1 . 13-year-old Ava Dorsey is the founder of Ava’s Pet Palace, a business that sells organic dog and cat treats.“I actually had the idea when I was six with a picture I drew of a palace,”she says.It was a detailed design for dogs and cats and she had serious plans to build it one day.

Unlike most dog treats that you find in stores, dog treats sold by Ava’s Pet Palace are 100% organic, and are non-GMO(非转基因). Ava has set a goal for herself with these dog treats, and she wants every treat to be healthy, tasty, and top-quality. Seriously, some of her treats sound delicious enough for people to eat! “All of my bags now have the USDA organic stamp, and we're very excited to have gotten it because it's something I've wanted for a long time,”she says.“A lot of stores like to see organic products because customers like it, so that was really exciting.”

Ava says the biggest challenge of being a kid in business is when people don't take her seriously, but undoubtedly Ava has proved that her doubters are wrong! When asked how she defines(定义) success, Ava says,“When you hit a bump in the road, you shouldn't give up and you keep trying.”She learned that from her mom, who sounds like a smart lady! Some more things Ava has learned from her years in business: Hard work eventually pays off and there is nothing wrong with asking for help.

As far as the future of the pet treats industry goes, Ava is optimistic——but she’d also like to be an inspiration for change.“There’s not much diversity(多样性) right now, so that’s something I would love to see in the future,”says Ava.“I would also love to see more kids in this industry.There aren't many other teenagers around, and I hope that I can be an inspiration to others who hope to lead the pet industry.”

2 . For many American high school seniors and their families, May 1 is “National College Decision Day,” when students make a decision about their academic future.     1     According to a recent survey, more than half of Americans don’t even think college is worth the cost. This is upsetting, as completing college is as important as ever.

    2     Even in today’s competitive labor market, college graduates find work much easier and tend to command significantly higher incomes. The unemployment rate for those with a bachelor’s degree or greater is currently half that of those with a high school degree. This college income advantage is due to technological advances like the personal computer and the Internet, which have caused a huge demand for skilled workers. The rapid advances today in automation and artificial intelligence will further increase the need for a highly skilled workforce.     3    

It is understandable why many students and families suspect that college is no longer “worth it.” College tuition has been rising for years, and many students fear being burdened with loans after graduation. But in fact, the net price of a four-year college, which is what students pay after financial aid, has been falling since 2018 and is now lower than it was in 2006.     4     In other words, the investment paid off.

To make smart decisions about where to go and what to study, students and parents can make use of resources available today to make informed choices.     5     With these resources, students can gain a reasonable picture of what their future holds down each potential path.

3 . I recently had a conversation with a friend who was feeling very upset about work. Why? He thought his manager didn’t like him. He rarely heard much from his manager, and when his manager said something, it was about correcting some aspects of his work or giving him some constructive advice.

Not surprisingly, given my friend’s understandably anxious view of these workplace dynamics (动态), he was afraid of his annual performance evaluation. He was worried that his boss might even tell him that he wasn’t needed anymore. Accordingly, he considered looking around for another job — not because he really wanted to, as he liked the kind of work he was doing, but because he suffered from the kind of management.

The evaluation day came, and to his great surprise, rather than being harshly critical, his manager told him that he was doing a fine job and gave him a promotion.

The sad truth is, this kind of phenomenon is by no means unusual in the workplace. One recent survey showed that nearly half of the employees have considered leaving a job “due to lack of recognition”. Another similar study found 46 percent of the employees left a job “because they felt unappreciated”.

The good news is that, in this case, the damage was repaired before it was too late — before my friend was out the door and his company began the expensive and time-consuming process of hiring a new employee. But as the research noted above shows, workplace problems related to recognition and appreciation are as common as the office air we breathe.

This conforms with my personal experience; during my decades of corporate management, I saw similar appreciation issues all the time. When a job isn’t done well, nobody deserves anything, of course. But when a job is done well, if you’re an employee, it’s entirely natural to expect at least a bit of appreciation. So if you’re a manager, it’s a good idea to show some. It’s that simple.

4 . What if your next job is just a weak tie away? A recent study, conducted by a team from Stanford University and LinkedIn, revealed that weaker social connections have a greater beneficial effect on job mobility (流动性) than stronger ties. Stanford Professor Erik Bryson suggests a practical outcome of this study is to encourage job seekers to expand their reach beyond immediate friends and colleagues. Weak ties, he explains, often provide more unique, beneficial information and connections.

The advantage of weak ties theory is based on the idea that weak ties allow distant group of people to access novel information that can lead to new opportunities and innovation. Weak ties are more likely to introduce new job information to a wider social network.

The research team conducted a five-year experimental study with LinkedIn, involving 20 million global participants and 600,000 new jobs created. Using LinkedIn’s “People You May Know” (PYMK) algorithm (算法), the researchers tested the weak tie theory’s impact on the job market. The team randomly assigned LinkedIn users to receive either more weak or strong tie recommendations from the PYMK algorithm, then tracked the labor mobility of these groups over five years.

Their findings confirm that weaker ties enhance job mobility. Besides, the researchers looked at differences across industries and found that adding weak ties creates significantly more job opportunities in digital and high-tech industries. “This may reflect the fact that there is more rapid change and need for novel information and connections in those industries,” Bryson said.

He points out that the traditional methods used by policymakers to analyze labor markets are quickly becoming outdated. “They need to recognize that the labor market, like all aspects of the economy, is being digitized,” Bryson said. “It is important that we understand how the algorithms used by digital platforms like LinkedIn impact the labor market.”

6 .

Take Off with Historic Hiring Growth

A message from Kate Gebo

Welcome aboard!

We are so happy to have you fly with us. I’m sure you’ve thought about United as a way to travel, and with over 95,000 employees and growing, our company is also the center for rewarding careers.

I could not be prouder to lead Human Resources at United during this exciting time for our company, while we’re building the biggest and best airline in the history of aviation. Earlier this year, we announced that we are on track to hire at least 15,000 new employees by the end of this year.

When people think of career opportunities at United, they often think of being a pilot or flight attendant. In reality, our organization has a wide variety of roles in addition to our fantastic pilots and flight attendants, with jobs and functions to keep our airports running and our planes flying.   

Whether it’s for operational roles, such as ramp service employees, customer service representatives, and aircraft technicians, or for corporate roles in human resources, digital technology, and social media, we’re hiring across every function of the airline, seeking strong talent that will take us to new heights.

A role at United is not just a job; it’s a career. Many of our employees have taken on new roles in different departments throughout their tenure (聘用期), which we support to develop and invest in our workforce. In the past seven years, more than 1,500 frontline employees were promoted to management roles, and 78 % of our senior leaders were promoted internally.

Beyond the traditional career paths, we’re proud to create new paths to help our talent pipelines fulfill some of the industry’s most critical job functions. Aviate, our pilot career development program, offers aspiring and established pilots a path to the United flight deck. Calibrate is our full-time, paid apprenticeship program for those wanting to go into aircraft maintenance and other technical operational roles. Our newly launched Innovate program helps provide the skills and experiences needed to succeed in a technology career at United.

We’re hiring from coast to coast, at our seven major hubs and across a broad range of positions. If you’re ready to join me and 95,000 of the industry’s best and brightest at United, I encourage you to visit careers.united.com today to see what opportunities await you. Your career is cleared for takeoff.

United with you,

Kate Gebo

Executive Vice President,

Human Resources and Labor Relations

9 . If your next meeting can’t be an email, maybe it can just be 15 minutes. The 15-minute meeting is the fastest-growing block of time that workers and bosses are planning, according to an analysis of Microsoft Teams data, which also shows people are booking fewer hour-long meetings. Fifteen-minute meetings now make up 60 percent of gatherings, proving that executives and employees alike have grown stricter about their time.

Thirty minutes tends to be the common time for many meetings. Jayne Sandman, who runs a Washington, D.C., branding-and-marketing firm, generally gives people a tight 15. “The death of your day is too many ‘half-hours’,” she says. Sandman starts calls with something warm and exciting, such as “I can’t wait to hear about your weekend later!” Then she quickly turns to business, noting there are only 15 minutes on the docket (议程).

Over three-fourths of employees say shorter meetings are more efficient, according to a new poll of more than 2,000 U.S. workers conducted in September by market-research firm Civicscience. One-third of respondents said they stop paying attention after 15 minutes anyway. For an employee who makes $100 an hour, cutting down 4 of their meetings by 15 minutes is a $100 savings. Shorter meetings can also help employees work less hours. Companies that have gone to a four-day workweek say banishing meetings that serve mostly as progress reports is the first step to increase efficient hours out of the day.

Rahim Charania, managing partner of a real-estate investment firm, says the 15-minute block is the standard time, and meetings rarely run over. “It forces everyone to do the majority of their thinking before the meeting.”

10 . Plato believed that men are divided into three classes: gold, silver and bronze. Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist, argued that “ the vital few” contributed to most progress. Such viewpoints are taboo (禁忌) today in public life. Politicians avoid talking of a “leadership class” or “the vital few”. School recruitment turns away from picking winners. Universities welcome the masses: more people now teach at British universities than attended them in the1950s.

In the private sector things could hardly be more different. The world’s best companies struggle tirelessly to find and keep the vital few. They offer them fat pay packets, extra training, powerful instruction and more challenging assignments. Private-equity (私人股权) firms rely heavily on a few stars. Firms in emerging markets are desperate to find high-flyers who can cope with rapid growth and fast-changing environments.

Few people know more about how companies manage talent than Bill Conaty and RamCharan. Mr. Conaty led the human-resources department at General Electric (GE) for 14years. Mr. Charan has spent the past few decades presenting proposals to some celebrated entrepreneurs (企业家). Their recent book, The Talent Masters, provides. a nice mix of portraits of well-known talent factories, such as GE and Procter & Gamble (P&G).

Successful companies make sure that senior managers are involved with “ talent development”. Jack Welch and A. G. Lafley, former bosses of GE and P&G, claimed that they spent 40% of their time on personnel. Andy Grove, who ra n Intel, a chipmaker, obliged all the senior people, including himself, to spend at least a week a year instructing high-flyers . Nitin Paranjpe, the boss of Hindustan Unilever, recruits people from campuses and regularly visits high-flyers in their offices.

Elitism (精英主义) has its drawbacks. In their rush to classify people, companies can miss potential stars. Those who are singled out for special treatment can become too full of themselves.