career planning

Nobody likes a braggart. But what if your inability to thump your chest, even just a little, is holding you back?Talking yourself up can make your boss and team look good, make clear what you actually do all day, and maybe prompt someone to put you up for that promotion.  Still, few of us aspire to be the office blowhard. So we volley compliments with a self-deprecating comment or resort to the false humility of a humblebrag. (Flying on the corporate jet to the board meeting was all right, but I missed you all!)…

Many workers who have been laid off in tech and elsewhere are landing jobs at new employers with an effective tactic—getting a company insider to vouch for them.In the age of automated hiring systems, having the endorsement of someone on the inside can help candidates stand out from the dozens, if not hundreds, of applicants for the same job. Many people who have advertised their layoffs on LinkedIn and other online networking forums say it can quickly lead to job referrals from recruiters and employees at other companies…

Big layoff announcements and growing fears about the economy usually mean more applications to M.B.A. and other graduate programs. But this time, career advisers and analysts are preaching caution.Signs of a slowdown generally spark interest in graduate studies from both recent college graduates and those in the middle of their career. What better time to pause a career and acquire new skills for when the boom times return, the logic typically goes.  But this isn’t a widespread downturn, and the broader labor market…

There’s something that the strategy and development team at AppFolio should know about their boss: His New Year’s resolution is to get into a fistfight.“I’m excited to take one in the face and see what that feels like,” says Jay Choi, the Santa Barbara, Calif., real-estate software firm’s chief strategy and corporate-development officer. A clarification is in order. This isn’t an invitation to start a brawl in the conference room. Mr. Choi, 43 years old, took up boxing five…

Millions of people switched to new jobs this year. Now many wonder: Does being the newbie make them more vulnerable to potential layoffs?  The formula that businesses often apply in deciding who stays and who goes is rooted in seniority. Many union contracts have also traditionally stipulated that those who joined the payroll last be the first to get cut. But that’s no longer a given.  In fact, an employee’s tenure “is no longer a primary variable,” says George Penn, managing vice president of research and…

Your boss probably hasn’t demanded a loyalty pledge and almost certainly doesn’t own a rocket ship, but the person calling the shots at your company might be more like Elon Musk than you realize.On the inside, anyway. The Tesla and SpaceX chief is defying norms in his takeover of Twitter by skipping a newcomer’s traditional review period, swiftly removing top leaders and laying off roughly half of the staff. He has made sudden strategic changes…

The $50 Stanley Quencher boasts a double-walled design that puts an end to melting ice and frequent refills. Its real achievement might be solving a less technical problem: how to show off in today’s casual, hybrid workplace.Put the Jimmy Choo shoes and Armani suits back in the closet. The new on-the-job status symbol is a tumbler only slightly smaller than hockey’s Stanley Cup and nearly as valuable to some. Sometimes going for two to three times its retail price on the secondary market, this desktop trophy allows its…

Employees are finding it takes extra work to hold on to the flexible habits companies allowed in the thick of the pandemic.More companies are stepping up in-office work requirements or backtracking on earlier pledges to soften the rigid 9-to-5 schedule. General Motors Co. is requiring salaried employees to be in the office three days a week starting at the end of January, after holding off on a similar plan this fall. Last week, Elon Musk told Twitter Inc. staff he expected most of them to…

This spring, Google employees in the Bay Area got a private Lizzo concert to herald a return to the office. Now the company is cutting back on social gatherings as well as hiring. Meta Platforms Inc., known for once-lavish perks such as free laundry, began slashing 11,000 jobs this week and said some of its remaining workers will have to share desks.  The comedown has been swift for employees of big technology companies, long among the most coveted workers in business. Accustomed to jobs with…

It is a professional fantasy turned reality for some: Escape the office and travel the country, even the world, working remotely in rented beach houses and ski lodges or, on a leaner budget, a home on wheels while living the #vanlife. Digital nomads, as these wanderers call themselves, say their adventures can be thrilling. They also describe an unsexy side of maintaining a career on the go. Complicated taxes, breakdowns on remote highways and pangs of loneliness can weigh down free spirits.  “Sixty percent…