Back-to-school buzz

and a quick note on courage

As an empath, this week was a lot to absorb. So many of you hit the ground sprinting at a speed that I've never seen on the day-after-Labor-Day and proceeded to keep pace as best you could for being out of practice. My parent-friends, especially, couldn't wait to ship their kids off to school and tackle the backlog that had piled up all summer; as a Type B individual, watching their efforts to catch up on two months of to-dos in two days was admirable, a little entertaining, and expectedly exhausting. I went from not having a single planned-evening the last two weeks of August to now looking for spare ones in September…I don't say this as a humble brag, but as a sign that you're clearly back, so SOAR is trying to be, too. But being back makes me wonder whether we’re actually better than ever.

After a slow summer for those job hunting, it was nice to see the dam brake on Tuesday when a flood of open roles appeared in my LinkedIn feed. It comes at a time when I find the job market more interesting than ever, not due to Labor Statistics findings, but oddly the lack of sound judgement I've recently seen. Here's some of what I mean:

• Spiraling AI fears: Your texts rhetorically asking, "Are we freaking out about AI and jobs?!" (Truthfully, only if we let it, so how about we not; one possible way is to separate ‘what we know’ from ‘how we feel’)

• Referrals gone wrong: Hiring managers (who not long ago were on the other side of the table) telling me, "I get it now…," referring to why they so rarely got a response after applying - because a job posting from a small, unknown company can now attract hundreds of applicants. And among referrals, a double-digit percentage of them are for people with no direct or adjacent experience. Not only that, but the person referring them doesn't bridge the gap as to why an unqualified candidate should be considered. (I get why this happens, but feel like it usually looks poorly on the candidate and person making the referral.)

• Skipping referrals completely: My old roommate cold-applying, only to find out that I know someone at the company-of-interest who could've referred her…(the lovingly harsh and sarcastic text chain that followed, coupled with writing this bullet to put her on blast will hopefully ensure that this never happens again.)

• Slow starts: Candidates expressing sincere interest in open roles, only to then sit on them for days. (May I remind you that I found my job posting, asked for a referral, and got an email from a recruiter within 24 hours? See February)

• Hiring managers with respect to Goldilocks Syndrome: We went from candidate pools that were underqualified to ones that are now overqualified. (Net-positive, I thought!) Except hiring managers are finding this suss and making assumptions about candidates’ intentions in ways that I'm now proactively addressing and sporadically challenging. (I get that managers are worried about overqualified new hires immediately asking for promotions/leaving/etc., but this week alone, I referred two people who are just looking for a job that they can find a little meaning in, at the right comp, and with a good manager. I can relate because I was in their shoes once - see "Sep-Nov")

I say these things not to be a grouch, but out of hope - that in our buzzy effort to rekindle routine, we might also rekindle discernment.

Meanwhile…

Reorgs and layoffs have been ongoing, affecting a couple of my favorite coworkers-turned-friends. I got a call late Tuesday night from someone who had until Thursday to decide between: (option A) a demotion that comes with starting a new role with a new manager, or (option B) taking severance, ~6 months pay. Knowing that I had chosen the severance route in 2020, he called me thinking that I'd champion option B. After he answered a few questions, I strongly recommended option A.

This situation demonstrates one of my most frequent worries - that people will see something I’ve done and misinterpret the context and intention behind the action because it's so easy to focus on the outcome.

When I asked why he called (thank goodness he did!), it’s because he considers me (and the decision to take severance) courageous. Oof…it's hard to describe how hearing that felt; as kindly as he meant it, I told him two things: (1) that courage takes a lot of heart and both options would require equal amounts of it, just applied differently; and (2) the way we talk about courage is so imbalanced. It’s this very distortion that has brought SOAR back to you today.

Routes of courage

Let's cover one of the more recognized routes of courage (there are many, of course): this is the one where you have a job that you know / might even love and yet, are feeling like it isn’t for you anymore. The one where you’re comfortable - so cozy-comfortable that you question why you’d ever leave, but somehow still manage to after a season of interviews/rejections/self-assessments that ultimately land you an offer(!). And the one where you’re finally ready to take on a new challenge at a new place with new people and new habits. When this happens, your journey, your success, and often your courage are ultimately recognized, perhaps lovingly from friends and family and/or materially through a new comp and benefits package.

As familiar as I am with this route of courage, I don’t find it to be the most difficult because of how embracing people are of it. There’s another kind, however, that I hope we embrace in equal measure - the more quiescent courage to stay in a job (rather than leave it).

There are only two elements to courage: fear and a person’s ability to act (in spite of or because of it). Whether fear exists in familiarity or novelty is irrelevant, regardless of the seduction in novelty. It can be tempting to assume complacency amid consistency and conclude that someone’s decision to stay in a job is uncourageous or even cowardly; this can be but is not always true. Context and actions (not outcomes) are the deciding factors and I hope we’re diligent enough to be informed.

(Normally, this is the part when I'd illustrate what this more quiescent route of courage looks and feels like; trust me when I say that I tried to. Every version I wrote felt limiting in explanation and understanding, so instead of spending [however long I'd take] to find the right words so more of you might embrace this, I've decided that writing to simply acknowledge those who already do is enough for now. Otherwise, there's an extremely high likelihood that this would become one of the many SOAR posts I've written but not published.)

Confessions of a casual writer, reluctant publisher

Earlier this week, one of you lovely readers caught me writing SOAR and saw for yourself just how many posts I've written (but never shipped). It's because I really find personal joy in SOAR. I enjoy talking about it. I enjoy writing it. The only thing I don't seem to enjoy is publishing it. My reasons have to do with the way that there's a growing formality that substacks are embodying, and I don't take SOAR seriously enough to get my writing to a standard I deem ready for you to receive. And yet, you’ve told me that you still want to.

With that in mind, here’s where I've landed: I'm going to be better about publishing what may be work of slightly lesser quality (or incomplete quality as you’re seeing today) so you can get slightly more quantity. Truthfully, I don’t know how I’ll feel about doing this and how you’ll feel about me afterwards, but we’re going to practice a little courage and grace, and do what the photo says.

One or two more posts should drop later this month. Comment/Reply if you want to reach me before then, x.

The power of proportions: a strong statement as a soft nudge.