Author: Editor

You have a better chance of getting accepted at Harvard than finding a job these days.That’s the brutal reality of the current labor market. The no-hiring-no-firing environment, dubbed the Great Freeze, is driving job seekers up a wall. And the numbers paint an even darker picture, writes BI’s Aki Ito.The average job opening last quarter received 242 applications, according to exclusive data from hiring-software provider Greenhouse. That means you have a 0.4% chance of getting the average job you apply for. Meanwhile, the acceptance rate for that school near Boston: 3.6%.(If it makes you feel better, it could be worse.…

Michael Bender named Kohl’s Interim CEO.Courtesy: Kohl’sKohl’s said Monday that Michael Bender, who has served as its interim CEO, will become its permanent chief executive as the department store tries to get back to sales growth. He becomes the third CEO for the department store in about three years. The move is effective as of Sunday.Bender, who has been director of Kohl’s board since July 2019, became the company’s interim CEO in May. The retailer appointed Bender to the position after firing CEO Ashley Buchanan after just a few months into his tenure.Kohl’s fired Buchanan after it said a company…

The hottest job on Wall Street right now isn’t a trader or dealmaker. It belongs to the human minds who specialize in building the digital ones.Bank chiefs have been touting how adopting artificial intelligence at scale will help employees work smarter and cut costs, and they’re putting serious money behind those AI ambitions. Goldman Sachs’ CEO David Solomon said in October that he wished the firm’s $6 billion annual tech budget was even higher, while Bank of America dedicated $4 billion this year to “new technology initiatives,” according to the company.A chunk of that investment is directed at building out…

For Bobbi Brown, one of the perks of starting over after leaving her namesake brand was being “freed” from the constraints of a large corporation.The beauty founder said she learned a valuable lesson from that experience: “Layers are dumb.””The most important thing is I learned what not to do,” Brown said at The Wall Street Journal’s CMO Council Summit on Wednesday. “Not to waste time, energy, money.”When Brown launched her namesake brand in 1991, she was 34 years old and handled every aspect of the company.”I used to interview every single person in the beginning. Every single person,” Brown said…

Some New Yorkers are now getting crypto as a social safety net.Coinbase, the leading cryptocurrency exchange, donated funds to a nonprofit organization after shuttering its own philanthropy initiative two years ago.Now, that nonprofit organization is using the money to fund a cash transfer pilot program in New York City, where 160 residents will receive a total of $12,000 in crypto over a five-month period.Participants began receiving $800 a month in USDC, a stablecoin worth about one US dollar, in September. They also received an $8,000 lump sum, distributed in November. The program ends in February.The program is similar to the…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jenny Wood, a 45-year-old former Google executive who lives in Boulder, Colorado. She left Google in August 2024 and is now a keynote speaker, coach, and author. The following has been edited for length and clarity.It seemed preposterous for me to ever think about leaving Google.I started there in November 2006, when there were only around 10,000 employees, and became an executive — the director of American media relations — in 2022.Google’s amazing; I bleed Google colors. I loved the impact I was having, the future of opportunities I saw for…

Voters fill out their ballots on Nov. 4 at a polling station in Hillsboro, Va. Virginia is one of just three states where only the governor can restore voting rights for people with felony convictions. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images RICHMOND, Va. — Tati King says he wants to set an example for his grandchildren that it’s important to make sure their voices are heard. It’s why King, a 54-year-old living in Alexandria, Va., is suing Virginia election officials in federal court to get his voting rights restored. “I want them to see that their…

In July 2024, Magdalena Robinson was laid off from her job as a vice president of talent acquisition at a media agency. The news came as a shock — by all accounts she was doing well — but she saw a silver lining: Maybe it was finally time for a career break. She took the rest of the year off, soaking in the extra time with her husband and teenage daughter. Then she started applying for jobs in January.Eleven months and 300 applications later, she still doesn’t have a single offer.”I don’t know what’s going on right now,” she tells…

Elon Musk isn’t just talking about AI chips. The Tesla CEO is now asking engineers who are interested in a job to email the company, and he’s personally running twice-weekly design meetings.In a post on X on Saturday night, Musk called for job applicants for Tesla’s AI chip engineering team. He asked candidates to send an email with three bullet points proving their “exceptional ability” to Tesla. “We are particularly interested in applying cutting-edge AI to chip design,” he said.Musk said in the post that the company aims to “bring a new AI chip design to volume production every 12…

Satellite image of Haiti, including Gonave Island. Planet Observer/Universal Images Group/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Planet Observer/Universal Images Group/Getty Images Two men from North Texas have been charged over violent plans that included an armed coup on the Haitian island of Gonave, according to the Justice Department. Gavin Weisenburg, 21 years old of Allen, and Tanner Thomas, 20 years old of Argyle, along with other co-conspirators planned to murder all men on the Haitian territory before taking over the island, and enslaving the women and children as “sex slaves,” according to an indictment filed in the U.S. District Court…