Don’t look for a job, look for work?

In just a few minutes of scrolling on LinkedIn yesterday, I was stopped by two posts. Both are pretty devastating for those concerned. And pretty alarming for those who can see where this is heading for everyone. Almost everyone.

I’m trying to use LinkedIn more these days but I was only on the site for minutes rather than hours. Earlier in the day I saw another post about job losses, so there is a lot of bad career news going around.

More worrying is that some of these shifts seem pretty irreversible. In the short term at least. A growing amount of talent is sitting on the sideline wanting to get back in the game.

Software engineer jobs plummet

Greg Isenberg's post worries anyone studying computer science or learning software. Or is it? Read more.

Greg is a great guy to follow on LinkedIn with lots of great ideas and useful resources. Hopefully, I will raise my game to his level someday.

Male? Pale? Stale?

Meanwhile, I saw this guy called Mick. He seems like a nice guy and his wife must have been getting pretty desperate when they shared this story, as it is not the norm to share openly such struggles. Yet anyway. Fair play to her for helping him out.

Is it the market? Is it his age? Is it something else? Read more.

A while ago when I was briefly tired of solitude of freelancing, or working on my unsolicited personal project to reinvent career planning, I unsuccessfully threw my hat in the ring for some jobs. I found out later my profile didn't fit.

Maybe I am too old? Too male? Too stale? Like Mick?

I wasn’t too disappointed but we had a baby on the way so I was a little nervous. Daniel's here now and the jitters have passed.

What about me?

Male. Yeah.

Pale. I'm Irish!

Stale. LOL!

Now I just focus on getting my career design book finished, published, and out to the world. It’s been an epic adventure. I’ll share more of it here soon.

Workday cuts 1,750 jobs

Earlier in the day I also saw this career related story posted by an old colleague Ivan Heneghan, who is now at Workday.

He generously shared a great initiative to help staff let go by Workday find new jobs.

Read more.

Ivan also wrote: Finally, if you are a tech company - ANY tech company - laying off employees, Airbnb did it right in 2020. There are simple things you can do to help those you are letting go.

Take control of your career

It’s time we all realised that most of us are one cold financial decision away from being discarded heartlessly. We are all non-essential, despite what they might say. And what you might think. If you have a job enjoy it but get ready for when it is gone. Create other career paths now.

Dig a well before you get thirsty. To wait any longer is reckless.?

Don’t look for a job, look for work?

I’m a Career Designer

I’m not a 'career coach', there are enough of them already. I know many of them do great work helping people find themselves and find jobs etc. However, I want to help people design multiple career paths which may or may not include jobs.

Maybe it’s time you started earning some new income streams? Who better to chat about careers than someone who set up a personal brand side hustle, and turned it into a business doing seven figures in annual revenues. I even managed to sell the business a fortnight before the lockdowns in 2020. Good timing eh? The business was called Connector.

Book discovery call with me - calendly.com/conorlyn_ch

If you like these emails and think I’m worth it, tip me here -

buymeacoffee.com/conorlyn.ch

Or here - www.conorlyn.ch

Song of the Week

Stale? Never! As I’d like to make these emails short, fresh, and memorable … and share my love for music … what better way than to share a song to play while you read the email. I think this email has about three minutes of read time, so enjoy the perfect pop song to accompany it.

The "three-minute pop song" is a cliché that refers to the typical length of popular music singles. This concept is rooted in the history of recorded music. (Perplexity)

Enjoy the masters of delicious short pop-rock songs, from back when the world was full of great music and youthful Male Pale Stalers. I had tickets for The Pixies in Dublin back in the 1990s but missed it as I had a new summer job in a meat factory in Cavan.

My parents said the bloody job should come first. Ugggh. What stoopid advice that was!

This one is for the Male, Pale, Stale men out there. Play this when you walk into the room for your next interview or business meeting. It’s The Pixies with ‘Here comes your man’.

Let me know if you like my Song of the Week!

See you next week.

PS - Would you like me to start some group chats about innovative career paths? I'd like to mix up guests from different sectors and countries so we get a great chat going.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments, and who you would like me to interview.