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"As a presidential candidate in 2020, Biden said he would pursue legislation to erase $10,000 in student debt per borrower."  - The Wall Street Journal, June 30, 2023 The 6-3 SCOTUS decision to strike down that plan raises interesting questions about the powers of the three branches of government. But meanwhile politicos are gearing up for 2024 as a general election year.  Biden himself has to worry if he will be positioned and packaged as a manipulator. Did he hold out hope to student-loan debtors some relief during the 2020 campaign and know he wouldn't be able to pull it off? So, with that hope ended will there be a massive turn-against Biden during the 2024 campaign? Also, will other liberal candidates be victims of guilt by association? How could they be part of a party which did this to those struggling financially? Conservatives could keep celebrating this victory. The wrongness of that kind of debt reduction, they can chant, is what conservative thinkiing saved Am

"Is 6-8 interviews over the span of 1-2 months just new the norm with large companies in industry? Going through the interview process with two different companies and feel like I’ve basically met ever…" -  Fishbowl Consulting, June 30, 2023 What might seem to be an excessive number of interviews had been the usual for many jobs on Wall Street. Way back when I was an assistant in a Dale Carnegie 8-week seminar and a student used that platform to prepare for each round of interviews. He did get the job. Now multiple interviews have become more standard. The difference this time around is that those put through the ordeal probably won't get the job, at least not in much of Knowledge Work. There's a glut of talent in most white-collar sectors.  There are myriad reasons why employers have adopted this ritual.  One is the uncertainty of the economy has made them uncertain about what they want in an employee - or should want.  Another is that hiring mistakes are expensive.

Like so many in professional services, the top public relations shop Edelman overhired during the epidemic. And, like so many of them it is conducting a reduction-in-force. Bible of PR O'Dwyer's PR reports that laid off will be 240, mostly those at the senior level. On LinkedIn already some of that have reset their profiles to "open to work." Among them is Brittany Young, former VP of Social Impact and Sustainability. She expresses gratitude for having been able to have been part of brilliant teams.  Head of Edelman Richard Edelman also announced that the organization is returning to the pyramid structure and making other changes to facilitate growth.  At one time in the evolution of manpower issues, it had been those with "real jobs" such as at Edelman who had the status. I recall as a new freelancer in 1987 I was asked several times why I had left corporate. After all, my work product was good.  Now there is a recognition of the unique benefits of freelan

"You can go to work. Home Depot and lots of other places have special progams for hiring seniors."  That's what I certainly wanted to say but I bit my tongue. That over-65 neighbor was balking about inflation and how she could no longer afford to buy eggs. She was retired. I was over-65 and not retired and right now I have no plan to retire.  Our near-explosive encounter has become more and more typical in this era: It is a time when the over-65 have hardened into two cultures. There are the retired and there are those working into 80s and 90s and beyond. About the latter, The Wall Street Journal documents that the number of those earning income from work who are 80 or older has grown 18% during the past decade. They total 650,000. In several years I will be part of that club. Currently I am only 70-something. A kid in this new kind of club. The tension started out mild years ago. It kicked off with annonyances that we the non-retired couldn't join the retired for tho

  PIPs - that is, Proposals to Improve Performance - are becoming standard in employee management. Because they are relatively new, at least in being so pervasive, many employees don't understand their implications.  At the top of the list of those is this: You are probably finished, even if you (rare) complete everything on the check list. You might hold onto the job  (unlikely) but even if you do you are going nowhere in the organization. As soon as PIPed, begin searching for another job. In professional services, such as law and management consulting, allegedly they are being leveraged as a legal cost-effective way to lay off staff without appearing that a reduction-in-force is taking place.  In Insider , former Vice President of Human Resources Chris Williams confirms that business common sense about PIPs. Get it, you are being forced out.  The reason does not necessarily have to do with work per se. It could be attitude or communications style or having rubbed someone in power

Among smart players there is the fundamental insight: It doesn't matter what the market is doing. It's what you're doing. After all, not everyone lost out during The Great Depression. On the one hand, M&A hasn't been recovering as many tied to dealmakng had anticipated. A sign of that have been the ongoing reductions-in-force in professional services, ranging from Wall Sreet to management consulting to law.  On the other hand, for some there has been some big action. Both law firms Paul Weiss and Kirkland & Ellis are involved in the legalities of IBM's $4.6 billion acquistion of Apptio. Founded iin 2007, Apptio provides cloud-based software to those managing IT.  As Bloomberg Law reports, Paul Weiss represents IBM. Kirkland & Ellis represents Apptio's seller Vista Equity Partners. The deal is expected to be completed during the second half of this year.  There is that cliche: A rising tide lifts all boats.  This high-profile deal can be leveraged by

  Was it naive for those in the Ohio Valley to hope? That optimism was focused on Lordstown Motors, a startup whose mission was to prodce EV vehicles. All that seemed so on trend in where the auto industry was heading. So many "good jobs" could be created.  The region did need that hope. Not so long ago GM had pulled out of town. The subcompact it was manufacturing on three shifts was no longer in demand. And we all know how the steel industry had collapsed years ago. After that, the nearby Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania metro area, which also had been built on steel, had diversified its economy. It was now growing through higher education, healthcare and tech. Essentially the Valley was stuck in time.  Now The Wall Street Journal reports that Lordstown Motors has filed for bankruptcy and is searching for a buyer. Will the mood in the region harden into despair? Or can another potential savior arrive?  2023. It’s the year of AI, along with uncertainty, inflation, war and more. Your

  "A majority of workers feel they’re fairly paid, but at the top of the list are independent workers across all industries, according to a recent survey of 2,500 American workers. The findings suggest that while earning what you think you’re worth is important, so is having some power over when and how much you work for the money." -  The Wall Street Journal,  June 26, 2023 Today we call them "freelancers." Among them is Paul Chaney whose field is communications. On the all-important  LinkedIn Profile , Chaney actually uses that term:  freelancer . Not so long ago, those watching his back would have nudged him to go by the moniker "consultant." Recently, Chaney had me as a guest on a podcast about how the over-50 (who, of course, encounter so much ageism), can freelance. It received an award from Media Dimensions. Here you listen to that  podcast  and perhaps find your own way to freelancing.  Contentment with one's work has become the new American Dr

October could be the cruelest month of all for youth. Student loan repayments resume after a three-year hiatus. The interest on all that will kick in earlier, that is, in September. Some under-40 plum won't be able to manage that. Read professional anonmyous networks such as Reddit Career Guidance and what's palpable is their financial struggle. Tough to get a job even with a supposed marketable major like software development. Tough to work at it. Toughest of all is to keep it. Simultaneously the Census documents that 650,000 over-80 are still working. They have no intention of retiring. Those are jobs and contract assignments which could have been done by those under-40, so the under-40 cry out, louder and more aggressively. And that narrative and other versions of it are quite irritating to those of us over-65 who know this: To stop working is to become irrelevant in capitalism. What the hell do they expect us to do: Schedule ourselves around the Early Bird Special and Silve

Talk to most transactional lawyers in the US (or read professional anonymous networks such as Fishbowl and Reddit) and  the  issue is: How slow M&A practices remain, at least for those struggling to find business with the usual suspects. Recovery in that niche has been predicted again and again but that really hasn't happened. Any increase in demand has been firm-specific, not throughout the sector. Therefore it makes good business common sense to go after new target markets. As  Financial Times  reports, US law firms ranging from Latham to Greenberg Traurig have already set up shop in Saudi Arabia and Kirkland & Ellis is considering it. M&A activity is brisk there. New regulations, going into effect this summer, permit foreign firms to do business there without having to form partnership with local firms. They, however, can only ship 30% or less of the assignments back to their US bases to be done by lawyers there.  The opportunity is massive. FT notes: "[Th

"WHY ARE YOU WORKING. STILL. BOOMER TAKE YOUR PENSION, GO GOLF OR BE ON A YACHT AND LET YOUNG PEOPLE MOVE UP IN THIS WORLD SO WE CAN PAY OFF OUR COLLEGE DEBTS" -  Fishbowl Consulting, June 24, 2023 The above is a response to a post is by a professional who retired from consulting but then went on to work full-time in industry. His company has been acquired. The conquerer is reviewing the three-year plan this professional created. He is worried, both about criticism and about, well, losing his job.  Of course, younger generations have no sympathy with this sort of problem. After all, they are struggling with everything.  At the top of the list is the inability to land that first job even though they have the "right" major such as software engineering.  Then there is the challenge of keeping any job, even if it is menial. With the 2023 efficiency ethos, few are safe.  Of course, student loan payments will soon resume. And who can afford to have a family. Let's not

  Business public relations is bifurcating.  On the one hand there are the titans such Elon Musk who demand to be the story. And they can get away with that. Their moves, both online and offline, provide endless entertainment.  On the other hand there are the CEOs who have been the  story and that hasn't been going well. They range from Disney's Bob Iger to Goldman Sachs' David Solomon. They could be distracting from the rest of the corporation's talent and from the products and services.  Once the role model for leadership (who hasn't read his book "The Ride of a Lifetme") Iger is now vulnerable to second guessing and downright criticism by influential media. For example,  Financial Times presents the issue of succession, which gave us Bob Chapek, as botched. Next time Iger better do that and other seminal things right or he will blow his legacy. However, his job per se seems solid as of this writing.  Not your usual Big Banking head Solomon had been outs

  The Wall Street Journal put the knock on working in Big Banking. The average managing director who doesn't oversee a group likely pulls down less than $2 million a year. In constrast, parnters in Big Law, such as Paul Weiss' Scott Barshay, can make between $15 million and $20 million annually. If they have the power their administrative duties would be limited. According to the posting and responses on Reddit Big Law Barshay has plenty of that: power. Now, there's more. The financial media is reporting how insecure those jobs are in Big Banking. The reductions-in-force continue.   Goldman Sachs is cutting loose about 125 managing directors around the world. JPMorgan Chase is laying off 40 dealmakers in North America. Once cut from the team, it's hard to get back. Everything such as models change so quickly on Wall Street. One former trader I coached had to train for another career path. Here is my article, published in O'Dwyer's Public Relations , on that dif

"Are there more layoffs and stealthing than we even realize.....meaning instead of doing a 30-man reduction at one time, there are firms who every week are just laying off an associate here, an associate there so as to try to hide around any reporting?" -   Post of Fishbowl Big Law, June 23, 2023 - Similar observations on other professional anonymous networks Business does learn. The carnage of extreme manpower cuts in 2008 - 2009 brought bad press. And then when the market began recovering it was difficult for those Big Cutters to get quality professionals to come abroad. Latham, which cut 440 in one grim day, was the classic example of that. In contrast, Paul Weiss was a hero. It didn't conduct a Reduction-in-Force.  The comments coming in to Fishbowl posts and what I am hearing through those on my networks indicate that right now there is plenty of cutting going on. However, it's done in a very clever way: a few at a time, and supposedly based on perforrmance reaso

"Kingsley Napley has pulled off the difficult trick of telling its lawyers they’ve had a terrific year, but sadly there’s no money for bonuses, and now they should catch buses instead of cabs and stop wining and dining clients at fancy restaurants." -  RollonFriday , June 23, 2023 It's not an overstatement that UK law firm Kingsley Napley had a "terrific year." Despite a tricky economy, its revenue increased 11%. That outdid the overall legal market by 4%. But yet Kinsley Napley is imposing austerity on the workforce. And it will probably get away with it. And so might your own employer try that and the odds are the business could get away with it. The dominant mindset in the workplace is fear. And that leads to risk-aversion. The Great Resgnation has shifted to The Great Stay. There is too much uncertainty, ranging from economic to technological, to change jobs or let go of a solid gig assignment. Capitalism is a brutal system so employers will exploit that com

  Today's  The Wall Street Journal  article on the big bucks made by law-firm partners - significantly more than investment bankers' compensation - might provide useful guidance for careerists and youth struggling with decisions about professional education.  Here is my summary of the coverage. However, more generally, it could function as a form of expose. That could unleash a public relations disaster for large profitable law firms. Explicitly mentioned are Kirkland & Ellis, Paul Weiss and Wachtell. Partners are earning up to $20 million each year.  To begin with, clients could be irked. They could have the Ah-Ha Moment:  So that's how much they are taking our of my hide.  Sure they need the strategies, brilliant minds and resouces of large law firms. But at 4% increase every year in already-hefty fees? Why not approach mid-sized firms to check out the pricing situation. Clients could be especially unglued if they themselves are not grossing $20 million yearly pay. Ne

  The hours are about the same in top law firms and brandname Wall Street banks. So are the pressures. So is the prestige. But recently the money situation has changed.  Top dog in compensation, documents The Wall Street Journal , are now the law firms.  Follow the history of the law-firm career path in “Servants of the Damned” by David Enrich and it is obvious that this is a relatively recent development. Essentially being a lawyer, even in an elite setting, had been a middle-class job. Not a wealth-builder. Currently if you can make it to partner or lateral in as one in the Am Law 100, you can become rich. At the law firm Paul Weiss a partner at the top of the food chain such as Scott Barshay pulls down $15 million annually. A new partner, lateraled in, but with a powerhouse brandname Rob Kindler is expected to earn north of $10 million a year. That is probably more than he had been earning at Morgan Stanley. For 2022, at Paul Weiss the Profit Per Equity Partner had been over $6 m

  The American ethos is hard work. Do that to get what you want. However, the raw reality is that the tool for getting things done and career success is influence. The chase after becoming part of the powerful networks starts pre-school, at least for offspring of seasoned players. You are your networks. Having gold-plated ones attracts invitations to join others. Yet, those contacts along the influence continuum can throw shade on a career/personal brand or actually trigger a major reversal of fortune as happened with Leon Black. Currently scrutiny of those on the Jeffrey Epstein network has extended to present and past bigwigs at JPMorgan Chase and across the ocean in the UK to Alistair Darling, former chancellor, and Peter Mandelson, former business secretary . As with Black, the carnage could be comprehensive. Already at JPMorgan Jes Staley has been forced out. More heads could roll. In the UK could this be the start of another far-reaching Profumo scandal of the 1960s? When

 Now confimed is the rumor bouncing around professional anonymous networks yesterday: Law firm Perkins Coie is delaying start date for Class of 2023 until January 2024. The exception is those slated for the Intellectual Property practice. They will begin work in September 2023. There is a stipend of $15,000 for those whose career is put on-hold.  This has been expected. With the market in corporate not recovering the experts have anticipated that more law firms would hedge through such a move. It preserves cash, retains access to that talent and yet could pull back on the offer if the demand doesn't pick up. The issue for the Class of 2023, articulated on professional anonymous networks, is twofold. One is if their start date will also be put on-hold. Continually there are postings about no formal notication of when to come aboard. And, two, is the fear that such a step could wind up being a snatched-back offer.  The elephant in the room is: Will the carnage of 2008 - 2009 unfold a

  Sometimes we just need a bit of human kindness. That's what even the most conversational focused blurb from the ChatGPT prompt might never be able to deliver. Yesterday was one of those times. Actually there had been lots of those times since my dog Arizona died.  I had invested in the three-hour journey from Youngstown, Ohio to Latrobe, Pennsylvania in hopes of adopting a small senior dog. That didn't happen. There were seniors but all too large for me to manage.  Of course, I entered the deepest dimension of lost, both geographically and emotionally, on my attempt to get back to OH. So, there it was. I was going round and round the PA town of Wilkingsburg. Out of my mind with grief and disappointment, I was beyond the reach of maps, the smartphone and even my knowledge of the area when I had lived there 30 years ago.  Somehow I got it: Head toward a known, that is the Wilkinsburg Public Library.  I had been a regular there when I had owned a house on Marborough Avenue in th

The reality in business for employees is that hands-on work doesn't get you far, not in compensation, not in title, not in power, not in status. The software developer, the speechwriter, the accountant - all have to stop doing what they do best and take the leap into management. That is, if they want to “get ahead.” That model could be changing. At Spotify, reports  Yahoo Finance , they are disrupting traditional career paths. They want to facilitate the "crafters" to be able to move into the senior ranks, with all those goodies, without having to take on the official role of manager.  Actually, the labor market might soon demand that shift. Meta, for example, is flattening organizational layers. There will be fewer managers and more crafters. Of course, incorporating generative AI into operations could accelerate that. One editor putting in prompts to ChatGPT and modifying the content for specific uses could be all that is needed. Gone could be most of those layers a

" ... how to  talk to people in person , how to speak up in meetings, and when to make eye contact." -  Yahoo Finance,  June 2023  That's what a growing number of employers are teaching new entries of the workforce. In just the audit/consulting niche they include PwC, Deloitte and KPMG. The causes for the deficit range from the isolation of COVID to the addiction to screens. Actually, even some seasoned players had gotten rusty. More and more of my coaching clients have to be briefed on realities such as the professional with the most power in the group determines the rules of interaction. One client didn't understand why she was expected to stop focusing on the task when the manager swung by the office for small talk. It was way back in 1995 that psychologist  Dan Goleman  explained the importance of Emotional Intelligence (that used to be known as soft skills) and began detailing its dynamics.  Essentially Goleman decoded what we college graduates had already no

  A bunch of misfits who couldn't make it in the "old country" founded America where they could start over. So, come on, this new nation had to bake in tolerance for failure. Unlike in England, the Thomas Edisons who had so many failures could be heroes.  That was then. Currently there is a very different attitude about failure. From the get-go that has been a game-changer in everything from CEO tenure to risk-taking to openness in communications. In this article pubished today in O'Dwyer's Public Relations I discuss four implications of the growing intolerance for not meeting expectations - and quickly.  2023. It’s the year of AI, along with uncertainty, inflation, war and more. Jane Genova provides you with a complimentary check-in for your organization’s communications and your own career. It’s free. Content-creation and coaching provided on a sliding-scale fee basis. (for appointments text 203-468-8570 or janegenova374@gmail.com)

  AI has already infiltrated the workplace. However in many cases, reports  Yahoo Finance , the boss doesn't know about its use. Employees are leveraging technologies such as ChatGPT on a stealth basis.    Why so secretive?  Well, there are two primary reasons. One, their employers might have banned AI.    That could be because of the legal uncertainties. For example, the US Supreme Court ruling in "Andy Warhol Foundation v Goldsmith" introduced issues about copyright which could be applied to generative AI. In addition, there is the defamation lawsuit  "Mark Walters v Open AI."   That litigation points to the reality that the technology continues to spit out fake information.   Along with the threat of lawsuits, some employers have the jitters about what's coming down the pike in terms of regulations. So, they decide to wait and see rather than bake AI into operations. The regulatory risk is real. Law firms ranging from Gibson Dunn to Paul Weiss have develo