Job Hunting With AI, Your Leadership Style & How Superstitions Can Be Helpful

Welcome to Potentially Focused! It's Tuesday, February 4th, and I hope your day is off to a good start! We're just a few days away from the Super Bowl and a few days past Punxsutawney Phil seeing his shadow and dooming us to six more weeks of winter here on the East Coast. Luckily, I'm pretty sure groundhogs are not actually good at predicting the weather. But whatever happens, go Chiefs (says this Giants fan)!

In today's edition, We... Share ways AI can supercharge your job search, uncover your leadership style, and find out how superstitions can be helpful.

Plus, we've some interesting TV and media news to pass along.

Potentially Focused is a newsletter for busy people in the TV business (or not) who are curious. Everyone looking for a change. Anyone interested in new possibilities and potential. As much as we love it, working in TV can be hard. Never more so than right now. People in our business need support and need to focus not only on their careers but on personal growth, which often takes a back seat. That's what we're here for. Each edition shares at least one great piece of content on professional development and one centered on personal growth. And it’s all just a few short paragraphs away.

Please like, subscribe, and share with your favorite groundhog believer or groundhog skeptic (like me). All are welcome there!

Grazie a tutti,

Marco

PS - Potentially Focused is on Bluesky (@potentiallyfocused.bsky.social) and Threads under my account (@marcobresaz). Please consider following us there as well.

We begin with...

POTENTIALLY INTERESTING TV AND MEDIA NEWS

• As I type this, the 2025 Realscreen Summit is happening in Miami. This year, it is scheduled so that NATPE Global and the Realscreen Summit overlap. There's one day of crossover, and then NATPE Global continues on after Realscreen wraps. It's a smart move by the smart folks at Brunico to reinvigorate each conference by making it easier to attend both and network with a larger group of people. My schedule didn't allow me to attend this year, but I hope both are productive experiences for all attending. Here's wishing Barry Walsh Tiffany Rushton and their entire team who works so hard to put on great industry events a fantastic week!
• The future of media is... bundles? As streamers and other content companies vie to figure out the best way to survive in the coming years, we frequently hear about bundling. Often, it's mentioned in discussions or speculation about how two or more companies that provide similar products (TV shows) can partner up. Nothing wrong with two streamers working out deals to share some content, and in fact, we've seen some of those arrangements work already. In particular, I'm thinking about how some of the AMC content has recently done quite well on Netflix. But, I suspect, that when it comes to truly impactful bundling the future will consist of companies who produce different kinds of products partnering together. As an example, your music, TV shows, and razor blades, or vitamins might all come in one giant lifestyle bundle. And, while this is not exactly it... I was interested to read about the NY Times' recent efforts to create subscription partnerships (AKA bundles) with smaller publishers to expand its subscriber base in the U.S. It's an extension of what they've already been doing successfully overseas. This article gives a nice overview of their efforts and notes that the Times proposed a bundle with The Ankler, that didn't ultimately pan out.
• Last but certainly not least, while the LA wildfires are now contained, their impact is still being felt by many. For a place that gets a lot of negative press from the rest of the country, the generosity of so many Hollywood companies and professionals has been so touching and hopefully instructive to those who only see one side of the business/town.

And now...

HOW TO USE AI TO SUPERCHARGE YOUR JOB SEARCH

AI is unfortunately going to put some people, perhaps many people, out of work. There's no getting around that. The future is going to consist of people who embrace AI as a tool and those who, for whatever reason, don't.

You don't need me to tell you which group has greater prospects....

But, while AI will end up eliminating some jobs, it also has the ability right now to make it easier for people to find work. I am no AI expert, and I'm guessing many of you are already using some AI tools in your job search.

But, I am a big fan of Scott Galloway and the courses offered by his Section school, especially the free ones. Recently, I watched this seminar on job hunting with AI, hosted by Ashley Gross , who is the CEO of AI Workforce Alliance.

It's well worth the watch and if you've just scratched the surface in terms of incorporating AI into your search efforts, it will be eye-opening.

Below are links to some of the AI services Gross recommends job seekers check out and all of them are free or have a free tier:

ResumeWorded - provides feedback on resumes and LinkedIn profiles

Teal and Rezi AI - both are resume builders and share resume feedback

Cultivated Culture and Kickresume - will do that too as well as helping build cover letters

JobScan and ResyMatch - provide resume optimization with (the all-important) keywords

Huntr, JobHire and Simplify Copilot - all do job matching based on your experience and objectives, let you set job alerts, as well as providing other job-hunting help.

VARK AI - lets you test your learning style.

NeuroNation - provides brain-strengthening exercises

Interview Warmup (from Google) - helps you prepare for interviews

Finally, if you're looking to use your skills and experiences in a different field, Gross shared a process incorporating AI that has worked well for her in the past. She suggests feeding an AI chatbot a list of your biggest career accomplishments. Then, ask it to list all of your hard and soft skills based on your career accomplishments. Once it's done that, ask it to take your hard and soft skills and share 20 different job descriptions that your skills are suited for. The jobs it comes up with will give you ideas of all the different areas your experiences have value in.

Good luck with the search and let us know what your results are if you try any of the tools and services we shared above!

Next up...

WHAT IS YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE?

Regular readers of this newsletter will know full well that I do love a good (or even a bad) personality quiz. I just found this one on BoredPanda.com and couldn't resist. I have no idea how scientifically valid (or not) this is, but at a minimum it gets you thinking about how you want to lead. And putting thought into that is always a good thing.

PS - Here is my result, which I think is fairly accurate:

You’re a collaborative leader who values teamwork and input from others. Your ability to engage your team fosters creativity and boosts morale. This approach empowers your team but can slow decisions when quick action is needed. Finding the right balance ensures both inclusivity and efficiency.

Again, I think on point, and I'm well aware that the risk of valuing the input of others can be moving too slowly. I think I have been guilty of this, especially earlier in my career, but happy to say I generally keep a very good eye on timelines and am always aware that at a certain point, someone has to make a decision.

If you take the quiz, let us know your results!

And speaking of results...

HOW SUPERSTITIONS CAN BE HELPFUL

Generally speaking, I've always taken a pretty dim view of superstitions and if I'm being honest (and I am), of superstitious people as well. That said, I've also (like most other people in the world) engaged in superstitious behaviors.

One of my favorite college memories is my beloved Orange storming through the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. My friends and I watched every game, and at some point in one game, it looked bad. There was a play or a moment in the game, I'm admittedly fuzzy at this point on what it actually was, where Syracuse had suffered a real setback.

In the face of that downturn, one of the players on our great team that year said something to the rest of the team, encouraging them to regain their composure. It was a great example of leadership during a crisis. One of my friends claimed they'd read the player's lips on TV and that he'd said emphatically to his teammates, "No big thing."

I have no idea if our player said that or something completely different, but what I do know is in that game that was the point things turned around. Syracuse went on to win and continue its surprising march to the Finals.

What's NO surprise is that the phrase "No big thing" became a rallying cry. For the rest of that tournament, whenever things got tight, someone in our circle would shout, "No big thing" and then, MAGICALLY, it wouldn't be. SU would somehow go on to win.

I have to admit that by the time we matched up against Indiana and their famed (and always at least half-disgruntled) coach, Bobby Knight, I was starting to believe. For those of you who know your college hoops, you know my dream was not to be. Unfortunately, NO amount of repeating "no big thing" was going to stop Indiana's Keith Smart from hitting a last-second fallaway jumper to take the title and prove to all of us young and impressionable college students that superstition only goes so far.

Many years later and finally over that heartbreak, now comes news that there's scientific proof that believing in a superstition can be helpful. Read all about it in this Popular Science article.

And if you're short on time, here are the key points:

Many psychologists agree that superstitions have to do with wanting a feeling of control. It makes sense that we want to avoid the worst outcomes and, conversely, achieve the best ones. And in those moments when we feel like things are less certain, that chance plays a bigger role, we are more likely to engage in superstitious beliefs and behaviors.

Curious to see if those engaging in superstitions get any tangible benefits out of it, a team of scientists out of Germany decided to test the effect of good luck superstitions on people’s behavior. They designed an experiment to see how superstitions affected participants’ performance on a series of tasks, including how well participants would perform on two timed tests: a matching game and a word game that involved creating as many words as possible out of eight letters.

Prior to these tests, the scientists called each participant and told them to bring a personal lucky charm to the experiment. Then, before each test began, about half of them had their lucky charm taken away. (Scientists can be so harsh...)

What the researchers found was that those who had been allowed to keep their lucky charms felt more confident going into the tasks. No surprise there. But they also performed better than the ones who didn’t, which seems to prove that superstitious beliefs may actually make a person believe more in their own talents and abilities.

And with that I'm off to light a bunch of candles and throw some salt over my shoulder.

It's no big thing after all!

ALL DONE!

That's a wrap for today. And what a day it was…? We...passed along some great AI tools to help with your job search, figured out your leadership style, and uncovered why being superstitious can sometimes work to your benefit.

And, we shared some interesting industry news.

We'll be back with our next edition in just 48 short hours on Thursday. Until then, be well and believe in yourself!

Please let us know what you want more or less of. Please feel free to share information you’d like me to pass along to our readers. Also, always happy to feature guest contributors.

And of course, please like, subscribe, and share.

Huge thanks!

Marco