Career Briefs: Relationships Are Not Generated in Seconds

Dear Reader:

I think we’ve reached an interesting point in the AI era.

Everyone has access to tools that can make them sound polished.

Which means sounding polished is becoming less valuable.

When anyone can generate a LinkedIn post, a perfectly worded email, or a collection of “results-driven” bullets in 30 seconds, the differentiator isn’t better wording.

It’s something AI can’t manufacture: relationships.

The person who knows your work.
The former colleague who will take your call.
The leader who says, “You need to meet Sarah.”
The friend who hears about an opportunity and thinks of you.

Those relationships are built over years—not generated in seconds.

And I think that matters more than ever.

The more automated the job search becomes, the more valuable it is to be known, trusted, and remembered by real people.

That’s where I’d put my energy right now.

As always, I am rooting for you,

Sarah

Ps. I really enjoyed this article, “We Are Now Entering The Era Of Bleh” by Aaron Horwarth. It’s really thought provoking and worth your time.

Table of Contents

• Dear Reader:

• No More Job Titles

• Girls Who Play Sports More Likely To Be a Boss

• The Real Payoff Of Succession Planning Is Three or …

• Your New Job Could Alter Your Marriage or Family

• Your Role Was Duplicated In A Merger— Now What?

• Can you do me a favor?

No More Job Titles

The New York Times recently reported that “member of technical staff” is now a common title at AI companies—listed by 39% of Anthropic employees, 31% at OpenAI, and 26% at xAI, according to Stanford researchers.

One former OpenAI executive called job titles “a distraction.”

For decades, the corporate world trained us to climb ladders: Engineer → Senior → Principal → Director → VP. Titles told us where we stood, what we were responsible for, and often, what came next.

Now, some of that structure is dissolving.

It sounds liberating. But when roles become fluid, expectations become fluid. And when expectations become fluid, work can become psychologically expensive.

As Aaron Khoo, a former AWS GM, recently wrote, organizations used to answer questions for us that we increasingly have to answer ourselves:

What exactly is my job? What makes me valuable? What path am I on? What does progress look like now?

That’s where structural power matters.

For further reading: New York Times article “Job Titles Are Out. We Are Now All Members of the Technical Staff”

Girls Who Play Sports More Likely To Be a Boss

I grew up playing soccer and running cross country and track, so sports have always been a big part of my life. Now I have two girls who play basketball, soccer, summer swim, and tennis, which means a lot of my life is spent on sidelines, pool decks, tennis courts, and soccer fields.

I was particularly interested in a new study on the connection between women’s participation in sports and career advancement.

Researchers surveyed more than 9,500 people across the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the U.K., including 9,056 women who had worked full-time during the past five years. They found that women who played sports for at least three years before finishing high school or secondary education were 50% more likely to hold leadership positions than women who did not participate in sports.

The researchers called these women “Everyday Athletes.”

And the women themselves pointed to sports as a meaningful part of their professional development. Nearly 70% said the lessons they learned through sports are more important than ever in today’s workplace.

The study also found that women who played sports were also more likely to aspire to senior leadership and negotiate their salaries—and many specifically credited skills developed through sports with helping them advance professionally.

Additional Reading: Elf’s Study & Inc Magazine’s summary of the study.

Why Do You Read The Briefs?

I’ve been writing a version of this newsletter for almost ten years… and shockingly, some of you have been with me since the beginning.

I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Why do you read this newsletter? What do you like learning about? How can I make this newsletter even more relevant to you?

When I sit down to write each month, I’m not writing to an audience. I’m thinking about the people on the other side of this email—and the conversations we’ve had over the years.

So tell me: What keeps you reading? I promise I will read every single email.

Send me your thoughts: [email protected]

The Real Payoff Of Succession Planning Is Three or Four Levels Down

Heather Foust-Cummings makes a compelling point about succession planning: one senior departure can create 17 moves. Yet most organizations focus almost exclusively on who will fill the initial vacancy, overlooking the chain reaction that follows.

New i4cp research found that high-performing organizations are far more likely to formalize succession planning for mid-level, frontline, and critical specialist roles—not just executives. They build talent pools rather than relying on one named successor, push ownership of succession closer to where the talent sits, and connect succession planning to broader business and workforce planning.

The takeaway is simple: the C-suite gets the attention, but the bench three or four levels down often determines what happens next.

Additional Reading: Heather’s Article in HR Executive Magazine

Your New Job Could Alter Your Marriage or Family

Have you ever stopped to consider that the job you choose could have a very real impact on your marriage—and your family?

We spend a lot of time evaluating jobs based on compensation, title, flexibility, travel, commute, growth potential, and prestige.

But how often do we ask: What will this job require of the people I love?

There is new peer-reviewed research from the AMA Alliance Physician Family Experience Survey found that only 38% of respondents—people who identify as married to a physician—said they would choose a physician as their partner again.

This is not just medicine.

Research has repeatedly found connections between the demands of work and relationship strain:

• A 2002 study of World Bank employees and their spouses found that nearly 75% of traveling staff and about half of spouses reported high or very high stress related to international business travel. The researchers found that lengthy, frequent, and unpredictable travel negatively affected many spouses and children, particularly young children.

• A 2020 study published in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics found that promotions into top jobs were associated with a doubling of the baseline probability of divorce for women in the study, while the same pattern was not found for men. The researchers also found a widening gender gap in divorce following promotion to CEO.

• Research from Umeå University examining Swedish couples found that when one partner had a commute of 45 minutes or more each way, couples were about 40% more likely to separate.

• A study published in the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, using 2000 U.S. Census data across 449 occupations, found that dancers and choreographers had the highest observed divorce/separation rate in the dataset, at about 43%. Importantly, the study identified an association—it did not establish that the occupation itself caused divorce.

None of this means you shouldn't take the promotion.

It doesn't mean you shouldn't travel for work.

And it certainly doesn't mean a demanding career automatically leads to an unhappy marriage.

It means your career decisions have consequences beyond your career.

When you're evaluating a new job, don't just ask:

What will this job do for me?

Also ask:
What will this job require from my spouse?
What will it require from my children?
What will our evenings look like?
How much travel is actually sustainable for our family?
What happens when the promotion comes with more responsibility, more visibility, or more hours?
And are we both genuinely choosing this life?

Because sometimes the most important question in a career decision isn't:
“Can I do this job?”

It's:
“Can we build a life around this job that we actually want?”

Your Role Was Duplicated In A Merger— Now What?

From the Briefcase Coach archives, an oldie but a goodie. This article covers advice from senior executives who have faced this exact dilemma and how to move forward.

Article: What To Do When Your role Is Duplicated In A Merger

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