#83: Google Freeze, Ford Cuts 8,000 Jobs, Yet Still A Talent Shortage?

What a contradiction - hiring freeze, yet great resignation, yet talent shortage...somebody make it make sense 🤯

Leaders,

First check out Morten Bruun, VP of Global Operations at Worksome, who has an extremely rare background in driving change at both a global technology leader (Google) and global business management leader (McKinsey).

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💩 Bad News:

• Layoffs and hiring freezes…

  • Shopify pulls job offers and internships.

  • Ford slashes 8,000 jobs (they say to shift priorities to electric vehicles).

  • Google announces hiring freeze for 2 weeks.

    • WTBFD 1: Full time employment just isn’t ideal. Things change, and full time employment is inefficient for both the talent and the leaders needing to have the toughest meeting they’ll probably ever have.

    • WTBFD 2: The Human Cloud is the new HR, and we’re in the middle of translating full time focused talent strategies to freelance first talent strategies. Example: Internships don’t need to be once a year, 3 month programs. They too can be freelance projects. Read more about micro-internships and Parker Dewey.

• Yet a labor shortage that isn’t slowing down? I know it’s a headscratcher 🤔

  • First, LinkedIn’s first CHRO said the “supply of qualified talent isn't going to increase”.

  • Then, Microsoft President Brad Smith says we’re in a new era of labor pool stagnation.

  • WTBFD: Great talent exists in abundance. It just doesn’t exist in traditional HR systems and traditional career paths. It exists in digital talent benches.

    • CASE STUDY: Upwork and Emirates NBD, one of the largest banks in the Middle East and North Africa.

    • According to Moadh Bukhash, chief marketing officer, “It’s a harder sell for an organization to ask someone to work full time when it would be far more empowering for that individual to be able to work with 10 different companies, offering the same talent and services they do naturally, without being tied to a single organization.”

• 🤯 It’s getting more expensive to have a car

🚀 Good News:

• Death to cover letters (shoutout Nicole Fernandez-Valle). How about we just skip tedious interview processes all together and get started ASAP through freelance projects?

  

• It’s never been easier to drive big change as an individual or with small teams (especially freelance teams!!!).

Nathan Barry @nathanbarry

It's crazy to me that a college student and a billionaire own basically the same phone and laptop. For all the inequality in the world, access to tech in the developed world is a remarkably level playing field.

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How To Be Ready

Individuals - prep your freelance muscle. This does NOT mean you quit your job. It means you start quantifying your experience and skill set to be ready for remote and freelance opportunities 👇👇👇

Dip Your Toes Into Freelancing Without Quitting Your Day Job

Leaders - engage a freelancer for a $500-$1.5k project. Here are a couple great projects to start with:

• 1,200 word thought leadership article for $500

• SEO audit for $500-1,000

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Exciting Things

1. New Social Contract is LIVE! (members can access contribute link at the bottom of this).

We’re not the first to do this. Various groups have tried. But we’re the first to use it ourselves whether an external platform or group works or not.

2. Leader Portals coming up!

• Next week you’ll hear from Abby Forman, Director of Communications at Fiverr.

  • Teaser Quote: “especially when it comes to this new world of working, where everyone is remote, managers can't keep track of people's time the way that they used to. And so now, all they have to rely on is the output of that person's work”.

• Thennnnn Niklas Lieb, Head of Bus Dev at Vicoland.

  • Teaser Quote: “We are shifting towards an economy where freelancers are able to do more complex projects and to be staffed on more important missions.”

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