TransformingYourCareerTransformingYourself

  Maybe in New York City and some university towns you can get by without a car. I had in both. The university town had been Ann Arbor, Michigan. There I tooled around on a Honda 90 cc. In this border town with 45,000 residents in Southeastern Arizona, a kind of 15-minute city , I assumed when I arrived that I could get by without a car. My former Smart Car had been totaled in an accident in Rolla, Missouri. All carefully thought out: I invested in an electric adult tricycle. Of course, that saved me a bundle in the usual costs associated with a car, from purchase price to insurance to maintenance. No surprise, too many in the nation are behind in ponying up the payments.  That was at the end of April 2024. At the end of last month I caved. I paid cash for another Smart Car. I trusted the Mercedes Benz engineering. (Yes, the e-trike is for sale. Two free helmets thrown in. Please contact Jane Genova at janegenova374@gmail.com). Of course, bringing a car back into my life has u...

Kirkland & Ellis describes its culture as welcoming to all.  Paul Weiss celebrates its inclusive culture, which has been embedded in the firm since its founding. K&L Gates focuses on opportunity and inclusion. This is the Post-DEI era. In a sense it was "anointed as such" by the Trump administration Executive Order "Addressing Risks from Perkins Coie."  Specifically cited are the law firm's policies which are described as "discriminatory." Here is an excerpt:   "Perkins Coie racially discriminates against its own attorneys and staff, and against applicants. Perkins Coie publicly announced percentage quotas in 2019 for hiring and promotion on the basis of race and other categories prohibited by civil rights laws."  No surprise, other law firms struggle to prevent also being identified for such bias. Even if they don't have extensive business with government, the penalties could be severe for being perceived as "out of step...

 Last month the legal sector lost 3,300 jobs. A major source of the hit is the loss of government work. Here are more details from Law360. Is the life you’ve known collapsing? As your intuitive career coach/tarot reader I guide you to what could be next. Clients range from lawyers to entrepreneurs to the trades. Free confidential consultation. If we work together, fees are what you can afford. To connect: Jane Genova (text/phone 203-468-8579, janegenova374@gmail.com). In-person and remote.

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 In his YouTube presentation, Cameron Galbraith is very direct about the dismal job placement rate of recent Harvard MBAs. About 23% didn't have an offer three months post-graduation. That's the worst placement rate in history of that legendary institution. Other top business schools also are producing similar bleak numbers.  Some of this could be turned around if the global economy improves and if more international students are able to get visas to work in the US.  But there are also macro forces operating which have caused a huge shift in the overall marketability of the MBA. At the top of the list are the impacts of generative AI in lessening the need for so many hires and the growing confidence of organizations to solve their own problems without the paid assistance of consultants. Traditionally many MBAs were hired by large consulting firms such as McKinsey. Recently McKinsey hired significantly fewer.  Meanwhile, Harvard which had been started by the Puritans...

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A fundamental in business is that speed is a competitive weapon. That extends from product development to home delivery. That's on the macro level. Now it's coming down to the individual level of holding on to your job. For instance, on professional anonymous networks Reddit Big Law and Fishbowl Big Law junior lawyers post that their performance review warned they had to work faster - without making mistakes. The fact that the reprimand was put on the record means that their jobs are on-the-line. They should be alarmed. Bloomberg Law also discloses that part of what drove the Unilever board's terminating CEO Hein Schumacher is the need for "urgency." The board assessed that there hadn't been enough progress in implementing the corporation's change plan.  The most critical challenge in most sectors is to be able to "get it" quickly about what to do to grow in the new order of things. Just recently prominent public relations agency Edelman announce...

O'Dwyer Public Relations reports that both Edelman and WPP have experienced a decrease in raw revenue. This is at a time when the sector is supposedly feeling its way out of the demand darkness of the past few years. There may be no climb out, unless the sector disrupts just like elite old-line law firms have been doing. Two realities are operating.  One reality, of course, is generative AI. There's a misunderstanding that Gen AI primarily automates. That's just small stuff. It can figure out that ABC or GHI function is just a cost burden, creating no unique value. Gone will be the unit. Then Gen AI can figure out how to replace that with itself. Think about it:  How about chunks of the investor relations unit at a public company? ChatGPT Plus, which costs only $20 a month (down from $200 a month), gives you access for OpenAI's Deep Research . It not only digs. It will create the report on all that, along with citations. So much for so many humans in financial report...

No matter how many wrong moves you might have made in your career, you could get back on track by getting admitted to the MBA program. And you didn't even have to complete it.  Once "in" where you needed to be in your career you could use other tools such as high emotional intelligence to climb the ladder.  My wrong moves included majoring in English, investing too much time acquiring an unmarketable Ph.D. and having my first real job in a non-profit. All that became irrelevant once I put on my resume that I was studying for the MBA. On interviews I talked up what I was learning. I landed a plum position in Big Oil.  That was how it was in much of the 20th century and even in the early 21st.  Now, as the Bloomberg report documents, the MBA no longer is a sure thing. That's even though a top program costs about a quarter of million dollars.  From 2021 to 2024 the percentage of Harvard Business School students who didn't have a job three months post-graduation alm...

  This is one for the innovative legal minds at Sanford Heisler, Motley Rice and Wigdor. Can we first-generation college boomers sue to be allowed to return to our high school for free instruction in "shop" - that is, training in manufacturing, construction, welding and other hands-on skills?  Back in the 1960s, post-GI Bill, everyone at high school, from the guidance counselor to our homeroom teacher, pushed us to immerse ourselves in the CP curriculum. There was no recommendation to add on shop as a safety employment move. So, we marched to the advice of those supposedly in the know, many of us first-generation college. Of course, we wound up to be knowledge workers. Currently much of that knowledge has mutated into a commodity.  In much of our professional life, given our lack of sophistication about how the system works, we were at a disadvantage.  For example, too many of us didn't know to shift out fast from collapsing sectors. Both post-9/11 and in 2021, my in...

From finance's JP Morgan to law's Paul Weiss RTO is becoming standard. That's a pricey process.  Add-on expenses include more dependent-care help, commuting, meals out and, yes, more clothes. About the latter, co-workers notice what you wear.  The good news on that is that buying second-hand has lost any stigma. The Economist anoints it as "in style." And if you shop in upscale neighborhoods or on the right websites you'll find top brands for about one-third traditional retail.  When my intuitive coaching boutique involved an on-site commitment several days a week I had to scramble to augment my wardrobe. Everyone in the know directed me to consignment shop Clothing Exchange, not traditional retail. Yes, buying used is that integrated into the consumer consciousness of this border town in southeastern Arizona.  To my surprise I even landed petite fashions. With everyone grower taller, those are harder to find even in traditional retail. The selections extende...

  Booz Allen used to be known as a consulting firm. As many know, consulting has become a struggling sector. Currently Booz Allen identifies itself as a technology business. The market for assisting organizations implement AI is huge.  Does this signal the beginning of a trend for professional services?  A sign that might happen is that high-profile chair of Paul Weiss Brad Karp really talked up on Law.com  AI and the major role technologists will be having at the law firm. He even went as far as projecting that, since AI is being implemented throughout the firm's practices, associate jobs could be eliminated. If Paul Weiss brands as being in the innovative front lines of AI it's not unthinkable that it, like Booz Allen, could mutate into being branded as a technology firm.  The same could happen in the challenged public relations sector. The business has changed and some agencies can't navigate the transition. Even prominent Edelman conducted two large la...