A springtime welcome batch of links
Since our last batch of links went out, paying subscribers received two corresponding columns. The first was about why people are fleeing agency life at this time, the second a close-up look at why one job changer did it - and how. For this coming weekend, we’ll move away from professional development for now and focus on a topic that’s been on my mind of late: charity. I’d love to hear your thoughts after that goes out about how you’re thinking about charity differently in the wake of the past two years. Below, you’ll find a batch of links that both conveys and echoes the themes of this ongoing newsletter.
The Price of a Lunch Salad Went Berserk While You Were Working From Home. People are weighing all of the economic tradeoffs that come with leaving home these days. For some, the chance to reunite with colleagues even a few days a week is well worth the commuting and the rising food costs.
Quit your job after less than a year? Here’s how to discuss it in interviews.
Back-to-Office Carrots and Sticks. This paragraph summarizes the situation well:
Companies also need to keep in mind the importance of empathy. The last few years looked dramatically different for different people. A woman I interviewed put it this way: She said that for some people, the last two years meant a retreat to their lake house. Many, many others experienced incalculable loss. There were friends lost, family members lost. Recognizing that is going to be important in creating a workplace culture that feels comfortable to people moving forward.
15 Minutes on… Employee Experience with Michele Floriani of Sequoia.
Is the Dream Job Real? The Great Resignation Poses New Questions, Challenges. A good rundown of how people are thinking more deliberately now about their careers, especially at the outset. I’ve shared it with some young people looking for their footing, and it seems to have resonated well.
The death spiral of an American family.
'Two years is the new five years': Job-hopping is rampant now, but VC heads of Talent still scrutinize it. A lot of frank talk here from the perspective of VC operators about what the job market is like. “COVID is weird, right? People had to do a lot of weird things,” Steinmetz said. “You have to ask more questions right now to get a better sense of what has really happened for somebody.”
Before layoffs hit Google-owned Looker, workers unknowingly trained their replacements.
A 23-year-old on track to make six figures this year says he’s living proof that college isn’t necessary. A good profile about one young worker who opted to go without college and how things have worked out for him. We need to do a better job at embracing alternative paths for people that academia simply isn’t speaking to.
Nearly one-third of American workers make less than $15 an hour, study finds.
Returning to the Office . . . While Black. “I’m not putting on a bank teller voice anymore,” someone says on this podcast episode. We need to give people the space to be themselves like they’ve never been able to before in office spaces.
I Made A Career Switch From Broadway Star To Software Engineer.
‘Onsite is the new offsite’: Offices aren’t dead, they’re for ‘milestone moments’. I liked this piece, especially the portion that described, “Their driving questions: What are the different types of work that need to happen? Where and how can that work best happen?” It’s not going to look like what you did before. And that’s a good thing for many.
Cradle to College: Teen Parents Must Navigate a System That Rarely Includes Them.
Mark Zuckerberg and Meta’s Leadership Take Remote Work to the Extreme. This article has so much to it. Tension on top of tension. Every possible path and justification for it seems solid, except that it’ll upset someone else within the organization or someone influential on the outside. There’s no guarantee that what you wind up choosing will work. So Zuck’s team is doing what’s best for them individually. Which makes sense. What a spot to be in.