THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE INTERVIEW
Somewhere in America, a hiring manager is sitting in a conference room explaining that the company desperately needs someone with 20 years of leadership experience,…
Fast-Paced and Furious: A Field Guide to Surviving the Corporate Emergency Theater
There is a special kind of betrayal that does not arrive dramatically, with thunder or a string quartet or a formal notice from destiny stamped…
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Hard Launching Your Employment: Why New Job Announcements Sound Like a Corporate Engagement Party
There is a very specific kind of modern workplace theater that begins before you have learned anyone’s last name, before you know whether the coffee…
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Mandatory Humbling: Every CEO Should Have to Apply to Their Own Company Once a Year
I would like to propose a bold new leadership initiative, one that does not involve a summit in Arizona, a laminated workbook called Leading with…
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They Were Fine With the Fire Until Someone Described the Smoke
There is a very specific moment in modern corporate life when an organization that has ignored dysfunction with Olympic discipline suddenly rediscovers urgency, posture, and…
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After Careful Consideration, We Rejected You Before the Coffee Finished Brewing
There are few modern experiences more insulting than being rejected by a company so quickly that you begin to suspect your application was not reviewed…
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Eight People, One Salary, and the Ritual Sacrifice of Tuesday: When Hiring Stopped Being Recruitment and Became Community Theater for the Emotionally Exhausted
There was a time, at least in theory, when getting hired meant a company had work that needed to be done, a person existed who…
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The Thank-You Note Hunger Games
Or, How Modern Hiring Turned Basic Courtesy Into a Competitive Ballroom Sport The other day I saw a recruiter post declaring, with the kind of…
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The Interview With a Man Who Looked Like He Charged People for Hope
There are bad interviews, there are awkward interviews, and then there are interviews so spiritually hostile they feel less like professional conversations and more like…
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Congratulations on Your Next Chapter (and Other LinkedIn Spells We Cast So References Don’t Vanish)
There’s a very specific moment in modern work life when you realize you are not experiencing a career transition — you are participating in a…
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“Too Expensive” Is Corporate For “We’d Like a Bentley at Tricycle Pricing”
There’s a particular tone a person uses when they say something that they think is both true and polite, like they’re offering you a helpful…
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The Repost That Wouldn’t Die: A LinkedIn Ghost Story in Four Acts
If you ever want to understand modern hiring, don’t study labor economics. Just open LinkedIn, take a deep breath like you’re about to walk into…
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Month Four: When “Trust the Process” Starts Charging Rent
There’s a special kind of adulting that kicks in around month four of unemployment—the part where optimism stops being a mindset and becomes a recurring…
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