by Alex Funkhouser
Job seekers must figure out how to navigate a transforming landscape where AI shapes how we approach and think about the hiring system.
Logging onto LinkedIn, your feed is likely full of “Open to Work” profiles and posts about the struggle of finding a job in today’s market. Your LinkedIn inbox is probably a lot quieter with fewer recruiters reaching out with job opportunities than at the height of the Great Resignation just two years ago.
Whether you are a new graduate navigating a career pivot or just looking for greener pastures, the common sentiment of job seekers is that it’s becoming exceedingly difficult to land an interview, let alone an offer. With applications up 6% from October 2023, competition remains stiff. To make matters more difficult, how hiring teams review applications has also changed.
Waiting to hear back from a potential employer can be stressful for job seekers. In fact, almost a quarter (23%) of candidates find the most frustrating aspect of the application process is feeling like their application is going into a digital black hole, per research from iCIMS.
Application tracking systems (ATS) are now the status quo for companies to manage job openings and vet potential candidates. While not a new development, they are continuing to shake up the job application process and transform how talent is evaluated, engaged, and hired.
Read the complete Fast Company article BY Eric Connors: https://www.fastcompany.com/91246983/job-search-2025-3-key-ways-ai-will-make-an-impact-on-recruitment
by Alex Funkhouser
Forty-percent of workers say they would look for a new, more flexible job if they no longer had the option for hybrid or fully remote work.
The massive transition to remote work has allowed professionals and companies to discover and embrace its benefits. As a result, many companies are adopting hybrid and remote work models for the long term, and according to FlexJobs’ Work Insights Survey, 95% of working professionals say they want remote work in some form—whether hybrid or fully remote.
A Gallup survey found that five in 10 full-time U.S. employees have jobs that can be performed remotely. While six in 10 employees with remote-capable jobs prefer hybrid work, approximately one in three prefer fully remote work. Conversely, fewer than 10% want on-site work.
According to Robert Half, 61% of workers stated that they’re more likely to apply for jobs with remote or hybrid work options. Moreover, 4 in 10 workers said they planned to look for a new job in search of permanent remote work.
Despite the demand for remote and hybrid work, Owl Labs found that one in four workers (25%) said their employer changed its remote or hybrid work policy in the past year. However, three-quarters (75%) of workers believe return-to-office mandates are due to traditional work expectations, and 40% of workers say they would look for a new, more flexible job if they no longer had the option to work hybrid or fully remote.
Read the complete Fast Company article BY FlexJobs: https://www.fastcompany.com/91243020/less-than-10-of-workers-want-to-be-on-site-full-time-this-is-the-future-of-remote-work
by Alex Funkhouser
A new study found that RTO mandates across S&P 500 companies significantly increased turnover among tech and finance workers—especially for women.
The debate over return to office (RTO) doesn’t seem to be going away. Many companies have opted for a hybrid model that allows employees to still work from home a couple days a week, while some major employers have introduced strict mandates that require workers to fully return to the office, five days a week. Despite persistent pushback from employees, plenty of companies still seem to be bullish about bringing workers back to the office.
But that doesn’t mean employers haven’t experienced any fallout from imposing return-to-office mandates. In a new study, which tracked three million LinkedIn profiles, researchers found that RTO mandates across S&P 500 companies significantly increased turnover among tech and finance workers. Those effects were even more pronounced for women and employees who were more senior or highly skilled; RTO mandates had three times the impact on turnover among female employees than it did for male employees.
Experts have long warned that RTO mandates could disproportionately impact women and employees with caregiving responsibilities, along with others in the workforce who benefited from the flexibility of remote work, including neurodivergent employees and those with disabilities. Other research has corroborated that top senior talent in the tech industry—across companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and SpaceX—have jumped ship as a result of RTO requirements, finding that, in many cases, they left to work for competitors.
Read the complete Fast Company article BY Pavithra Mohan: https://www.fastcompany.com/91241433/study-rto-mandates-are-making-it-harder-for-companies-to-hire
by Alex Funkhouser
If your December to-do list is growing a mile a minute, here’s how to set some boundaries and enjoy the final weeks of 2024.
‘Tis the season for feeling overwhelmed.
If, amid the holiday magic and year-end traditions, you’re realizing how stressed you feel, you’re certainly not alone. On top of end-of-year work deadlines, many of us are juggling social engagements, holiday traditions, and family obligations. It can feel like a lot of pressure.
“The rush and overwhelm of this season create a sense of urgency, which feels real,”
But there are things you can do now to help ensure that these final weeks of 2024 are filled with joy and whatever matters most to you.
Make a plan
This season comes with a lot of small but important tasks. And they can be easy to forget (or get overwhelmed by) if you don’t take a bit of time to write them out and make a plan.
Read the complete Fast Company article BY Julia Herbst: https://www.fastcompany.com/91235981/how-to-fight-stress-this-holiday-season
by Alex Funkhouser
In an op-ed this week, Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy suggested that requiring federal workers to return to the office would ‘result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome.’
Writing in the Wall Street Journal this week, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy—who were recently tapped to lead the newly minted Department of Government Efficiency—touched on a topic that continues to be a source of friction in workplaces across corporate America.
“If there are people who just don’t work well in that environment and don’t want to, that’s okay, there are other companies around,”
In their op-ed, Musk and Ramaswamy offered insight into how the new initiative, known as DOGE, might cut costs and reduce the size of the federal government. They hinted at their plans to trim head count across the civil service—in part by mandating that federal workers return to the office full-time. “Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the COVID-era privilege of staying home,” they wrote.
A report released by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) earlier this year revealed that federal employees eligible for telework were already spending more than 60% of their time working from the office. Still, the change in policy that Musk and Ramaswamy are advocating for could impact more than a million employees—about half the overall federal workforce, in fact—who are currently able to work from home at least some of the time.
Read the complete Fast Company article BY Pavithra Mohan: https://www.fastcompany.com/91233536/elon-musk-believes-remote-work-is-a-covid-era-privilege-federal-workers-quit
by Alex Funkhouser
Future of Life Institute cofounder Max Tegmark on regulating AI, Elon Musk’s potential to be a good influence on the administration, understanding how LLMs think, and more.
More than 33,000 people—including a hall of fame of AI experts—signed a March 2023 open letter calling on the tech industry to pause development of AI models more powerful than OpenAI’s GPT-4 for six months rather than continue the rush toward Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI. “Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable,” stated the letter, which was spearheaded by an organization called Future of Life Institute.
“In my opinion, this issue is the most important issue of all for the Trump administration, because I think AGI is likely to actually be built during the Trump administration. So during this administration, this is all going to get decided: whether we drive off that cliff or whether AI turns out to be the best thing that ever happened.”
Spoiler: The industry didn’t heed the letter’s call. But it did generate tremendous publicity for the case that AGI could spiral out of human control unless safeguards were in place before they were actually needed. And it was only one of many initiatives from the decade-old institute designed to cultivate a conversation around AI’s risks and the best ways to steer the technology in a responsible direction.
Read the complete Fast Company article BY Harry McCracken: https://www.fastcompany.com/91228731/max-tegmark-future-of-life-interview
