Career Archives

3 Tips for College Students: Shape Your Own Experience

Should college students choose a career-oriented program or a major they enjoy more? What kind of mindset will help them succeed? In Excellent Sheep, author and former Yale professor William Deresiewicz argues that college students can actively create a high-quality education for themselves. He recommends that they connect with inspiring professors, follow their interests, and expect and embrace failure. Continue reading to learn about these three tips for college students.

Who Has Long-Term Unemployment Hurt the Most?

What does long-term unemployment (LTU) mean? What are the risks of LTU? Which workers have been affected the most? A year after Covid-19 was declared a pandemic and the economy ground to a halt, 4.1 million workers fell into long-term unemployment—unemployment for six or more months. Workers experiencing LTU are finding it increasingly more difficult to rejoin the workforce. Read on to learn how long-term unemployment is harming workers post-Covid.

The Hiring Bias Is Surprisingly Hurting These People

How does hiring bias affect different groups of workers? Why are educated (knowledge) workers experiencing more hiring bias currently? Educated workers have been disproportionately trapped in long-term unemployment because of biases potential employers have. These include age biases or the belief that something must be wrong with someone who’s been out of work for a while. Keep reading to learn why the stigma of hiring bias is disproportionately affecting educated workers.

Jobs After the Pandemic: Acknowledging a Changed Workforce

How are jobs after the pandemic different? How has the workforce changed? What can companies do to accommodate these changes? Acknowledging how the pandemic has fundamentally changed the workforce will lead to both happier workers and a more adaptable team. To retain current workers or hire new ones, companies should allow for more autonomy, acknowledging that less supervision doesn’t mean less productivity. Keep reading to learn more about how jobs, hiring, and the entire workforce are changing post-pandemic.

Selfless Leadership: Team Success Over Personal Glory

What’s more important—your team’s success or your own? At what cost will you protect your leadership position? In his book Hit Refresh, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella explains that a good leader prioritizes the success of the team above his own. He also discusses the importance of involving your team in decisions so that everyone has a say. Read more to learn about Nadella’s philosophy and practice of selfless leadership.

Avoiding Work: The 3 Reasons You Do It

Do you find it difficult to get yourself to sit down and do your work? Do you tend to put off work until the last minute and then end up scrambling? According to Neil Fiore, the author of The Now Habit, avoiding work is a symptom of anxiety rather than laziness or lack of motivation. Therefore, discipline is not an enduring solution. To address the problem, you have to tackle the underlying psychological reasons that make you dread work. Here’s why you’re avoiding work and just can’t get things done.

The 3 Best Mental Models for Decision-Making

When you have more than one option, how do you know which one to choose? Can you actually train yourself to make better decisions? Let’s say that you’ve received a job offer at a great company. You’re pretty happy where you are now, but the new opportunity might be the right move to make. If you carefully consider the consequences (second-order thinking), the chances (probabilistic thinking), and the possibilities (possibility thinking), you’ll likely make the right decision. Read more to learn how to use these three mental models for decision-making.

How Did Steve Jobs Design Apple Products?

Why did Steve Jobs care about the design of Apple products? Where did he learn his designing skills? Walter Isaacson (the author of the biography Steve Jobs) argues that the intellectual gift Jobs brought to the table was his interest and obsession with the aesthetics of design. Steve Jobs’s appreciation for design came from his father, who was a machinist and auto mechanic. Keep reading to learn how Jobs influenced the design of Apple products and the Apple Store.

How to Deal With Task Avoidance and Procrastination

Why do we avoid the things that matter most to us, even when we know that doing so makes us unhappy in the long run? What can you do to overcome procrastination? Sometimes, task avoidance and procrastination result from being overwhelmed with the work itself—especially when tackling a large or complex project. If that’s the case, try breaking down the project into manageable parts to avoid procrastination-spawning emotions like fear and anxiety. Here’s how “chunking” or breaking down projects can help break the habit of procrastination.

Circle of Competence: How to Identify & Develop Your Own

What are your circles of competence? How can you identify them? What should you do if you need to work outside of them? Shane Parrish and Rhiannon Beaubien explain a simple model for pinpointing where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Knowing whether you’re in a circle of competence allows you to avoid blunders and make better decisions. This helps you learn, grow, and succeed more in life and work. Keep reading to learn how to identify your circles of competence, what to do if you find yourself outside of one, and how to develop a new one.