WSJ Your Money Briefing - Money Moves for the New Year: How to Level Up Your Career

Episode Date: December 24, 2024

New year, new job? A raise or promotion could lead to more money in your pocket and possibly more job satisfaction. We’ll hear from Wafa Shafiq, who has applied to more than 250 jobs, about her search. Host J.R. Whalen will be joined by WSJ columnist Callum Borchers and career coach Joyel Crawford to discuss how to navigate the job market, enhance your professional profile and position yourself for new opportunities.    Sign up for the WSJ's free Markets A.M. newsletter.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tis the season to treat your family to the great taste of Popeyes. The festive family box is here to make your holidays brighter with all your Popeyes favorites. For just $25, you'll get four pieces of delicious Popeyes signature chicken, four tasty chicken tenders, four regular size and everybody's favorite, four buttermilk biscuits. Hurry up though, like the holiday season, Popeyes' $25 Fes of Family Box Deal will be over before you know it. Here's your Money Briefing for Tuesday, December 24th. I'm JR Whalen for The Wall Street Journal.

Welcome to the second episode of our series, Money Moves for the New Year. This week we're answering your questions about achieving your 2025 financial goals. Today it's all about work. And we've talked about it on the show throughout this year. Oh my gosh, frustrated maybe doesn't even go far enough. There's a general feeling of stuckness right now. Well the whole job market is just really subtle down quite a bit. This year, the balance of power started to tilt away from workers as red hot hiring cooled. The unemployment rate ticked above 4 percent for the first

time since 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Historically, it's still low, but workers are having a harder time landing roles. So will the job market improve in 2025? If you're looking for a new gig, you might share the same New Year's goal as Wafa Shafik. I am 25 years old and I'm from Toronto, Toronto, Canada.

Wafa worked in marketing for a few years, but quit her job earlier this year to travel for a few months. So while I'm traveling, I'm also applying and interviewing so that when I'm done around like February, which is when financially I should start working again, that I have something lined up. She's applied to over 250 jobs in the past few months and knows the type of role she wants to jump into next. For 2025, I want to land a job that has really great work-life balance, that is at a company that I'm passionate about, that's purpose-driven. And to accomplish her resolution, she has some questions.

What is being predicted, or what's going to change how easy or difficult the job market is? To talk about this, let's bring in my colleague Callum Borschers. He writes the On the Clock column and covers the job market is. To talk about this, let's bring in my colleague, Callum Borschers. He writes the On the Clock column and covers the job market. Callum, as we approach the new year, what trends could influence the job market in 2025? Well, of course, artificial intelligence is top of mind for so many workers.

I mean, there is real trepidation among workers about whether AI is going to, as AI fans say, just going to enhance our work, make us more productive, it's gonna take away some of the drudgery. That will happen surely for some high-end workers. It also seems likely that it will replace certain roles. A lot of folks are trying to figure out which side of that dividing line am I on.

This is a topic that comes up in almost every conversation I have with people who, especially if they're looking for a job. In a tough job market, what could a candidate do to position themselves better? Networking. I mean, that is like the number one thing that comes up. I've reported a story this year about how the who you know job hunting is really back. If you can get a reference from somebody who's already in the company, that can really increase your chances of at least getting human eyes on your resume.

Because remember, for every one job opening right now, especially in some of these white collar roles, you're getting three, four, 500, maybe even a thousand applicants for those roles. The hiring managers are pretty blunt. We can't look at every single one of these, you know, and so they're relying on some screening tools. But there are a lot of companies where if you have an employee reference that immediately vaults you to the top of the pile, and at least you're going to get a real look from a human hiring manager. You could find good pay, good company culture, and good flexibility, but the job might be missing something you were really hoping for. Should you take it?

We'll discuss some steps to help you make that decision. And if you're not quite ready to leave your current job, but want to get that promotion or raise, we explore ways to level up your skills. After the break. I am so dreading groceries this week. Why? You can skip it. Oh what, just like that?

Just like that. How about dinner with my third cousin? Skip it. Prince Fluffy's favorite treats? Skippable. Midnight snacks? Skip. My neighbor's nightly saxophone practices?

Er, nope, you're on your own there. Coulda skipped it? Shoulda skipped it. Skip to the good part and get groceries, meals, and more delivered're on your own there. Coulda skipped it, shoulda skipped it. Skip to the good part and get groceries, meals, and more delivered right to your door on skip. Let's face it, it can be hard to find a job that perfectly aligns with everything or most of the things you want.

That's also one of Wafa Shafik's concerns. What's the best trade-off to make when you're looking for a job? Like, is it having a good pay? Is it good hours? Is it good coworkers? What should I be looking at to give up to gain something that's gonna give me better utility

or like better happiness? Figuring out what you want goes beyond just considering the big categories like salary or work from home flexibility. So I spoke to Joyelle Crawford. She's a career coach and CEO and founder of Crawford Leadership Strategies. It's really important when you're considering your job search is to not only think about the salary range, but also understand what your needs are with the benefits. What are those intangibles like travel allowances, like childcare, remote work, parking allowances,

all those types of things that we don't necessarily add up to the bottom line of what we're getting for our total package when we're looking for new jobs. But don't just think about the salary, think about all of the other things. Also, if culture is something that you're looking at or workplace flexibility, those are things that you also need to take into consideration when you're looking for a job. Some people may take some of those or workplace flexibility, those are things that you also need to take into consideration when you're looking for a job. Some people may take some of those things and group it into a work-life balance that's

a priority for them. How should they ask about that in an interview? I think it's important to make a list of must-haves versus nice-to-haves. It gives you that clarity and confidence during the interview process. It helps prevent decision-making regret. If these are must haves, I don't see it as wrong or incorrect or improper to share how important having a work-life balance,

or I like to call it a work-life flow, is to your productivity. And so positioning it as just like organizations like X, Y, and Z, ABC Company, you have your mission and your goals and your vision statements. I have personal mission and vision and goal statements to stay productive.

And how I stay on task is having a productive work-life balance. Can you share some opportunities or examples of how that can be done here in this workplace? It can be kind of intimidating. productive work-life balance. Can you share some opportunities or examples of how that can be done here in this workplace? It can be kind of intimidating. What should you do if you feel like it's a tough ask in this market?

In any interaction when you're making a tough ask, you always want to approach the conversation and set the intention of collaboration and support. So in order for me to help you be the best organization that you can be, I need this. So how can we work together on this? It's a collaboration conversation. So it's not a demand. It's more of how can we work together to make this partnership work? It can be very intimidating, but if you're not feeling comfortable advocating for yourself in the interviewing process with

whoever is going to be your next employer, then there's certainly something to that. You should feel comfortable being able to advocate for yourself. This is not just for their benefit, it's for your own. The job search process can be intense and overwhelming. And it's something that Wafa asked about too. I want to know what the most effective strategies are for applying because I do a little bit of like applying to everything that I see in a day. And then I have also been networking with people and customizing my applications.

Joyelle, what are some of the most effective strategies for applying for jobs? Come up with a schedule. Because looking for a job can feel like a part-time job, or sometimes a full-time job. So I like to advise my clients to chunk out days. So it sounds like she's doing that by looking at jobs, and going and networking, and touching up the resume. I tend to ask my clients to only look for jobs.

I call it job window shopping, but only browse for jobs for an hour at a clip because your brain starts to shut down. The negative Ned and negative Nellie starts to think about not applying for it because you don't meet all of the requirements and you start talking yourself out of those things. So giving yourself an hour for these activities will help you chunk it out because a lot of times a lot of

these jobs will ask you to apply. So let's say you're doing job search on Monday, Tuesday you do applications. A lot of these jobs you'll fill out the application to apply and then you've got to upload your resume and you've got a customer. Change that up and dedicate enough time to do one thing at a time because then you'll spend six hours just applying for one job. So chunk it out. It'll be a little less labor intensive, a little less heavy on your psyche and soul, and it'll make you feel more productive and it'll give you a break. Over the course of the year, hiring naturally slows down, speeds up based on what's going

on. When can job seekers expect those hiring trends? The timing of things is really based on the fiscal calendar year, you know, like usually if they're winding down, they're trying to either spend money or save money. It's hard to gauge, but you know, any time is a good time to look. People are always looking for talent. Set up a calendar reminder for you to just peek

if you wanna start looking. But I always say, stay ready. Be ready and always have your resume ready to go. And then also making sure that you're giving them a timeframe of when you will be following up shows persistence and proactiveness. And so I think that those things really play well in a cover letter. Resumes, I really think that having those summaries and objective statements, that's redundant. You're applying for the job, everyone knows that's what you're looking for, take that out. That's good real estate. Use that area at the top of your resume to talk about the competencies and the skills that you bring. Really make sure that your resume highlights the experiences that job is

looking for. Don't bury them down at the bottom of the bullets. Bring those things up to the top. On the topic of leveling up your career, if someone is not ready to leave a job, but their resolution is to get a raise or a promotion, what are some ways to make that happen? I like to think of when you're asking for a raise or promotion to envision your manager

or the organization is Janet Jackson singing, what have you done for me lately? You need to think about them asking that question. Yes, it's about you and wanting to get the raise and wanting to get the promotion, but what have you done for that organization, for that team, for that manager lately that really makes you rise to the top. I also think that when you're asking for a raise or promotion, it's important to lay the groundwork on a regular basis to have those one-on-one conversations with your manager

or your supervisor. If you're having that regular conversation and here you are at the part of the career development conversation, you can share what you've achieved that is over and above what you were hired to do and then expressing to them what they're going to get for the return on investment. That's what they want to hear. Why are we investing more money or a job title in you? What have you done for us? Answer that question. Have a 30, 60 day, 90 day plan in outlining your vision of what you intend to do once you're in this role. And once you've shared all that

information, you're going to want to stop talking and observe how your manager's reacting. Answer any questions that they may have outstanding. And then finally, and this is like the most important part, close the deal. Never leave that conversation without getting clarity. Make sure you get a date on when this may be happening or when you're going to revisit this conversation or next steps. It's important to keep being persistent about it. It might be a great idea, a great opportunity, but just bad timing. But don't give up on it. Looking for a job can feel like, well, a job. But knowing what you want

and highlighting your greatest achievements can help you focus your search and land your next position. And if you're looking to get a raise or promotion in your current job, as Joy-El said, make sure to plant those seeds throughout the year. That's it for part two of Money Moves for the New Year from your Money Briefing. We'll be off tomorrow for Christmas, but join us Thursday when we'll hear from one of our YMB listeners about another 2025 resolution that might be on your list.

Saving up for a big expense. My husband and I have been saving up and we really want to do some large renovation projects on our home. We kind of have held off for the last several years, you know, put it on the back burner as some ideas that we wanted to do, but certainly haven't executed on a whole lot. Until now, I think we're ready as we move forward to 2025. This episode was produced by Ariana Ospreu. I'm your host, JR Whalen. Sound design by Michael Laval. Our supervising producer is Melanie Roy. Aisha Al-Muslim is our development producer. Scott Salloway and Chris Zinsley are our deputy editors. And Falana Patterson is The Wall

Street Journal's head of news audio. Thanks for listening.