500 intriguing new ways to end a letter or email, according to our AI overlords 

Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash

I DON’T KNOW IF this is a personal quirk or if others have this happen, but I bump into all sorts of odd and/or amusing content as I look for things to share on this blog. Most of the time, I couldn’t tell you how I found this kind of stuff, but here’s a good example of something interesting and amusing that I found recently.

Continue reading

Tom Plate: a great journalist and my good friend. Life will not be the same without him

WE CONNECT WITH MANY people in our journey through life, but the few we truly cherish are the ones who, as the famous quotation noted, understand our past, believe in our future, and accept us just the way we are. There have been a few people like that in my life, but I don’t think

Continue reading

Are you an overbearing manager if you identify with The Devil Wears Prada?

Editor’s note: The Skeptical Guy is back. I’ll explain my absence very soon.  *********************************** I’VE MET A LOT of big-name media people over the years, but one I’ve missed is Anna Wintour, the famous (some would say infamous) and feared editor of Vogue magazine. The British-born Wintour is known for a lot of things –

Continue reading

When Robots Train Managers, Don’t Be Surprised at the Management You Get

EVEN I GET SURPRISED when I see something like this: According to The Wall Street Journal, companies are now turning to robots to train and coach young managers. Please insert your “bad manager” joke here. According to The Journal, the training comes in the form of a bot, “a manager-training app powered by the artificial

Continue reading

Micro-Internships: How to Leverage the Gig Economy to Find Great Young Talent

CONSIDER ME a really big fan of college internships. I’ve told this story before, but I trace my long career as a journalist and media executive back to my college internship on the Metro Desk of the Los Angeles Times. I got class credit instead of pay, but that wasn’t the point. I wanted a

Continue reading

Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO)? It’s Mostly Just a Workplace Fairly Tale

I CAN HARDLY contain myself when I hear people touting the wonders of “unlimited” PTO. That’s because “unlimited” paid time off is really just a big fairy tale. I know … that sounds pretty harsh because there are a number of companies that have gone to “unlimited” PTO, and they will defend it to the

Continue reading

Good People Get Fired, But a “Failure Résumé” Won’t Help You Land a New Job

Here’s a basic workplace truth: Good people frequently get fired. Steve Jobs got fired from Apple, eventually returning to build it into the high-flying, trend-setting company that it is today. Oprah Winfrey, Walt Disney, and Harry Potter author JK Rowling all got fired, too. Listing all the famous people who once were “involuntarily terminated” is

Continue reading

Could Manipulating Glassdoor Ratings Just be Just Smart Brand Management?

I LEARNED LONG AGO that user ratings — whether they be on Yelp, Amazon, TripAdvisor, or anywhere else — are easily manipulated. So, is anyone surprised that Glassdoor ratings get manipulated, too? The Wall Street Journal recently published an in-depth look at how some companies have figured out how to boost their ratings on Glassdoor

Continue reading

Is “Ghosting” a Big Problem? Well, I Was Ghosting Back When Ghosting Wasn’t Cool

WHO SAYS THERE’S no such thing as “fake” news? I’m reminded of this whenever I read about how the “ghosting” trend (people skipping job interviews, failing to show up when they get hired, or bailing from a new job with no warning) is disrupting recruiting and hiring, because the more I hear about it, the more

Continue reading

My New Year’s Wish: That Recruiters Resolve to Hire Older Workers in 2019

I HAVE NEVER MET my fellow Fistful of Talent blogger Rachel Bitte, but her recent post on the big changes recruiters had to make (2018 Was the Tipping Point For Recruiting) to deal with “the current job market reality,” tells me she knows her way around a recruiting department. I’m also sure her insights are spot on

Continue reading