Business Development

While February’s job losses made headlines, the broader context matters. Just one month earlier, employers added 130,000 jobs in January, suggesting that hiring momentum had begun to return after a sluggish second half of 2025. February’s decline reflects a labor market experiencing volatility rather than a single directional trend. Several factors contributed to February’s weaker […]

If you’ve followed this blog for a while (and if you don’t, you should — my mother likes when I’m validated by followers), you know that I often warn people against following the Tyranny of the Urgent in allocating their time. Best practice is to let clear priorities and goals be your north star, with […]

The first jobs report of the year landed with a mix of surprise and signal: employers added 130,000 jobs in January 2026, a stronger gain than many economists anticipated. At the same time, deeper revisions to past data reveal that 2025 was one of the weakest years for labor growth outside of recessionary periods. For […]

You’ve almost certainly heard the saying, “Man plans, and God laughs.” True as that may be, I’m still someone who appreciates a plan. I like my time organized, and if something happens during the day that I didn’t account for, I’ll go back and update my calendar to document the change in my schedule for […]

Many years ago, I found myself in the position of running about a dozen units fulfilling similar roles. Most of them did well, but two of them were struggling and needed restructuring. So we sat down and made the hard decisions that involved reducing staff and reorienting the local organization. The changes we made weren’t […]

As a career coach, you’re used to helping clients make sense of uncertainty. Yet the current job market in 2026 continues to evolve in ways that can feel confusing for even the most experienced job seekers. Recent labor data and hiring trends reveal a market that’s stable but selective, where strategy matters more than ever. […]

by Stephanie Renk and Mark Misiano – 12/02/2025 The U.S. enters 2026 with a labor market that has finally begun to look recognizable again. The labor economy is shifting into a steadier rhythm after a period defined by pandemic-era turbulence, historic quits, aggressive hiring, wage spikes, and wild sectoral swings. What’s emerging is not a […]

In business, so often it’s about knowing which levels to pull, when. You’re probably familiar with the allegory of a shipping magnate whose freighter is loaded with cargo ready for transport, but something is stuck and the shaft on the propeller won’t turn. The shipping magnate’s crew looks the ship over and everything looks normal. […]

You’re probably at least passingly familiar with the hit Blink 182 song, All the Small Things. It’s catchy, has a good beat, and I think we’ve all heard it countless times in the 26 years since its release. This song about the importance of small gestures recently came to my mind during a coaching session. […]

October 2025 presents a unique moment in the U.S. labor market. With official data releases from the Bureau of Labor Statistics temporarily suspended due to the federal government shutdown, analysts and practitioners turned instead to private-sector indicators and model-based estimates. What those signals reveal is a market that is slowing and selectively competitive, not collapsing. […]

When the word “AI” shows up in our coaching spaces, reactions tend to fall into two camps: “It’s coming for our jobs!” Or “I’ll just ignore it and keep doing things the way I always have.” Both responses miss the point, and both put us (and our clients) at risk. We don’t need to become […]

The August 2025 jobs report confirms what many of us in the career space are hearing from clients: the job market is cooling, confidence is slipping, and our role as coaches and résumé writers has never been more critical.   The August Snapshot Job Growth: The economy added just 22,000 jobs in August — down […]