💰 How Much Money Do You Need To Pursue The Career You Want?

by Alex Funkhouser

Your ‘Freedom Number’ Might Be Smaller Than You Think.

You dream of quitting a toxic job, pivoting to a new career, or starting your own business. But there’s a financial reality to such a move: can you afford to earn less? 

In 2021, I quit a job as an executive at a tech company. I pivoted into content marketing and journalism, and, initially, I was earning about one-third of my previous salary. But I had spent months looking at our household budget, and was prepared to earn even less. 

Keep in mind that your freedom number is not your final destination. It’s a transitional change in your income to pursue the career you want. 

When you’re determined to make a change, you’ll look at your finances differently. You should calculate your “freedom number” and understand the changes you need to make in your budget.

Read the complete Fast Company article BY Anna Burgess Yang: https://www.fastcompany.com/91367644/freedom-number-smaller-than-you-think

📊 Making Good Decisions In Uncertain Times

by Alex Funkhouser

A cognitive scientist lays out a framework for decision making for the unknowable future.

We are living with a lot of uncertainty right now. There are some economic headwinds, though hiring has remained robust. There are significant legislative changes on the horizon. Ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are creating global tensions. The rise of generative AI has led to concerns about the future of many jobs and industries.

The first thing to remember when making decisions in any environment (but particularly when there is a lot of turbulence) is that you have to focus on the process you use to choose rather than whether the outcome is the one you wanted.

The difficulty of predicting the future complicates decision-making for people at every level of an organization from low-level employees who may be angling for a promotion or thinking of a career change to high-level leaders who have to set strategy and select tactics for an entire organization. How can you make good decisions in this environment?

read the complete Fast Company article BY Art Markman: https://www.fastcompany.com/91364169/how-to-make-good-decisions-in-uncertain-times

👻 Go From Ghosted To Multiple Offers In Your Job Search

by Alex Funkhouser

In this job market, talented job seekers are submitting application after application into what feels like a black hole. These strategies help you stand out no matter the conditions.

The last two years have been one of the toughest job markets I’ve seen in decades. This isn’t like 2020 or 2021, where after the initial phase of the pandemic receded, jobs quickly reappeared. This one has been slow and unrelenting—market volatility causing uncertainty, and digital transformation of workplaces, and AI taking over jobs faster than you can read the headlines. These days, it feels like you’re sending your résumé into the abyss. Sound familiar?

When working with job seekers who are struggling, we always start with a simple but powerful exercise: documenting significant achievements from their career. Not just responsibilities—actual metrics and results, problems solved, and value delivered. 

I see it every day as a recruiter and career coach: talented job seekers submitting application after application into what feels like a black hole. Weeks turn into months. The silence is deafening. Each passing day without a response chips away at your confidence, your bank account, and your sense of professional identity.

Luckily, through my work, I’ve also developed tried-and-true strategies for standing out no matter the market conditions. Here are three powerful steps to reinvigorate your job search. 

Read the complete Fast Company article BY Amy Crutchfield: https://www.fastcompany.com/91341187/how-to-make-your-job-application-stand-out

👍 Here’s how to stand out in your job search according to Google, Meta, and Yahoo

by Alex Funkhouser

In today’s job market, fewer roles are getting posted, and more people are applying for every job. Here’s how to separate yourself from the pack.

Over the course of my career as an executive at Google, Yahoo, and Meta, and now as founder and CEO of my own firm, I’ve hired thousands of people. Across all those roles, one thing has stayed consistent: the applications that stand out are the ones that go beyond simply checking the boxes. In today’s job market, with a challenging economy and the rise of AI, fewer jobs are getting posted, and more people are applying for every job. So it’s all the more important to take the steps that will make your application stand out.

Last year, we opened a chief of staff role at my company. Within days, we received more than 800 applications. My team and I read through every one of them.

Three stood out immediately. It wasn’t because the applicants held that exact title before or came from the most well-known companies: it was because they did something extra.

One submitted a deck outlining how they would approach the role. Another sent a short video of themselves walking through a presentation they’d created. The third added a “User Manual,” a tool some organizations use to help teammates understand how to work together (and one our company uses, too). Each of the three caught my eye not just because they went beyond what we had asked for, but also because they used language and terms unique to our company that showed they understood and cared about how we operate.

Read the complete Fast Company article BY Jennifer Dulski: https://www.fastcompany.com/91338561/how-to-stand-out-in-job-search-according-to-google-meta

🌑 More fake applicants are trying to trick HR, thanks to the rise of deepfakes

by Alex Funkhouser

Human resources serves as the first line of defense in the era of deepfakes and AI, says this cybersecurity expert. But they need more support to effectively detect threats.

In my decades of working in cybersecurity, I have never seen a threat quite like the one we face today. Anyone’s image, likeness, and voice can be replicated on a photorealistic level cheaply and quickly. Malicious actors are using this novel technology to weaponize our personhood in attacks against our own organizations, livelihoods, and loved ones. As generative AI technology advances and the line between real and synthetic content blurs even further, so does the potential risk for companies, governments, and everyday people.

Businesses are especially vulnerable to the rise of applicant fraud—interviewing or hiring a phony candidate with the intent of breaching an organization for financial gain or even nation-state espionage. Gartner predicts that by 2028, 25% of job candidates globally will be fake, driven largely by AI-generated profiles. Recruiters already encounter this mounting threat by noticing unnatural movements when speaking with candidates via videoconferencing. 

For many companies, the proverbial front door is wide open to these attacks without adequate protection from deepfake candidates or “look-alike” candidate swaps in the HR interview process. It’s no longer enough to just protect against the vulnerabilities in our tech stacks and internal infrastructures. We must take security a step further to address today’s uncharted AI-driven threat landscape, protecting our people and organizations from fraud and extortion before trust erodes and can no longer be restored.

Read the complete Fast Company articel BY Matt Moynahan: https://www.fastcompany.com/91334692/more-fake-applicants-are-trying-to-trick-hr-thanks-to-the-rise-of-deepfakes