Career Confidential: What the Heck is Happening with Careers?

Foreign. If you have read the headlines about careers lately, right? And who has not? Because, like, this world is crazy, no one at all would blame you for feeling fear or dread or actually total confusion, Correct? But that's what we're about today, because we are going to spend the next 20 or 30 minutes talking about those headlines. And you may have fear and dread at the end, but you will not be confused. That's my promise. That's our promise, is it not? And along the way, as we sort of unpack the headlines around careers today, you might even have a light laugh. That's what I'm hoping. Like we will now demonstrate like a Haha. Yeah, Haha. Well, I'm Susie Welch. Welcome to Becoming youg, the podcast where each week we endeavor to walk alongside you on the journey to your purpose. Walk along lovingly and supportively, but also realistically. I'm a professor of management practice at the NYU Stern School of Business, and I'm also the director of the Initiative on Purpose and Flourishing at NYU Stern. And I'm here today with my co host on the Career Confidential sub podcast of Becoming youg, Dustin Liu, who is the associate director of the Initiative on Purpose and Flourishing at nyu. And actually, Dustin is actually in his own right, so something of an expert on.

That's a big word, Susan.

But I think you are. I'm going to bestow it on you.

I'm ready. I'm ready.

But I think you are on AI in the workplace and Gen Z in particular. Okay.

We think about it a lot. We talk about it a lot.

And actually we have a conference coming up on it.

Absolutely.

So we're all in on that. All right. So today we're going to look at five big headlines on careers. These are all in the past two weeks or so. And I'm sure you've read these headlines. Okay. If you are in any way caring about careers the way we do. And so let's discuss and debate. So, Dustin, start us off. What's the first big headline?

Okay, Suzy, so the first headline is from NBC News, and it says, mass layoffs continue amid AI efficiency push. Major companies including Amazon and Dow are cutting tens of thousands of jobs as part of restructuring tied to AI and automation. Amazon alone announced about 16,000 corporate layoffs in 2026, following a prior 14,000 job cut. And large employers like UPS and others have also slipped slashed roles citing AI and cost efficiency strategies. Susie, tell me a little bit before we go on. That's a lot of like.

No, no, it's not just that. But, like, you missed your calling as a newsreader. Oh, that voice is amazing. Okay. No, you're good. All right, all right.

So I feel like an auctioneer.

So the headline is like, big layoffs.

What's your big layoffs? So are these layoffs evidence of AI displacing jobs, or do you think that companies are using AI as some sort of efficiency excuse?

Use. I think it's the latter.

Okay, tell me a little bit more.

I do. All right. These layoffs are real. They're massive layoffs. They are. They're almost coming in constant waves. Okay. It's like the ocean. There's not like it takes a break from, you know, 12 to 4 in the morning and the waves stop. I think this is what's going on. There's these waves of layups in particular in large companies. I think what's going on, from everything that I've read, is that there was over hiring during the pandemic. There was kind of haphazard hiring because no one knew how long the pandemic was going to go on. Obviously, there was a gigantic workplace shift during the pandemic. There was a huge amount of confusion. And now companies are using AI to. As an excuse to let go. Let go people in mass numbers. And it makes it so easy for them. They can just wipe their hands and say, sorry, it was AI. Oopsies. And there's a couple of reasons I feel this way. Number one, I've heard it, and then I've heard the executive say later, we had this excuse, and it makes it much easier. I will also say that two studies were conducted. And, you know, academics, we love to read studies. But I want to talk about two studies. One study came out of MIT, the business school, and it interviewed. It surveyed CEOs of top companies, and it said, have you seen any productivity gains from AI yet? And only 5% of the CEOs said they'd seen any productivity gains. They expect to see productivity gains. Yeah, they think they're coming, but they haven't seen them quite yet. Okay. Now, there was another study done at about the same time by another professor at Wharton Business School. And they surveyed also CEOs, and they said, yes, we've seen some of them said up to 85% in productivity gains. The difference. If you split the difference between, you know, 5% and 85%, you know, it leaves you sort of thinking, well, companies are seeing somewhat productivity advances with AI, but not enough for layoffs of this magnitude. So if your company is doing big layoffs, and they're saying it's because of AI. Take it with a grain of salt, all right? But layoffs are here, and they're going to be continuing over the next, I would say, 18 months.

Tell me a little bit about what you think this has to do with job stability or.

Yes, well, there's no job stability. You know, I think that when I came out of business school, which was in 1988, which is like, you know, 20 years before you were born, basically when I came out, people talked about lack of job security, and it was a term. Yeah, yeah. No, it's very. But, man, it's so different now. You thought you were gonna keep a job for three years. Oh, it was very good to keep a job for five years. So there's no job security, all right. There never really was, but now there's below zero. Okay, Now I want to talk about where this leads me. As you know, Dustin, all roads lead back to becoming you.

All roads lead to becoming you. What's behind?

I'm very, very sincere about this, because the reason why we've been talking about career headlines is that we have this methodology bec which makes you future proof. Okay? Or that's what it's endeavoring to do. It's saying this. It says. And you heard me say this to our certified coaches the other day when I was doing a training session with them, I said, if everything about the world is changing, if there's, like, a permanent earthquake going on, the only thing that you can know is how fast you run. The only thing you can know is, like, where's home? All right? And so if the world is radically changing and. And it is. And I'm not a catastrophist. I'm really not. The world's really changing. I've got four adult children in this world. I'm watching their jobs up close every single day. I suit up and I teach MBAs. I see what's going on with their job offers. They get them, then they don't get them. They are. It's very scary out there. If everything is upside down and changing, you can only know you. And so there's just no margin of error. So what do you have to know about you? Well, you have to know your values, all right? And you can't be Mamby Pamby about it. You can't be. I really value family and financial security. I mean, there's 16 values. You've got to know what they are, and you've got to know them ranked order, because you really need to know how much you value achievement, how much do you value work centrism versus how much you value Eudaimonia, which is the fun value, by the way. You've taken the values bridge. Our test that ranks values. Where's Eudaimonia for you?

It's quite low.

Okay, you know, it's very low for me, but no shade to anybody who's got Eudaimonia. And number one, you've got to know what you value so that you, when you place yourself out in this changing world, you're not surprised by the outcomes. Okay, that's the first data set. You have to know your values. Number two, you have to know your aptitudes. Not what your parents told you you were good at, but what you are actually good at, what you are like. And there's tests for this for $50. Okay. With youscience.com. no Skin in the game. Love those people. No financial arrangement with them. I think that's small amount to pay. To find out what your cognitive aptitudes are. Okay. We also have a test called Career Traits Compass, which tells you where you are on the continuum from being an individual contributor to a leader. Heck, that's very good information to know about yourself. You also need to know what your emotional aptitudes are like. I can say about you, having worked with you now for how long?

Two years.

Best two years of my life. Okay. No, but I could say, having worked with you closely for two years, you. Your emotional aptitudes are so relational. Like, you're so good at making people feel heard and seen. You know that in my management class, I have to teach people how to show other people how to matter. That's very natural to you. That's an aptitude. If I was you, going out in the world to get another job. And if you do that, I'm coming for you. I know where you live, and you will not live.

You know where I am.

You will not live another day. But should that terrible thing ever happen, and it won't. But if you were ever to do that, I can't even say the words you would be able to. I know my aptitudes. This is how my brain is wired. Cognitively, intellectually, and also emotionally. I'm very relational. I make people see. You have to know this data about yourself, especially in a changing world, because they have to know. You've got to know where to plug yourself in. And finally, you have to know what your economically viable interests are. Not just your interests, because the worlds are changing. You have to know what economically viable interests exist. You have to open your aperture and you have to find out what's out there, what industries exist, what industries are emerging. My daughter Sophia, who we all love very much, yes, Sophia is in casting. And I said to her one day, why don't you go into AI and ask what's the future of casting? And she found out all this different stuff that's going on in casting. We had no idea. You should use AI to help you find out what AI is doing to what you're interested in. So you have to keep your aperture very, very open. You have to have those data sets. And so, okay, companies are laying people off and they're going to continue laying people off. They're going to tell you it's AI. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But the bottom line is still the same. Get a freaking hold on who you are in the details. So no matter what happens out there, you can explain yourself with a very cogent, accurate narrative and plug yourself in where there's place for you.

Okay, that leads us into our second headline from Business Insider.

Second headline, what is it? Where is it? Wait, wait, wait.

Where is it from Business Insider?

Speak.

Ageism in hiring resume Botox. Trend professionals in their 30s and 40s are trimming work history to appear younger to land interviews. A trend dubbe resume Botox. This illustrates younger age bias affecting even mid career talent, not just older workers. What do you make of this perception that we actually need to make ourselves look younger?

Yeah, it's happening. This is real. I didn't want to believe it. Yeah, okay. But so many people who listen to this podcast and who, you know, who read the newsletter and whatever, follow me on Instagram, DM'd me about it and I asked for their experiences and we were kind of deluged with this. Ageism is so real. And in fact, one time I was on a podcast with Jesse Hempel, who has the hello Monday podcast on LinkedIn. She's a tremendous person. And we had open phone lines. It was sort of like, you know, 1, 800 unemployed, okay? And people called in and, you know, it's LinkedIn. The power of LinkedIn is huge. And it was tens of thousand people calling in. The number one complaint was ageism, okay? People saying, I'm not taken seriously because of my age. I have to say this terrible thing. Companies like young people because they're cheaper, okay? So when you're 45 years old, you're earning a certain amount, and you come in and you're kind of fully loaded and you say, and literally it's been said to me, I can't work for any. I, when I left my last company, it was making, you know, this six figure sum. I can't make less than that. And I'm thinking to myself, yeah, well, I can get a kid out of college along with AI. I can train them up and I can pay them half as much. And I'm watching the, I'm watching the bottom line. I'd love to hire older workers because they are generally much more mature and poised and they know more, but they're very, very expensive. And the sad thing is that this is. And they built lives where they've got mortgages and tuitions because they thought the world was going to keep going in one direction. Who can blame them? It's just terrible, right? And now suddenly they're out of jobs and they've got this infrastructure around them that's very expensive. This is a little bit why we're seeing people move to places like Philadelphia and Indianapolis where the cost of living is lower, but also fewer jobs. Okay? So what this means is a couple of things. If you're 40 or 50 or even 60 and you want to stay in the workforce, you have to understand that there may be a period where you make less before you make more again. You make less. You put yourself on parody with younger workers. You get in, you prove yourself indispensable if you can, and then you go in and say, hey, I'm indispensable. How about let's, let's show me some love? I hate this story. I wish I wasn't saying it. I'm not saying it's good. Let me be clear. I'm just trying to be real. Okay? So there's number one. One, you may have to take a haircut on your compensation to keep up with the youngsters. Number two, you have to fight everything to make any kind of discomfort around ageism true. In the interview, you've got to know what young people are thinking. You've got to know about AI. You have to be an early adopter of it. When they ask you about AI, you've got to say, well, here are the six platforms I like. I frankly like perplexity. Even though everyone's down on it. I mean, you got to actually speak the language. You've got to. You can't have any kind of tech ick, okay? You can't be, you know, you just can't be a dinosaur. You can't. If you want to get in, you got to have the Skills and talents. And I actually had an interview with a person who was 50 the other day, and I was so hopeful because I needed and wanted the experience that he had on his very long resume. He had not done any resume. Botox, super long resume. I really wanted his experience. And he came to the interview with unprepared, hadn't done any homework, had not even kind of Googled my name, had not done the Values Bridge, which is our flagship product. Okay. He's applying for a job at our company. This is our flagship product. And I would say that because you already have two strikes against you with your age, you have to come to the interview over prepared. You can't wing it. So that's another thing I would say. That's my. That's my verdict on this.

Do you think that people should be shortening their resumes, Susie? Do you think that?

No, because when you show up at the interview and they look.

They're going to put together.

Right? Yeah.

Third headline. I'm going to put a few headlines together because there are a bunch of different headlines that have similar narratives. But basically the general gist is that AI has a dual narrative. Job loss and job creation. So there's a growing narrative. Some reports warn that AI could replace millions of jobs. Others claim that AI will create more jobs than it destroys and shift career value towards skills that blend human and technical strengths. Suzy, where do you stand on this dual narrative?

Yeah. Okay, So I come from a family of four complete football fanatics, and on one side of the family, it's that the greatest team that's ever. Yes, we're talking about football. Yes. In my family, everybody loves football. There's a big football. I'm not among them, but I respect them. And I'm not. Why would I talk against them? Okay, so one part of my family is. Just believes that the greatest team that's ever existed in the history of humankind is the New England Patriots. Okay? Okay. Patriots are everything. And then I have a side of my family that has a same exact opinion about the Buffalo Bills. All right? And we have a text thread where this is just. They're never going to agree that both teams are good. Okay. They're never going to agree. They're sort of sworn enemies when it comes to football. I'm very happy when football season's over because the Bills vs. Patriots conversation just ends. Okay, so this is what's going on in the field of economics right now about whether or not AI is going to destroy jobs or create them. And so there's a whole. I just got back from a conference in Miami. It was a lot of leading economists, there's a lot of leading business people, and there was a whole school of thought that was like, actually, in 15 years, AI is going to be so productive and destroy so many jobs that no one's going to be working and it's going to be universal income for everybody. And then there's. The other half of the room is basically saying, the Buffalo Bill people are all saying, you know, AI is going to create so many new companies and have so many productivity breakthroughs, we won't have enough workers and we're gonna have to open up our borders and like, never the twain shall meet. Now, here's the thing. Just like I love members of my family that love the patriots and members of my families that love the bills, and you see the virtues of both. I see when they're talking, they have me convinced, okay, the, the no jobs for anybody, universal income is gonna. Or there's gonna be revolution in the streets. They're talking. I'm like, totally makes sense. I love their numbers and their statistics. That's absolutely immutable.

Yeah.

Then the other side starts talking and I'm like, holy crow. Of course they're correct. All right, so let's split the difference. All right? Right now, we don't know. I would say you have to pray that the first scenario does not occur because a societal displace placement of people not having jobs is terrifying. I mean, when people don't have meaningful work, it can be very disruptive to the culture and society. Right.

So an attack on their purpose. Total.

Yeah. And in fact, you know, there is a fascinating sociological, cultural school of thought that the Crusades, where many people needlessly died. The Crusades were created as a jobs program by the Catholic Church because men were out of work. And so they said, let's just start some crusades to put them back to work. That ended very poorly for everyone as well. Okay. So let's pray that the first scenario does not happen. Let's. Let's hope that if it does happen, that universal income is the answer and we find other things for people to do with their lives. But there's also a chance that the, that the other one. But you have to act, you have to. You have to hope for the fact that there's going to be wonderful new jobs and people are going to have their choices of jobs. You've got to hope for that. Wouldn't that be a beautiful thing? People coming out of school, people coming out of people just like saying, wow, the economy is flourishing and growing. That's what you and I, that's our business purpose of flourishing. Absolutely. But we have to prepare for the fact that it's the other way. And in fact, of course, because of that, repeat after me. All roads run back to becoming.

All roads lead back to becoming you.

I think you got to really know yourself, and I think you have to be clear eyed about the fact that nobody knows. And great experts with big brains on both sides strongly disagree about what scenario is coming. We are living in a time where people will look back at it and say, wow, there was like a fork in the road and no one knew.

Yeah.

And I mean, I'm talking about some of the smartest people in the world sitting there saying 2. Talking about two separate scenarios of which there's no overlap.

Absolutely.

Okay, so that's where I'm on that.

And I think historically, when we think about new technologies, new jobs have always been created. Maybe not for the same people, but new jobs have been created. But it's interesting because for the first time ever, there's a technology that can beat you to the puck. Like, as you're retraining to that new job, it can actually learn and do it better. I mean, Susie, I'm hearing, hearing you say we need to have a little bit more agility to pivot and to reimagine and to double down on maybe some more human skills. What advice would you have for professionals that feel this need to sort of stay ahead of the curve?

Yeah, I think that doubling down our humanity is going to be a good thing because, say, AI takes away all our jobs. There's still going to be like this, you and me in a room together, people having fun, like, you know, having a dinner party or like taking a walk with a friend on a beautiful fall day. And so relational skills, skills are still really important. I will say my hope for all of this in the economy is that business has always been born out of people having problems, like having a problem and then figuring out how to solve them. Okay. And so people are always going to have problems, and then somebody's going to come up with an idea about how to solve it. That's how business keeps on going. So I believe in the ingenuity of people. I believe in the desire to build, the yearning that we have to take flight. And so I hope that saves the day. I think it will.

All right, let's move on to our next headline from the Washington Post.

Okay, I'm serious.

Trade Workers surpass college grads in job security for the first time in decades. Trade workers with associate degrees show lower unemployment rates than college graduates driven by AI. Impacts on white collar jobs and demand for hands on skills. Basically describing what we were just talking about, right? The fact that there are some jobs that still require the human touch.

This is like plumbing. These are trade jobs. Okay, so I mean, the human touch, yes, because you got to tell you, but like I have been on the board of angie, which used to be home Advisor, for more years than I can count. I can't. 10 years, 12 years. And I remember back before AI was even a glimmer in anyone's eye. Maybe some, some guy or woman at MIT knew that it was coming, but nobody else did. ANGIE is a online marketplace where your house, your kitchen sink springs a leak and then you go online to Angie and you put in that you need a plumber. And then plumbers come and say, I'll come. And you set up having your plumber come and so forth. So it connects consumers with tradespeople.

Yeah.

For the first five, six years I was on the board, all we talked about was the shortage of tradespeople. We couldn't, we actually thought about starting like a special university, you know, training school so that we could increase the number of plumbers and electricians and carpenters. There was just a massive shortage. And these are high paying jobs. They're actually like, you know, middle class jobs with a lot of security. AI is not going to replace them anytime soon. I mean, AI can do a lot of things, but it cannot build your house, it cannot unclog your drain, it cannot do a lot of. They cannot wire your kitchen. Okay. And so I, there is definitely what this article is saying, a movement towards probably parents and high school counselors saying, hey, how about trade school? And instead of people sort of saying, oh, it's got a bit of an ick, I want to be white collar because my family was blue collar and I want to go white collar. They're saying, sounds good to me. And so I think this is fascinating. I think that the statistics in that article shows that actually unemployment, if you want job security, the trades are where to go. There's a lot of cultural stigma around blue collar jobs and what they mean for your future, that have to, will have to change. Okay. For this to continue.

Do you feel like it is changing?

People will follow the money. That is the history of, you know, that's a history of economics. And so if there is security, you know, these are kind of, they're they're, they can be great jobs. You have a lot of freedom. You've got your truck, you go when you want, you work what days you want. I mean, there are a lot of these individuals in the trades, are individual operators, and they run their own businesses. And so we shall see which way it goes. I do think there's a little bit of a disconnect between where the money is and the job security, because you can be a plumber and make more than a kid who majored in art history at Princeton coming out of the gate and probably for decades to come. And people will go that way if that's the case. But there is still the narrative, the American narrative, that a professional job, a desk job, has got more cachet. Yeah, maybe that will change. That has to. We'll see if that changes. Yeah.

I mean, I'm curious, when you're hearing all these headlines, when you're noticing the changes in the world, what does career success even look like now? Is it stability? Is it maybe another road to becoming you, alignment with your values? What do you define as career success?

I don't think people are talking about career success as much as they used to. They're just talking about success. I think that's Gen Z ish. That's their, their influence. Okay. Is that career success used to be very clear. Like when I came out of business school, what career success was is, you know, you were making a certain amount of money by a certain age and you had a certain title. But I think now success is looking a lot more holistic for a lot of people, which is, you know, are. Is my. Am I living my values? Is my. Is my life in balance the way I want it to be? Of course, everyone has a different opinion about balance.

Awesome. All right, Susie, let's move on to our last headline, last, which is a real headline. It comes from a blog that covers remote work Remotive. And it reads, remote work is still a battleground. Remote work remains central, yet polarized. Many firms push return to office mandates while workers, especially those with disabilities, working parents, and neurodivergent professionals, argue that flexibility is essential to livelihood and inclusion. Suzy, we talk about remote work all the time.

Yes, just read that headline. Read that headline again.

Remote work is still a battleground.

Yeah. Okay, I have a story. I have a story. I teach a class. I teach two classes. I teach Becoming youg, which is the class I'm more known for. But I also teach and love teaching a class called Management With Purpose. It's a survey class. It's 14 weeks long and we march through all of this, all the things a manager needs to know. It's like, you know what, what it takes to be a good manager. I teach how to hire, how to fire, how to build a great culture, how to make managerial decisions, how to manage a crisis, all those things. So yesterday was the first day of me teaching this to the MBAs. And I after I sort of do a song and dance about how management is a very noble and magnificent profession and how much I'm excited that they're in the class. And I am. I love to, you know, you love this class. I love teaching this class. I love it because I've made every mistake a manager can make and so I love saying, don't, please learn from my.

I love when you like throw a picture of you up and you're like, well, let me tell you about my.

Mistake that I've made because I won't want them to be. Make them okay. I wish somebody done it for me. But anyway, last night I introduced this class to my students and I marched through everything I was going to teach. Okay, first week I teach I introduction. Second week we, we do a two week module on building main and maintaining and protecting a healthy culture. Then we move on to best practices in hiring. Then we talk about how to fix a broken team. After that we talk about how to let somebody go, probably properly. We move on to a two weeks, two week module on decision making. I'm walking through, walking through it. At the end I say to the class, any questions? Is there anything at all that is not in this curriculum? By the way, in this curriculum I teach a whole module on how to show people they matter. Because, because that's a real managerial skill that has to be taught. It doesn't come naturally to most people. Okay. So I go through the whole thing and I say, is there anything that's missing from this curriculum? I'm always open. I mean this is a pretty tightly knit curriculum. You know how I've hard, I've worked on creating it, but I'm always open to teaching anything else. Is there anything else that belongs in this curriculum? Hand goes up and I say yes. And the student says, are you going to teach us about remote work? And I said what exactly about remote work? And he said, well, what if we like want to work remotely and our bosses don't want us to? And I said, well, there's a different class for that. Okay, that's becoming you because that's where you learn about what you want to do with your life. But this is a class for managers. And so I will certainly talk about. We have a whole class on how to have best practices in meetings, which is where you spend most of your day. I will certainly talk about the challenges of conducting meetings when some people are in the room and some people are remote. But I am not going to be necessarily in this class sort of advising you on what you do about remote work. I will be coming at it from a managerial lens. You look very, very disappointed. So I took this moment and I said, okay, I do this in every class. I'm just very curious. How many of you would like to work remotely and still. Okay. This is a few years out of the pandemic. 50% of the hands.

Really? 50% of the room. 100% remote.

Yes. Wow. And so remote work. So to get to this headline.

Yeah.

Is remote work a lightning rod? It is. It is. It is. Never was okay for people like me who had our whole careers where it wasn't even an option. No one ever thought thought about it. Like, I had four children and all four of them could have strep. And I didn't, like, stay home and try to work from. From home. Okay. It just didn't work that way. And then the pandemic changed everything where we suddenly realized, gee, I could work all day and have my dog right next to me. Yay. You know, and there's so many great things about remote work. I totally get it because people got a taste of is going to be a lightning rod. It is. Now more and more companies are saying, come on in the office. Look, J.P. morgan, we're five days in. We are five days in. We're a startup. We're an entrepreneurial startup. We need everybody in the room. That's my opinion. As long as I'm running the show, that's what it's going to be. But we're going to have to experiment with that as we grow because we're going to hit a wall with it, I'm sure. But I think that it's going to be a lightning rod from here on out. And every manager is going to have to learn how to navigate it, and so will every individual. Once again, all the more reason to know your values. How much does you know? There's a value called work centrism, which is how much you want to organize your life around work. And there's a value called achievement. How much professional success really or sort of seen success matters to you. Really, really good to get clear with yourself on those things. So I 100% think remote work is a lightning rod. And of course, like all the other questions, you got to know yourself.

All roads lead to becoming you.

All right, that is it. Those are our five headlines. I I had fun. I hope that people had a light laugh. Ha ha. But also learned some stuff. Okay. The career landscape is filled. It's changing with landmines. I mean, it's blown up every day. I mean, if there's a headline tomorrow that had some kind of shocking career thing, I'm sort of shock proof with careers now. I mean, because it's changing so much. But that's why it's such a fun and exciting and interesting world to be in. And I'm really glad I'm in it with you, by the way.

Absolutely.

All right. I'm Susie Welch. This has been becoming you. This has been a career confidential version of becoming you. If you want to learn more about becoming you, Please go to becomingyoulabs.com or susiewelch.com Please subscribe to our totally free newsletter and listen to this podcast. I'm so glad you did, and I hope to see you next week. Dustin, thank you so much.

Thanks for having me again, Susie.

All right, Sam.