For hiring, 2025 was a brutal year to search for a job. The Wall Street Journal reports that 2026 could be worse: "At a gathering of CEOs in Midtown Manhattan this month organized by the Yale School of Management, 66% of leaders surveyed said they planned to either fire workers or maintain the size of their existing teams next year. Only a third indicated they planned to hire." The WSJ adds that pullback from adding manpower could be temporary. But given shareholders' demand for cost-efficiency and the continual improvements in AI, chronic unemployment could become standard. However, there is a solution. An old-fashioned one. That's becoming a solopreneur, that is setting up your own business without partners or employees. The model dates back to ancient times. The golden age of the solo business owner in America had been from the late 1800s to about the mid 1920s. There had been a wave of immigrants, discrimination against them and few jobs. They drove pushcarts ...
Monitor postings on Reddit subunits focused on careers and it's no longer news that PhDs, both newly minted and those already in the labor market, generally are finding the credential an obstacle in the search for a job or even contract assignments. No, not an asset. Let's cut to the chase. The highly educated have to get smart about this, fast. With some exceptions, I advise those I coach to leave the PhD off job-search materials. The negative assumptions among those hiring range from that you expect too much money to you'll be a know-it-all. When my boutique collapsed post-9/11 and I had to land a survival job I lopped off everything but the BA. At the interview I dumbed-down my vocabulary. Sure Harvard was started in 1636 but America remains anti-intellectual. In addition, the integration of AI into strategy and operations makes knowledge work in general less and less marketable. That's the narrative of our times: Advanced degrees having low or no ROI. The result,...
T hose getting the brunt of the bad publicity and even loss of titles (like Leon Black and Larry Summers) because of the Epstein connection could be taking such a hit because of this simple reality: We don't like them. Across sectors, likability is the survival platform. On that list on unlikables could be added top lawyer at Goldman Sachs Kathryn Ruemmler. The Wall Street Journal just published a very long-form analysis of her relationship with the late disgraced pedophile. Internally, she could be on thin ice: "The extent of their relationship has drawn scrutiny inside Goldman Sachs, where the 54-year-old lawyer is general counsel and a top adviser to CEO David Solomon." Those who can decode corporatespeak point to the red flags in sizing up her chance of holding onto her job. They include phrases such as having the full support of the board. Yeah, sure. Externally, the reputational risk can be equally great. For her next those in the loop will size up how...
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