The blog

Career evidence, in practice

Short, practical pieces on one idea: write down what you did while you still remember it. Then you can prove it whenever you need to.

Two people in coats talk across a small café table by a window on a grey afternoon, one holding a mug with both hands and the other mid-gesture, an empty plate between them.

October 12, 2026 · 5 min read

Weak ties, but not the weakest

Fifty years of advice said the more distant the contact, the better. The largest causal test ever run found an inverted U, and it changes what to do about it.

A man sits at a kitchen table late at night with a spiral notebook, a pen and an open laptop, while behind him in the dim kitchen someone in a quilted dressing gown stands at the counter.

September 28, 2026 · 4 min read

A job search is a health event

Career advice is filed under productivity. The mortality and mental-health research files it somewhere else, and changes what preparing for it is worth.

A woman works alone at a laptop in a wide open-plan office at the end of the day, the desks and chairs around her cleared and empty, her coat over the back of her seat.

September 14, 2026 · 4 min read

The losses that start before the layoff

The earnings a displaced worker loses do not start falling on the day they are told. They start earlier, and the market decides what it costs.

A man at his desk in a bright office, laying printed pages side by side in order across the table in front of him.

August 30, 2026 · 4 min read

A promotion case and a résumé are the same document, twice

You don't need to be job-searching for your evidence to matter. The review cycle compiles from the same record the résumé does.

A woman at a kitchen table with a printed certificate set to one side, working instead in a notebook she is filling herself.

August 30, 2026 · 6 min read

Résumé completion is the wrong workforce metric

WIOA assesses six primary indicators, and not one of them counts a service delivered. Five are measured after the participant has left.

A woman at a kitchen table in early morning light, writing carefully in a notebook beside a closed laptop and a cup of coffee.

August 29, 2026 · 4 min read

The retrospective nobody runs

What to write down the week after you don't get the job. The worst-feeling moment in a search is the one that compounds.

A woman at a dining table late in the evening, pen stopped on a half-written notebook page, thinking rather than writing.

August 28, 2026 · 4 min read

Why "quantify your impact" is bad advice

Not because numbers don't matter. Because the advice, as practiced, pressures people into inventing them under deadline.

Seen from above, a pair of hands holding two pages clear of a desk that is covered edge to edge with sheets of handwritten notes.

August 28, 2026 · 4 min read

The federal résumé formula

The largest employer in the country tells applicants exactly what a résumé line is: "Accomplished [X] as measured by [Y], by doing [Z]." The hard part is the Y.

An interviewer sits with her pen paused above her notepad, listening closely to a candidate who is mid-answer.

August 27, 2026 · 4 min read

What a STAR story is missing, and why interviewers can tell

Situation, task, action, result. A skeptical interviewer is waiting for the fifth part: how you know the result was real.

Close view of hands at a kitchen table drawing a firm line through one paragraph of a printed page, with other lines already struck out.

August 26, 2026 · 4 min read

A gate is not a requirement

Some lines in a job posting can eliminate you outright, and no amount of good evidence can argue with them. Find those lines first.

A woman alone in a glass-walled meeting room just after everyone has left, writing a few lines in a notebook while the chairs are still pushed out.

August 25, 2026 · 3 min read

Three questions to ask about anything you just finished

Scale, stakes, and the measured result. Five minutes with these three questions saves you days of reconstruction later.

A man at a desk beside an open archive box crammed with old project folders, reading a single thin printed page.

August 24, 2026 · 4 min read

The résumé is a lossy format

Every résumé compresses. The question is whether you still have the original, or whether "managed implementation" is all that survived.