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More than 60,000 federal workers were dismissed during the first two months of the Trump administration with more staff reductions expected in the coming months. Many are mid-career employees who have worked for the government for a decade or more, making it more challenging for them to make the case that their skills are transferrable to the private sector. Its an identity shift, says Arianny Mercedes, founder of Revamped, a New York City-based career consultancy. For many of these professionals, their roles werent just jobs; they were commitments to public service, she says. When someones identity is deeply tied to government service, being laid off or pivoting into a new industry can feel like losing a part of themselves, she adds. However, experts agree that mid-career, federal employees who suddenly find themselves looking for new roles have much to offer the private sector, including institutional knowledge and emotional maturity. Here are five ways they can position themselves for private sector jobs. Related: 3 tips for federal workers who are scrambling to find new jobs Translate the jargon Many federal employees have robust leadership, policy, operations, and compliance experience, but most need help translating what they do into private sector language, says Carol Kaemmerer, president and principal at Kaemmerer Group LLC, an executive branding and coaching firm in Minneapolis. Federal employees have valuable skills, but they are often hidden behind their bureaucratic titles and government jargon, Mercedes says. For instance, federal employees with titles like procurement officer, program manager and policy analyst possess valuable skills like critical thinking, risk mitigation and stakeholder navigation. When writing a resumé, its essential to replace bureaucratic jargon with business-friendly terms. For instance, talk about your experience with strategic operations instead of policy execution, or refer to your cross-functional leadership or instead of inter-agency collaboration, says Caroline Geraghty, a client account manager at 110 North, The Creative Agency in Charlotte, N.C. Business-friendly terms will help hiring managers and recruiter connect the dots between your experience and their hiring needs, she says. Leverage your unique skill set Spend some time identifying the types of problems youre highly skilled at solving and then research which private sector company roles seek to solve the same types of problems, says Becca Carnahan, founder of Next Chapter Career, LLC in Boston. For example, if in your federal job, you created processes to improve efficiency then you might want to look at operation manager roles. If you were known for building unexpected partnerships, then perhaps look at business development roles. Identify and then leverage your unique skill set, Kaemmerer says. As a former federal employee, your superpower might be helping companies to navigate federal regulations and government relations, she says. Clarify the one thing you do better than 95% of peopleand articulate how that fills a pressing need in the team or project youre targeting, says Sylvana Rochet, an executive and transition coach at Elan Vital. For instance, federal employees often excel at building consensus among stakeholders with conflicting agendas. That mix of diplomacy and influence is highly valued by the private sector, she says. Focus on outcomes Rather than listing job duties and tasks on your resumé, emphasize the outcomes you achieved at your federal agency. Private employers dont understand the skill-coding system that is pervasive in the federal workforce, but they do understand outcomes, says Jason Leverant, president and COO of staffing firm AtWork Group. State your key accomplishments in plain language and highlight the impact those achievements had on your organizations success, he says. For instance, instead of saying you updated 70 Standard Operating Procedures, explain how you helped to improve operational efficiency or saved the agency time and money. Many mid-career federal employees manage multi-million-dollar budgets, lead teams and navigate complex compliance issues. All of these skills are highly transferable when framed properly, says Tristan Layfield, principal career coach at Career Clarity Solutions in Detroit. Talk about the size of your team, the dollar value of your budget and the number of strategic partners you worked with, he says. Become a better storyteller In the private sector, storytelling is strategic currency, Mercedes says. Practice telling hiring managers your story by creating narratives around your impact and adaptability, she advises. Private sector hiring managers often assume federal candidates cant keep up in faster-paced environments, when the reality is most government professionals have been doing more with less for years but they havent had to tell that story, according to Mercedes. Layfield agrees that one of the biggest challenges facing federal workers is combating the perception that they are too siloed or inflexible. Position yourself as an adaptable, data-driven problem solvers with a unique understanding of policy and systems thinking, he says. Leverage your professional networks Networking is essential when seeking private-sector jobs. About 70% of jobs are found through social and professional networks, so its important to engage with industry groups, be active on LinkedIn, and attend networking events. Connect with former government colleagues who may have already transitioned into the private sector to ask for guidance and referrals, Geraghty suggests. With the right guidance and strategic positioning, federal professionals can make powerful transitions, Kaemmerer says.
Category:
E-Commerce
A new watchdog report uncovers Facebook groups quietly fueling a black market for operational Uber and DoorDash accounts, posing serious safety concerns for riders and customers. The Tech Transparency Project (TTP), a research initiative run by the nonprofit the Campaign for Accountability, found more than 80 black market groups through searches for terms such as uber account for rent. Sporting a combined membership of more than 800,000 users and named things like Uber Delivery Drivers Account For Rent or UBER ACCOUNT FOR RENT WORLDWIDE, these groups make no secret of their intent. Through these online groups, users can acquire delivery or rideshare accounts without going through the required screening process, allowing those without licenses or insurance to drive for these companies. By bypassing the screening procedure, buyers can also skip the required background checks for drivers. For women or people who may be vulnerable, if the person making a delivery or picking somebody up via Uber has a criminal history, there is an increased risk to those users, TTP Director Katie Paul says. Paul says that this concern is only the latest content moderation issue in a broader pattern with Facebook and Meta. Past TTP reports have documented a thriving black market for Facebook business accounts, revealing how the platformwhich has over three billion active users worldwide, according to recent financial filingsis being exploited for scams and potential election interference. This latest TTP report comes as Meta already faces fresh criticism for scaling back third-party fact-checking in January and shifting more responsibility to users to flag harmful content. That decision coincided with Metas launch of the Community Notes feature, which essentially relies on Facebook users to moderate content and flag posts that violate community guidelines. The move was met with widespread backlash, particularly given that it was announced mere weeks before President Donald Trumps inauguration. According to Paul, though, the change in moderation guidelines made little difference when it came to scams that are at the center of the latest TTP report. Paul says this recurring issue is especially prevalent on Facebook, largely because of its Group functionality. The platform relies on community moderators and administrators to police contentbut that system breaks down when the groups themselves are designed to enable scams and fraud. These have essentially become insulated communities for all kinds of nefarious activity, Paul says. Theyre not just groups where people are trying to keep their plants alive. In October 2024prior to Metas content moderation policy shiftTTP published a report on a pro-Trump scam ad network, uncovering more than 100 Facebook groups dedicated to selling business manager accounts capable of running multiple pages and ad campaigns. A similar trend was noted in a 2019 report by Talos, Ciscos cybersecurity research division, which found Facebook groups selling cyber fraud services. Some of these groups had been active for nearly eight years, their reach amplified by Facebooks content algorithm. A Meta spokesperson says the company is reviewing the report and removing content that violates guidelines. The spokesperson adds that Meta does not allow content that offers to buy, sell, or trade any personal identifiable information. The TTP report arrives as Meta stands trial for allegedly violating antitrust laws, with the Federal Trade Commission accusing the company of using a buy-or-bury strategy to eliminate competition. The case marks a major push to redefine how antitrust rules apply to tech giants, with the FTC targeting Metas high-profile acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsAppeach now boasting nearly two billion monthly active users. Meta is facing an FTC trial today about whether the platform has monopolized because its gotten so big, Paul says. If the company is not able to control its product because of its scale, it raises a lot of other questions that policymakers really should be looking into.
Category:
E-Commerce
Becoming a manager for the first time can feel exciting, gratifying, nerve-wracking, and even overwhelming. But being a good boss is not about following a checklist of what makes a perfect manager, as theres no such thing, argues Sabina Nawaz in her book Youre the Boss: Become the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need). A former HR leader at Microsoft and executive coach for Fortune 500 decision-makers, Nawaz offers actionable frameworks in her book on how to become a better manager, backed by lessons from her clients and personal career wins and losses. Here are some top takeaways from the book on how new managers can best make the transition. Being a good manager is a journey Its a common misconception that there are bad bosses and good ones, but according to Nawaz, we all have the capacity to teeter between good and bad boss behaviors. Just as no person is all good or all bad, the measure of a boss is neither binary nor fixed,” writes Nawaz. “‘Bad’ bosses are rarely bad people. In fact, most of them are good people with the best of intentions who unwittingly cross a tenuous dividing line between good intentions and bad behaviors. Acknowledging this can help you realize its an active practice to deliver skilled managementand quite common for negative habits to emerge if left unchecked. This mental shift of making continual progress towards productive behaviors and minimizing the emergence of lackluster ones often starts with reframing how you attain success. Your path to becoming a manager was likely the result of being an ambitious professional delivering beyond expectations, but thats no longer the case. Showcasing your output may be what got you where you are, but now you need to rewire who gets showcased and what ‘output’ means, writes Nawaz. Recalibrating to focus on driving your teams success is the critical distinction between being a standout employee and a standout boss. Its a continual effort as a manager to reorient how you were incentivized to perform before, and do your best to avoid the slow slip into bad boss behaviors, writes Nawaz. Communicate with greater precision Now that youre a manager, the power dynamics have shifted when it comes to how youre perceived by your colleagues. What you say, write, and do can carry more weight. Poor communication is the second most common perceived weakness of managers, according to Nawazs research. One of the most common mistakes is when managers give imprecise feedback or advice, resulting in a lack of clarity on appropriate next steps. This can lead to an overreaction like a colleague redesigning the entire pitch deck, when only one slide needed a revamp. Or too restrained of a response altogether. When youre a manager, the team often pays close attention to your every word, so Nawaz suggests using what she dubs the scaling tool to offset this pitfall and communicate with the intended level of impact and urgency. She suggests saying something like: On a scale of one to 10, Id rate the importance of this task at a . . . Or, in terms of a rough sketch vs. polished, this can be a . . . Or, On a scale of one to 10, how confident do you feel about your ability to deliver in the timeline given? Any professional could benefit from being a more calculated communicator by using the scaling tool, but it matters more when your team puts more weight to your message. Another common mistake among managers is giving uneven feedback or only offering corrective feedback about whats wrong and needs to be improved upon. Solely delivering negative feedback is demoralizing and harmful to a team members productivity when theyre not getting motivating insights into what is working. As human beings, we are wired to listen for the dangers, for the negatives, and dont take in the positive until its repeated endlessly like this weeks top song, writes Nawaz. She recommends managers offset this by offering five positive comments for every piece of corrective feedback, keeping the positive stuff more feedback than praise, and making the delivery of positive feedback a frequent habit. This is important: A Gallup survey found that employees rank the most meaningful and memorable recognition comes from their managers. Delegate effectively Now that youre a manager, you cant continue to do everything yourself like you did when you were an individual contributor. You have to delegate. Whats not obvious about delegating is how to do it successfully. You cant simply pass off tasks with a set of instructions and hope for results. According to Nawaz, delegation starts with identifying your direct reports level of knowledge on a given subject or task. The next step is adjusting your coaching so employees are given the right level of support and independence. Depending on how much support is needed, you could approach that in a number of ways. For instance, you could do the task and have them observe you, teach them the step-by-step process, ask what they need from you as they complete the task without your instruction, or make it clear youre a resource as they finalize the task on their own. These actions go in order of providing more coaching from you and less self-sufficiency initially to eventually scaling back your involvement and increasing their own autonomy to complete the task. Delegation is critical for not only empowering your team to grow and contribute to the organizations goals, but it also provides you with more blank space on your schedule for other tasks. Recognize your triggers that lead to bad boss behavior Youll be exposed to different sources of stress and pressure as a manager. Some is avoidable, but a lot of it is not. The buildup of these forces is typically what leads a well-intentioned manager to delegate poorly, communicate haphazardly, or come across as cold. To do your best to prevent a downward shift toward the bad boss lane, aim to control how you react to these strains by spotting the triggers that set you off. Nawaz refers to these as your pressure pitfalls, and the ability to identify them as theyre emerging can help you deescalate and change how you react in the moment. She suggests managers ask themselves these types of questions and keep note of the scenarios when these moments bubble up. What types of people tend to put me on high alert? What tends to get under my skin the most? What days of the week or cyclical or seasonal times are particularly pressure-filled for me? What do I experience physically when I get triggered? When are the moments I am not at my best? (When youre sleep-deprived? Hungry? In the mornings before youve had your coffee or late afternoons when your energy dips?) The answers you come up with can help you map your pressure-induced triggers and begin to adjust how you react through following a series of groundig exercises. Once a trigger is activated, Nawaz recommends doing complex math or thinking through a familiar memory to help direct the brain out of a flight or fight moment and back to executive functioning. To put this into practiceor any of these suggestionsNawaz advocates for creating a micro habit where you practice the skill daily and keep it small, so theyre tiny enough to sneak past our defense systems and start to inoculate us against change resistance. By small, she suggests so tiny that this habit takes two minutes or less a day, and may even feel absurdly minuscule on the surface, which means youre off to a strong start. Keep these management frameworks and recommendations in mind as you begin your journey of working to become a better boss for your team.
Category:
E-Commerce
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