasonally into dreary back offices where they code, test, and market digital products. They arise from the lumpen corps of middle school geeks, leaping into view amid the sunlight of freshman year, and unless they are enormously lucky, they vanish soon after into the murky waters from which they first emerged.

But wait, is Stanford not excellent at everything, including the arts, history, sociology, and competitive athletics, not to mention landscaping, health facilities, and hackathons for the digitally gifted? Theo Baker certainly affirms the Stanford drive to be the best in everything, the Delta Force of the academy. Does this soften his troubling picture of the Stanford inside Stanford, the monomaniacal engine for Silicon Valley's need and greed? It does not. Baker is clear that his biggest scoop is not the investigative work that helped him take down a presidential phony but his risky story about the fatal embrace between the university and Silicon Valley. Considered in that context, the humanities departments and all the other nonengineering fields have value because without them, Stanford would crash in the rankings and become just a vocational school for the digital market.

This is, of course, not a concern unique to Stanford. MIT, Caltech, and Johns Hopkins are all technical powerhouses that feed and nurture their poor cousins in the social sciences and humanities for fear of turning into Georgia Tech or the Thunderbird School of Global Management. Specializing in any form of technological education without the full spectrum of the liberal arts can open a university to comparisons with trade schools in blue-collar fields like optometry and paramedical work, with which no elite academic institution wishes to be associated.

¤

Baker finds himself drawn into the world of his parents and discovers that he is addicted to investigative journalism. Pursuing stories, conducting cloak-and-dagger interviews, and flirting with high-end litigation are more attractive to him than the benefits of membership in the Stanford inside Stanford, to which he also has reliable access. Addressing Stanford's self-positioning as the supreme site of Silicon Valley capitalist realism, and rehearsing his campaign against a former president's scientific fraud, would have been more than enough to make this book a nonfiction blockbuster. What Baker may not have intended, however, is the melancholy allegory his book suggests.

This allegory involves, quite simply, the overwhelming dominance of capital -- or just plain filthy lucre -- at Stanford. Swelling endowments, the endless filling of undergraduate stockings by Silicon Valley VCs, unlimited slush funds and personal gifts for promising freshmen, and bottomless social funds for geek hackathons and promotions all float in an ambient mythology of galactic profits and status orgies. The cars, homes, and personal possessions of the valley aristocracy exceed those of any other zip code, class fragment, or campus ecology in the United States. The Bay Area has surpassed New York City in the number of its billionaires (somewhere between 50 and 60), and virtually all of them have tech roots and traceable ties to the Stanford ecosystem. The remarkable wealth disparities produced by the tech aristocracy have prompted a shift away from conspicuous consumption (whose dynamics were so ably analyzed by that erstwhile Stanford sociologist Thorstein Veblen) to what one luxury realtor has called "stealth wealth," in which home sales have become hard to trace and total privacy, especially for the super-wealthy, is the new meta-commodity.

The untiring fantasy of infinite wealth is written into the cultural constitution of the United States, but its historical variations are considerable. The robber barons, the junk bond kings, and the showbiz elites all make, display, and justify their money differently. It is tempting to connect Donald Trump, his family, and his cronies to the cult of wealth in Silicon Valley, for which Stanford is a feeder and breeder. Both have a megalomaniac, Übermensch ethic, and both appear to worship means over ends. But this convergence can mislead. Trump's wealth and the ethic that drives it are anchored in the so-called "art of the deal," a negotiation that might lead to a contract (or not). It is a zombie token of success that can be parlayed into other deals, large sums of money accruing as the collateral benefit of an endless pyramid of deals.

By contrast, Stanford, as a seedbed for Silicon Valley, operates on the basis of the term sheet, the quintessential tool of the venture capital market that underpins digital innovation. The term sheet is a bet on the future potential of a tech idea, often a piece of software, and of the "terms" under which investors and the start-up founder agree to share their spoils and monetize their interests over time. It is the VC version of a prenup. Baker reports that Stanford freshmen and sophomores who acquire a reputation as supersmart are offered term sheets as well as large start-up funds without even having any specific tech ideas. The bet is on the jockey, not on the horse. Trump's ventures, on the other hand, are simply con jobs, scams that count on "deals" to evaporate before they become binding contracts. To put it in the language of capitalist gluttony, term sheets are appetizers, while deals are the main course. Term sheets are speculative devices in a market searching for black swans, while Trump's money mania is about fixing the market for white swans.

¤

So why should Baker's book unsettle us? What's wrong with a powerhouse of a university being joined at the hip to the newest frontier of the American dream? What's wrong with a winner-take-all school feeding a winner-take-all economy? What's wrong with being the filter and the gate to the money and excitement of Silicon Valley?

We can leave aside the usual laundry list of complaints about Stanford's (and Silicon Valley's) wealth, privilege and exclusivity, and their implications for hierarchies of race, class, and gender. We do not need Theo Baker to serve as our muckraker on these subjects since the truly dystopian possibilities lie elsewhere. The chilling subtext of Baker's book is the impression it conveys of Stanford as a piece of advanced pronatalist technology designed to create the optimal laboratory conditions for selecting, grooming, and developing a remarkable class of quasi-adults. These actants can then be assigned to the most exclusive tech hubs (such as Xaira Therapeutics) to create the advanced biomedical tools to further enhance the life chances and cultural dominance of the very class from which they were initially picked. Is this meritocracy, or clonocracy?

It might be argued that Silicon Valley, like the army, the church, and the American Bar Association, is free to identify, recruit, and train new members as they please. What kind of a university is this, then? A metaphor comes to mind. Stanford is the harbinger of the university-as-giant-app, a networked series of buildings, professors, classrooms, donors, faculty, trustees, and back-office staff designed to turn out a small but predictable number of next-generation tech titans. Like other apps, it feels like a highly engineered tool geared to customer convenience, though only a carefully selected group of human beings is allowed to use the program -- and the real operator is Silicon Valley itself, whose screen taps summon the Stanford within Stanford, fresh from the warehouse. more

Career development

 2d

Employers to college students: Never mind that 4.0 GPA. Go out and get a summer job.


College students with any sort of work experience on their résumés are twice as likely to be employed shortly after graduating

Working "in any capacity" during college is "the single strongest predictor of post-graduation employment," according to a recent ZipRecruiter report.

Hiring managers say many applicants for entry-level jobs today lack a critical element on their résumés: work experience... of any sort.

"Any time a résumé is decorated with experience - regardless of what they've done - that will stand out more than the person who is next in line with no experience at all," said Bill Shafransky, a senior wealth adviser at Moneco Advisors in Fairfield, Conn., who has reviewed applications for internships and entry-level hires.

'I can teach somebody how to do a financial spreadsheet. I can teach someone how to do financial modeling. I can't teach somebody how to be personable. I can't teach effort.'Bill Shafransky, Moneco Advisors

Even unrelated, low-skill jobs on a résumé can be valuable for entry-level candidates, reflecting an eagerness to work hard and succeed, Shafransky told MarketWatch. "I can teach somebody how to do a financial spreadsheet. I can teach someone how to do financial modeling. I can't teach somebody how to be personable. I can't teach effort."

Related: I spent months waiting for the perfect job after college. It's one of my biggest regrets.

The share of American students who have jobs has been declining for decades, as many shifted their focus to academics and extracurricular activities. While 30.5% of high-school students and 46.4% of full-time college students were employed in 1993, by 2024, those figures had fallen to 19.8% and 41.4%, respectively, according to the most recent government employment data.

In a 2026 survey by ZipRecruiter, 16% of graduating students and 9% of recent grads had not worked for pay at any point during college.

For many, the decision not to work places them at a significant disadvantage when they graduate into today's competitive job market, where some employers are requiring three to five years of experience even for entry-level jobs.

Others who want to work say getting a foot in the door has been difficult. Teens and parents of teens told MarketWatch that young workers rarely hear back about entry-level service jobs, for instance in food service, unless they have a personal introduction or connection to the employer.

And teens are competing with older workers for similar jobs: People aged 25 and over accounted for 56.9% of minimum-wage workers in 2024.

From the archives (June 2025): Teens from upper-income families are far more likely to work summer jobs than poor teens. What's going on?

Working "in any capacity" during college is "the single strongest predictor of post-graduation employment," a recent ZipRecruiter report concluded.

In ZipRecruiter's survey, 81.6% of recent college grads with work experience - whether that's an internship, part-time job, full-time job, apprenticeship or gig work - were employed shortly after graduating, compared with 40.7% of those who had no experience. Those with experience were also nearly twice as likely, at 20.8%, to have landed a role before receiving their diploma compared with those who didn't work, at 12.7%.

The unemployment rate for recent college graduates has been elevated in recent years, hitting 5.6% in March, compared with an average of 4.2% for all workers, according to the New York Fed. Another 41.5% are underemployed, meaning they are working in jobs that typically do not require a college degree.

'Don't wait until graduation. The earlier you get into a real work environment, the better positioned you'll be.'Sneha Puri, Indeed

"When you're looking at the lost opportunity for an 18-year-old not getting a summer job at an ice-cream stand or whatever it may be, having experience on a resume is extremely important in trying to begin a career," ZipRecruiter economist Nicole Bachaud said.

"Don't wait until graduation. The earlier you get into a real work environment, the better positioned you'll be," said Sneha Puri, an economist at Indeed. "Work experience before graduating allows you to build skills that are hard to replicate in a classroom."

Related: How teens can turn a summer job into an extra $500,000 in savings when they're older

Why employers look for work experience even for entry-level jobs

Karolyn Leonard, global director of talent acquisition at the marketing company Tms, said her company received almost 700 applications for 36 internship positions this year. More than half of the applicants had some work experience on their résumés, including jobs in food service, other internships or being a student-athlete.

"You want to hire somebody who has had some sort of experience dealing with a manager or co-workers. It's helpful to understand if people have been on a team before" and "have that dependability and reliability," she said.

The company also considers a candidate's grade point average and whether they are studying something related to the position.

Other ways younger candidates can stand out

Still, "not everybody has the ability to go to college and do an internship," Leonard acknowledges. Extracurriculars that "highlight team leadership, whether it's in a sorority or fraternity, or the newspaper, certainly help us see that those individuals are motivated and are more likely to succeed," she said.

In the latest survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, 17% of graduating seniors did not participate in an internship or other experiential learning program (such as an apprenticeship, co-op position, study abroad, faculty-led research project, on-campus student work or clinical experience).

For those looking for a place to start, an Indeed post identified dozens of jobs that often don't require prior experience, such as data-entry clerk, veterinary assistant and customer-service representative.

And some teens are turning to entrepreneurship to fill the gap - starting their own car-detailing or landscaping business, for instance. Survey data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor found that Americans ages 18 to 24 are starting businesses at higher rates than older generations.

Leonard also emphasized the importance of practicing networking skills starting at an early age. "Whether it's your friends, your parents, your parents' friends, your parents' co-workers - there's a lot of people out there who can help you," she said. And even if they don't know of any opportunities, "a lot of people are open to just giving some advice."

Need advice on a money-related issue in your life? MarketWatch's Dollar Signs advice column is here for you. Submit questions anonymously here or write to us at dollarsigns@marketwatch.com.

-Venessa Wong

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

06-20-26 1020ET Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. more

Career development

 2d

Are students simultaneously overqualified and underprepared?


A hiring manager recently described a common campus recruitment situation. A student with an impressive résumé including certifications in data analytics, digital marketing, AI tools, and academic competitions appeared exceptional on paper but struggled to frame a messy, real-world business problem without a clear answer.

Underprepared

This is increasingly common across industries. Indian... graduates may be the most credentialed generation yet, with résumés full of courses, specialisations, and digital certifications but many are underprepared for professional realities. According to the India Skills Report 2025, about 54.8% of Indian graduates are considered employable, a modest improvement from roughly 51% the previous year. This contradiction lies at the heart of India's employability paradox: why are students accumulating qualifications faster than their readiness for work is improving?

Part of the answer lies in credential inflation. With the expansion of online learning platforms and short-term certification programmes, students today have unprecedented access to specialised courses. In principle, this democratisation of knowledge is positive. However, the speed with which credentials are accumulated sometimes outpaces the depth with which knowledge is absorbed.

Students may complete modules in analytics, marketing automation, or fintech tools. But when faced with real organisational challenges such as analysing declining customer retention or designing a market-entry strategy, the application of that knowledge often becomes difficult.

Challenges

When recruiters discuss employability gaps, they rarely begin with complaints about technical knowledge. Most graduates today possess basic familiarity with digital tools and management frameworks. The challenge lies elsewhere.

The first is problem framing. Many students are trained to solve structured questions with clearly defined problems but organisational challenges rarely arrive in neat formats. A decline in sales may involve pricing, customer behaviour, supply-chain issues, and internal coordination, all of which require analytical maturity that exam-driven learning rarely develops.

The next is comfort with ambiguity. The modern workplace is rarely linear. Projects evolve, information is incomplete, and solutions require experimentation. Reports such as the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs analysis rank analytical thinking, adaptability, and resilience among the most critical skills today. Yet, many graduates struggle in uncertain environments.

Then comes collaborative maturity. Working in a college group differs from collaboration within a professional organisation. Real teamwork requires negotiating viewpoints, managing disagreements, and sharing accountability ... capabilities that remain underdeveloped in formal education.

Together, these gaps highlight that a deeper insight: the employability challenge is not simply about skills, but about judgement, adaptability, and the ability to operate within complex environments.

Need for change

India's policy framework has recognised the need for change. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 calls for greater interdisciplinarity, experiential learning, and stronger academia-industry integration. Similarly, AICTE initiatives encourage internships, industry immersion, and project-based learning as core elements of higher education. But implementing these ideas requires a deeper shift in institutional thinking.

First, curricula must move beyond disciplinary silos. Real business problems rarely fall neatly into categories such as marketing, finance, or operations. Students need interdisciplinary exposure that integrates multiple perspectives while making decisions.

Second, industry engagement must become continuous rather than occasional. Guest lectures and short internships are useful but cannot be substitutes for sustained exposure to organisational challenges.

Third, institutions must create environments where reflection and iteration are valued. Students should be encouraged not only to succeed but also to analyse failure, revise assumptions, and develop resilience.

Ultimately, higher education must move beyond credential-heavy graduates to individuals who can think critically, collaborate, and adapt. As industries evolve, the true measure of education is not certificates but the depth of understanding and judgement applied to complex situations.

Resolving India's employability paradox requires a shift from qualification density to competence depth. Only when education systems prioritise this transformation will students move from being merely well-qualified to being genuinely prepared for the world they are about to enter.

The writer is President and CEO, Fortune Institute of International Business. more

Career development

 2d

Gen Z grad landed a job at LinkedIn by waitressing at a conference full of recruiters and handing out her résumé during breaks -- now she works at Google


Basant Shenouda spent six months after graduating from one of Germany's top universities sliding into recruiters' DMs on LinkedIn and applying for jobs online -- and getting ghosted. So she volunteered to waitress at a conference six hours away, where she handed her résumé to 40 recruiters and landed a job at LinkedIn. Now she's at Google.

"It is becoming harder and harder to reach the hiring... manager, even virtually -- which used to be a more nontraditional method," the Egyptian-born Gen Zer who graduated from the University of Bonn in 2019 tells Fortune. "It's incredibly hard to spotlight yourself."

It's a feeling many graduates know well. With more than a billion users on LinkedIn, overloaded recruiters are increasingly ignoring messages from strangers -- so Shenouda switched tactics, using the platform not to cold-message hiring managers, but to track which conferences they were posting about.

One event in particular stood out: Online Marketing Rockstars in Hamburg. "It's a really well-known marketing and sales conference in Germany," Shenouda recalls.

"I graduated in marketing and was looking to get into sales, so it was just the perfect place where the decision-makers I was looking to target were going to be," she explains. "People were even flying in from the U.S., so it was a good networking opportunity."

With that in mind, Shenouda volunteered to clean up glasses at the conference to gain free entry, and traveled over six hours from Cologne to Hamburg by train with a stack of résumés in hand.

During her breaks at the conference, Shenouda put her CV in front of 30 to 40 faces, with the premise that she was looking for feedback on it -- while secretly hoping her bold approach would impress just one recruitment manager. And after a six-month hiring process, it paid off.

"I was one of the only graduates at the conference, and so it was full of opportunities for me," the 29-year-old adds. "I got insight into my résumé, developed a lot of relationships face-to-face (and that was far more effective than networking online) and got my application kick-started for a couple of positions."

One of those positions was in the sales graduate scheme at LinkedIn, where Shenouda worked until 2014, climbing to the role of implementation consultant in Dublin. Now, she's got a coveted spot at Google -- and it's all thanks to volunteering to waitress where the recruiters were at, instead of waiting for a callback.

"When you're a graduate you think everyone's going to say yes to you and things are going work out. But it's a matter of building up resilience," she advises unemployed grads.

"You need to keep reassessing your process so that every no gets you closer to that next yes."

Target the employers that rejected you

There's a lot to be said for being in the right place at the right time, but Shenouda took a more targeted approach than just hoping to bump into her future employer.

Not only did she draw up a hit list of conferences that hiring managers at her dream employers were going to be at, but she also went face-to-face with those who had rejected her advances online -- LinkedIn's recruiter being one of those.

"I gained feedback from all the companies that rejected me, which allowed me to reapply and get job offers," Shenouda says.

"It really brought me a lot of insight into how I can better distinguish my applications and what gaps I needed to fill to ensure that I made it past the final interview rounds.

"Traditionally, people don't reapply; people don't keep trying and keep reaching out to people and keep maintaining a relationship.

"They [the recruiter] thought those were really good transferable skills for sales, and that's what I ended up doing."

How to convert networking into a job offer

Even if you've made every effort to ensure that you're showing up at all the places hiring managers are, it doesn't guarantee you'll actually get any leads.

Shenouda says she showed her CV to around 200 recruiters across a handful of conferences before having any luck.

Here are some tips she learned along the way to convert networking from just chitchat into something more tangible, like a job interview or offer:

1. Talk impact

Don't worry if promoting yourself to strangers doesn't come naturally. "I was really bad at networking before," Shenouda recalls. Her biggest tip? Talk metrics.

"Now I know how to get someone's attention," she says, adding that that looks like "talking about impact instead of just saying, 'I want a job.'"

Looking back at the elevator pitch that landed her her current role, the Gen Zer says she talked about her wins during a previous internship at Intel.

Likewise, don't be afraid to outline what you want following a conversation with a recruiter.

"I'd always ask the specific question: if they can refer me (for a job), or if they have feedback based on my résumé, or my past interview experience with the company," Shenouda adds.

2. Listen

Want to know which metrics will stand out to the hiring manager at your dream job? Ask them.

"Always focusing your elevator pitch on the other person," Shenouda says.

It may sound counterintuitive to use the few minutes you have to pitch yourself to turn the attention on the recruiter's needs -- but it's a surefire way to closely align your message with what they're looking for.

"If they say they're looking for people who can achieve something like a particular project, make sure you're speaking that language," Shenouda advises.

3. Foster friendships

Even those with hiring powers are people at the end of the day, with lives outside work.

While getting straight down to business may be beneficial in the short term, for long-term alliances, it's better to forge meaningful connections.

"It's not just about networking," Shenouda notes. "It's about making friends, because that's how you get people to support you."

It's why she recommends connecting with the people you've met on social media, while your face and name are still fresh in their minds -- but don't be a stranger.

Shenouda is still in touch with a Facebook recruiter that she met at a careers event seven years ago and bonded with over their mutual affinity for weightlifting.

"The key to any career success is always the relationships you have -- that is why I have always prioritized networking outside of the traditional job-hunting method."

A version of this story originally published on April 13, 2024.

Have you used an unusual hack to break into your career? Fortune wants to hear from you. Get in touch: [email protected] more

Career development

 2d

Why first dates feel more like job interviews than romantic encounters


Dating in 2026 feels less like falling in love and more like applying for a competitive internship. You show up polished, prepared, and armed with rehearsed answers to the same questions.

The butterflies, the excitement, the anticipation of meeting someone new first dates have long been associated with romance and possibility.

Yet for many modern singles, sitting across from a potential partner... can feel less like the beginning of a love story and more like a high-stakes job interview.

Questions about career goals, financial stability, future plans, and personal values often arrive before the appetisers. Instead of simply enjoying each other's company, many people leave first dates feeling evaluated rather than appreciated.

The search for compatibility

Dating has always involved assessing whether two people are a good match. However, in today's fast-paced world, many singles are trying to determine compatibility as quickly as possible.

With busy schedules and countless dating app profiles just a swipe away, people often feel pressured to decide early whether a relationship has long-term potential. As a result, first dates become a fact-finding mission.

Questions such as "Where do you see yourself in five years?" or "Do you want children?" may seem more suited to a recruitment panel than a romantic evening, but they are increasingly common because people want clarity before investing emotionally.

Dating apps have changed expectations

The rise of dating apps has transformed how people approach romance. Before meeting in person, many individuals already know basic information about each other's interests, careers, education, and hobbies.

By the time they sit down for a first date, the focus often shifts from discovering who someone is to verifying whether they match the image created online.

The abundance of options can also create a "shopping mindset," where people feel compelled to assess potential partners quickly and efficiently. Instead of allowing chemistry to develop naturally, dates can become a checklist of qualities and deal-breakers.

Fear of wasting time

Many adults enter the dating scene with clearer relationship goals than previous generations. Whether they want marriage, children, companionship, or personal growth, they often know what they are looking for.

This clarity can be beneficial, but it also creates pressure. Some people feel they must gather as much information as possible during the first meeting to avoid investing time in someone who may not share their goals.

The result is a conversation that can feel more like an interview than an exploration of mutual attraction.

The pressure to present a perfect version of yourself

Job interviews involve selling your strengths while minimising your weaknesses. Many people unconsciously adopt the same approach on first dates.

They carefully select their outfit, rehearse answers to common questions, and highlight their accomplishments while avoiding topics that might make them seem vulnerable.

This desire to impress can create a polished but artificial interaction. Instead of getting to know one another authentically, both people may be focused on managing impressions.

What romance Is missing

The irony is that while practical questions are important, they rarely reveal the most meaningful aspects of a person. Compatibility is not only about shared goals but also about how two people make each other feel.

Humour, kindness, curiosity, emotional intelligence, and the ability to enjoy each other's company often emerge naturally when conversation flows without an agenda.

Some relationship experts argue that the best first dates balance practical considerations with genuine curiosity. Rather than treating the encounter as an assessment, they encourage people to focus on connection, shared experiences, and being present in the moment. more

Career development

 2d

Gen Z grad landed LinkedIn job by applying to waitress at conferences, then handed out her résumé during breaks | Fortune


"It is becoming harder and harder to reach the hiring manager, even virtually -- which used to be a more nontraditional method," the Egyptian-born Gen Zer who graduated from the University of Bonn in 2019 tells Fortune. "It's incredibly hard to spotlight yourself."

It's a feeling many graduates know well. With more than a billion users on LinkedIn, overloaded recruiters are increasingly ignoring... messages from strangers -- so Shenouda switched tactics, using the platform not to cold-message hiring managers, but to track which conferences they were posting about.

One event in particular stood out: Online Marketing Rockstars in Hamburg. "It's a really well-known marketing and sales conference in Germany," Shenouda recalls.

"I graduated in marketing and was looking to get into sales, so it was just the perfect place where the decision-makers I was looking to target were going to be," she explains. "People were even flying in from the U.S., so it was a good networking opportunity."

With that in mind, Shenouda volunteered to clean up glasses at the conference to gain free entry, and traveled over six hours from Cologne to Hamburg by train with a stack of résumés in hand.

During her breaks at the conference, Shenouda put her CV in front of 30 to 40 faces, with the premise that she was looking for feedback on it -- while secretly hoping her bold approach would impress just one recruitment manager. And after a six-month hiring process, it paid off.

"I was one of the only graduates at the conference, and so it was full of opportunities for me," the 29-year-old adds. "I got insight into my résumé, developed a lot of relationships face-to-face (and that was far more effective than networking online) and got my application kick-started for a couple of positions."

One of those positions was in the sales graduate scheme at LinkedIn, where Shenouda worked until 2014, climbing to the role of implementation consultant in Dublin. Now, she's got a coveted spot at Google -- and it's all thanks to volunteering to waitress where the recruiters were at, instead of waiting for a callback.

"When you're a graduate you think everyone's going to say yes to you and things are going work out. But it's a matter of building up resilience," she advises unemployed grads.

"You need to keep reassessing your process so that every no gets you closer to that next yes."

Target the employers that rejected you

There's a lot to be said for being in the right place at the right time, but Shenouda took a more targeted approach than just hoping to bump into her future employer.

Not only did she draw up a hit list of conferences that hiring managers at her dream employers were going to be at, but she also went face-to-face with those who had rejected her advances online -- LinkedIn's recruiter being one of those.

"I gained feedback from all the companies that rejected me, which allowed me to reapply and get job offers," Shenouda says.

"It really brought me a lot of insight into how I can better distinguish my applications and what gaps I needed to fill to ensure that I made it past the final interview rounds.

"Traditionally, people don't reapply; people don't keep trying and keep reaching out to people and keep maintaining a relationship.

"They [the recruiter] thought those were really good transferable skills for sales, and that's what I ended up doing."

How to convert networking into a job offer

Even if you've made every effort to ensure that you're showing up at all the places hiring managers are, it doesn't guarantee you'll actually get any leads.

Shenouda says she showed her CV to around 200 recruiters across a handful of conferences before having any luck.

Here are some tips she learned along the way to convert networking from just chitchat into something more tangible, like a job interview or offer:

1. Talk impact

Don't worry if promoting yourself to strangers doesn't come naturally. "I was really bad at networking before," Shenouda recalls. Her biggest tip? Talk metrics.

"Now I know how to get someone's attention," she says, adding that that looks like "talking about impact instead of just saying, 'I want a job.'"

Looking back at the elevator pitch that landed her her current role, the Gen Zer says she talked about her wins during a previous internship at Intel.

Likewise, don't be afraid to outline what you want following a conversation with a recruiter.

"I'd always ask the specific question: if they can refer me (for a job), or if they have feedback based on my résumé, or my past interview experience with the company," Shenouda adds.

2. Listen

Want to know which metrics will stand out to the hiring manager at your dream job? Ask them.

"Always focusing your elevator pitch on the other person," Shenouda says.

It may sound counterintuitive to use the few minutes you have to pitch yourself to turn the attention on the recruiter's needs -- but it's a surefire way to closely align your message with what they're looking for.

"If they say they're looking for people who can achieve something like a particular project, make sure you're speaking that language," Shenouda advises.

3. Foster friendships

Even those with hiring powers are people at the end of the day, with lives outside work.

While getting straight down to business may be beneficial in the short term, for long-term alliances, it's better to forge meaningful connections.

"It's not just about networking," Shenouda notes. "It's about making friends, because that's how you get people to support you."

It's why she recommends connecting with the people you've met on social media, while your face and name are still fresh in their minds -- but don't be a stranger.

Shenouda is still in touch with a Facebook recruiter that she met at a careers event seven years ago and bonded with over their mutual affinity for weightlifting.

"The key to any career success is always the relationships you have -- that is why I have always prioritized networking outside of the traditional job-hunting method."

A version of this story originally published on April 13, 2024. more