On with Kara Swisher - Beat the Resume Bots & Build a Career You Love with Jodi Kantor

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times investigative reporter Jodi Kantor joins Kara to talk about her new book, “How to Start: Discovering Your Life’s Work.” It’s a guide for young people starting their careers in an age of AI disruption, economic instability and political chaos.  Jodi acknowledges the difficult reality graduates face and tries to offer practical yet empathic advice. She argues that meaningful careers are built on “craft” and “need.” Kara and Jodi discuss how to find workarounds in an automated hiring hellscape, and what key things to look for in a first job. Plus, Jodi explains why young people need to take calculated risks, and what that looks like for recent graduates.  Questions? Comments? Email us at [e-mail] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The way I got a job was I called Larry Kramer at the Washington Post and started insulting him and then went down there. Like it was, I had a rejection letter and a form letter and then I just ignored it completely. Well, first of all, it sounds to me like a uniquely Karaswishian thing to be able to get a job by insulting somebody. I'm not sure anybody but you could pull that off. Hi, everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is on with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is Jody Cantor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for the New York Times. Jody has been covering employment, the workplace, and power for decades.

In 2017, she and Megan Tui broke the story of sexual abuse allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. More recently, Jody's been writing about the Supreme Court and how the notoriously tight-lipped institution has made itself even more secretive by imposing NDAs on clerks and employees. Now she's applying her years of experience, plus the tools she's acquired as a reporter to a guide for young people starting out in their careers. In it, Jody acknowledges the difficult reality that faces recent graduates, including AI, economic uncertainty and political chaos, and tries to offer practical yet empathetic advice. I think Jody's one of our best reporters in the nation. She's done an astonishing job at the New York Times covering very difficult topics, but I think it was really interesting that she shifted to this because she had, as kids of her own and also is really concerned about where young people are going,

and it's really important to get advice from someone like her. Let's get to my conversation with Jody Cantor. Our expert question today comes from Vivian 2, host of the Vox Media podcast, Net Worth and Chill, which is all about navigating money and personal finance, especially for younger people. It's a great conversation, so stick around. This episode is brought to you by Tell Us Online Security.

Oh, tax season is the worst. You mean hack season? Sorry, what? Yeah, cybercriminals love tax forms. But I've got TELUS online security. It helps protect against identity theft and financial fraud so I can stress less during tax season or any season. Plan started just $12 a month.

Learn more at tellus.com slash online security. No one can prevent all cybercrime or identity theft. Conditions apply. It's never too early to plan your summer story in Europe with WestJet, from rolling countryside to cobblestone streets. Begin your next chapter. Book your seat at westjet.com or call your travel agent. WestJet, where your story takes off.

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. Download the eater app at eater app.com.

It's free for iOS users. Jody, thanks for coming on on. My pleasure. And I mean, I'm excited to be with you. And also, I feel like I have to stipulate. Carrie, you've given me some pretty good career advice over. the year. So it's meaningful to have this conversation with you. What have I told you that's like, that's not the question. The question is, what have you told me that is repeatable in a public

setting? Oh, okay. All right. Get the fuck out of Dodge is what I'm always telling people. I know your value is one of my favorite things. You have said that to me. I've said that to you. And that's, I think, important. I always feel like they're lucky to have you at the New York Times rather than, I mean, you're lucky to be there too, but they're lucky to have you. And that's the one thing I always told you. Well, thank you. Anyway, let's talk about your book. This was such a, when you call me, I was, I don't know, I was driving somewhere and I was like, what? Like I was expecting, I'm going to do, you know, an investigative piece on who knows what manner of corrupt person you could look at it any time. But your book, How to Start was inspired by a commencement speech you gave to students who were capping off a tumultuous senior at Columbia University last May. Talk about how that inspired this. Because again, it came out of left field for me, I guess. I know. You know, I didn't think you were going to do that. Well, so a year ago, I got this invitation that's a real honor, but also frankly, kind of a problem. Columbia, where I went undergrad, asks me to give the undergraduate commencement address.

And my friends are like, call in sick. Don't do it. Because this is peak Columbia chaos. I mean, you remember, it's just like one disaster after another on this campus. and my friends were like, you're going to get booed. But something in me was like, give me those kids for 15 minutes because I was really upset to see what had happened to the school. So I said, okay, great, you know, I'm honored, I'll do it. But I just want to spend some time because this is obviously a room I need to read really carefully before giving this speech.

And also, I mean, let's talk about the tension here, which is going to be throughout this graduation season. the assignment of a commencement speech is to be uplifting. If you don't do that, you have completely failed. And yet that's a very hard setting, and this is a very hard time to be uplifting in. And the hard school that had undergone all manner of back and forth and continued to do so under the Trump administration. Completely. So then when I met with the students, they did such a great thing. I mean, Kara, you and I love hard questions, right?

It's like forget the easy questions, why bother? They said to me, we don't want you to talk about Trump or Israel or Gaza or even the university administration. Many of us have come to hate. They said our class, even with all of its political differences, we are united in one question, which is how do you start your life's work in this crazy environment? And the question really resonated with me. I mean, for one thing, I've covered employment for many, many years, as you know, like these big stories about Amazon and other companies, but also the Weinstein story was. It's about employment. And it was about entry-level employment, right?

So many of those women were new on the job. So I had a lot to say about that. I have a 20-year-old daughter who is in this exact demographic. But also, in the years since the Weinstein story, my partner, Megan Tui, and I, my work. partner, she and I have been invited to a lot of campuses to speak. And, you know, we get the journalism kids, but what we have really gotten is questions about like, like, how do I make my work life meaningful? And over those years, you know, in my reporting, I had seen this digital transformation of the workplace that's now culminating in the AI moment, but also among the young people,

I had seen a rising sense of dread, cynicism, trepidation about the workplace that I was very concerned about. And so the speech became like, look, I'm a reporter. I try not to make myself, you know, the center of the story. But in this moment, I was like, I'm stepping out from behind these stories and I have something to say to them because the stakes are really high here. They have individual stakes in their work life, and our stake in work is collective. So I gave it the speech and thank God it went well. And then I couldn't stop writing. I couldn't stop thinking about these kids. Couldn't stop writing.

People were watching the speech on YouTube. So I was getting more questions. The Columbia students were coming to me with questions. And all last summer, you know, my day job at the times is that I am delving into the secrets of the United States Supreme Court. Yes. I am a busy person. but I couldn't stop writing. I kept waking up at like six in the morning,

just being like I want to help these people. So when you were doing this, it interested you. It sparked your interest and you had very heavy-duty investigative work. But in 2016, former New York Times editor, Dean Bacquet gave the commencement address. Bacquet told the graduates, don't let ambition blind you. And your message was what? Because, you know, the idea of unhealthy obsession with money and status at elite colleges has been an issue at the center of a lot of, you know,

whether it's Stanford, whether it's Columbia, which wasn't quite the same when I graduated, which was 105 years ago. But what was the thing you were trying to get through? Well, I've watched Dean's speech. I love it. But when I was listening to you a second ago, you know, the question was, well, what is ambition? You know, what is ambition? Is it just ambition to make money? Or is it ambition to really take on hard things? And this is a hard time to think about this. Here is the gist of what I want young people to know. I have just seen so much, I have seen bad career advice and I have seen no career advice. And so this is my alternative to those two things.

When I look around my life, my reporting, the people I've covered, when I look at your career, the people who I think are both most successful and happiest at work because we want both, their careers are a combination of two things, craft and need. Craft is having a special skill, having something that other people don't know how to do. You know, the craft of surgery is an obvious one, but so is like the craft of comedy and truly knowing how to tell a great joke, the craft of running a restaurant really successfully. When you have a craft, it's not something that comes instantly. It's something you are like working up to often very slowly for you get, you get, it's so hard to see when you're young, like how awesome craft can feel when you're finally

at the pinnacle a couple of decades later. Craft in this environment, I think, also has some protective value. You know, we'll talk about AI. Obviously, the job market is a cruel place. Any of us can be fired at any point. But your craft, nobody can take away from you. Right. So craft number one, let's call craft authority. Need is propulsion. Need is your independent assessment of what society will need over the course of your working life. You know, you and I are old enough to have lived through all of these stupid, fashions about like what you supposedly have to study. When I was in high school, it was learn Japanese. And we were told that if we did not speak Japanese, we were going to be lost

because the Japanese were going to take over the world economy. Meanwhile, as we know, the Japanese stock market languished for 30 years. Then it was learned genetics. And then it was learned Mandarin. And then, of course, it was computer science. And listen, these are all great disciplines. These are all amazing things to study. But the idea. that one of them is going to be a golden ticket that is going to, you know, be an automatic short path for you in life is, I think, very obviously a bad idea. So need is an alternative, right? It's saying based on your own independent observation, what products, what need, what care. You have to be shifting it. But the certainty is exhausting. Like, this is what you need.

Totally. But I think the reason it's important. now is because the psychological message of the AI moment for young people is you're not needed. And that's a damaging statement, and it's not actually true. We do need the talents and hard work of young people. And so need is a way of saying, what is the thing that's going to pull me along? All right. So in delving in it, you know, you write about how the idea of upward mobility has been battered. And my co-host, Scott Galloway on Pivot, who does write all. also about young people, says that people who tell you to follow your passion are already rich and telling you better off developing your talent. Craft is different than passion. Totally.

I have always called my job a craft. Like I get better and better at it. And someone was like, how do you do so? Because I hone my craft. Like, that's how I look at it. Like, it's like learning to play the piano or something like that. And I get better and better. And then I was like, and I practice more than you. Even at this advanced stage in my career, I practice more than you and try different things. So when you think about the idea of being driven by that rather than passion, talk a little bit about that. I think that's exactly right. I mean, like, needless to say, this is not a time for happy, go lucky, naive optimism about like, just do what you love and it's all going to work out. I mean, I think we're all really past that. I think this is a different message.

this says that the measure of a career is what you do hour by hour. And if we pop in on you at 11.30 in the morning on a random Thursday, and we ask the following question, do you feel connected to the task before you? I mean, every job has annoying aspects that we don't like. But do you feel fundamentally engaged? in your work, are you doing something special that other people don't know how to do? And is it of value to others? It's not just about like your individual passion, right? It's about providing a sense of connectedness to the bigger picture of society and other people. That is what I think craft is. And part of the reason to really talk to young people about it is that it's like very hard to see actually when you're young. I mean, so my personal confession, which I tell the whole

story in the book, is that I was kicked off my college paper. Mm-hmm. You do. And when that happened, I was kicked off for bad reasons. And I was like, journalism is chaos. Like, I would never want to be a part of this thing, right? This is a banana republic. Like, this is capricious. This is nuts. It took me until many years later to understand that journalism is a craft and that, you know, what I have done in my career is work to learn a very powerful set of tools that need to be deployed very judiciously, but when they are wielded well, can have tremendous results. Like when Megan and I did the Harvey Weinstein story, that was like the accumulation of all the craft we had learned and all the craft Dean Bicay had learned and Matt Purdy and Rebecca Corbett. And so that's, yeah, that to me, it has a lot more muscle than just following your passion. Yes, absolutely. So when you do orient towards the need, you have to sort of skate where the puck isn't, right, or is headed or something, whatever metaphor you want to use. You know, my son very smartly was like, I think AI is going to replace software engineering, so I'm going into mechanical engineering and energy engineering. And I thought, oh, all right, at the time. And I was, you know, understanding pretty well the impacts of AI, but he was 100% right. And I was like, well done, sir.

But when you think about that, it's really difficult. It's a lot of people who go into one thing, unfortunately, are getting the, you know, the stuff and knocked out of themselves. Well, there are a couple of ways to address this. Let's do the lightning round. One, is there, like, just the obvious needs that are permanent and lasting and that we're not going to trust AI to or not trust it to for a very long time. Like, I just had breast cancer and I needed a mastectomy. And, you know, that is just a very powerful need in the world that unfortunately is going to continue. So you can find something like that that, you know, is just a very durable kind of need. You can look to your demons. One of the most remarkable people I met in the course of writing this book is her name is Exaria. She graduated in that Columbia class of 2025. She was hell bent on becoming a research psychologist, getting a PhD in psych. And she encountered all sorts of career obstacles of which she ended up fielding and leaping over. And her motivation was that when she was 11, she lost her brother Keith to an overdose. And her motivation in becoming a psychologist is that she, wants to forge new forms of addiction treatment. She wants to make addiction treatment more effective. The need she wants to meet is so real and so powerful that I can already see it serving as as an important thing. Jet fuel. And also so many of like the people you and I have covered over the years, I don't know if you feel the same way. Some of the most admirable people are people who took some pain or tragedy in their life and made their life an answer to that. So she's a very young

version of somebody like that. The last thing I'll say is that I was just talking to the CEO of LinkedIn, Ryan Maslanski. He and Anish Rahman have a terrific book called Open to Work, which is about work in the age of AI that just came out. And I was in an audience where he was asked about his advice for young people. And he said something I thought was really interesting and worth passing on. So first he gave like the conventional line, which She was like, listen, acquaint yourself with these tools. They're going to be important. You don't want to be illiterate on them.

And then he said, I want you to think about chasing bigger needs, right? Because this is kind of a defensive time and an unstable time. A lot of people are thinking small. He said, the tools of AI are so powerful that we have a shot at being able to attack things like poverty, you know, hunger, illiteracy, climate change that one. appeared out of reach. So he was talking about the biggest needs of all, needs that are so huge that they are very intimidating to think about. And what I liked to come back to your citation of ambition, I liked that he was encouraging ambition. I liked that he was encouraging reaching for the moon. We'll be back in a minute. Hi, everyone. It's Kara Swisher. I'm excited to put something new

on your radar from the Vox Media Podcast Network. It's called Project Swagger with the one and only Robin Arzon, and it's all about helping you trust yourself, level up your mindset, and actually make the changes you've been thinking about. Robin is Peloton's vice president of fitness programming and head instructor. She's also a 27-time marathon and ultra-marathon runner, founder of Swagger Society Media Company, and a two-time New York Times best-selling author. In under 30 minutes, Robin shares the rituals, routines, and mental shifts that fuel her hustle and show you how to apply them in your own life. In the very first episode, she opens up about the moment that forced her to transform her inner voice and the strategies that helped her become what she calls a self-talk ninja.

You can find Project Swagger with Robin Arzon on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Support for this show comes from Green Chef. Everyone wants to eat healthier and it's easier to get tricked by trendy diets. But where fad diets fail, Green Chef delivers real food and recipes that make healthy eating not only easy but lasting. With Green Chef, every week you get over 40 recipes made with organic produce, responsibly sourced proteins, and nothing you can't pronounce. Green Chef sent me over some things to try. I had the delicious egg bites, which are amazing. One was mushroom, one was shrimp. And I have to say they're protein shakes. I usually find protein shakes

gross. These are amazing. I really like it. It's really nice and incredibly fresh. And I'm going to make the food with my kids, which is always fun to do. You can pick what matters to you from Mediterranean high protein meals to their longevity line built around brain and gut health. All Green Chef meals come pre-portioned and ready in minutes. And if you want guidance beyond the plate, Green Chef includes free unlimited one-on-one nutrition coaching that helps you stay on track. Head to greenchef.com slash 50kara and use a code 50kara to get 50% off your first month and then 20% off for two months. That's code 50Kera. Kara at greenchef.com slash 50kara.

Hey, so we're not paying taxes this year, right? Until the Pentagon passes one damn audit, we shouldn't pay any more taxes. People don't want to pay taxes anymore because they don't trust the way the government is spending and tracking our money. Americans are fed up with paying taxes. And I know, I know, but hear me out. Americans are extra fed up with paying taxes lately, according to some Gallup polling and some posting. But are we being short-sighted?

I think that it's important to have a government. I think that humans tried anarchy for quite a long time, and it didn't work so well. A lot of people got hit over the head with rocks. We didn't have a whole lot of economic development. Almost everyone agrees that the United States should have a military to protect it from foreign invasion, that we should have law enforcement, firefighting, schools, etc. Anti-taxers, and where this could I'll be heading on today explained dropping every weekday afternoon. So let's break down some of the challenges facing recent grads who are entering the workspace right now, who this book is aimed at beginning with the application process. And I've heard from a number of my nieces and nephews about this.

The new study from Gallup found that young adults have become more angry and skeptical of AI, especially when it comes to work. Nearly 50% of working Gen Zeres believe the risks for AI in the workforce outweigh the benefits. There's an 11-point increase from the previous year. and the tech people aren't doing themselves in any favors by acting like bond villains all the time. You wrote this book to combat the cynicism and pessimism as only people have about the future. But boy, do they hate AI and it's either through job applications, like my nephew is, what in the fuckety fuck am I doing talking to an AI?

Totally. They just don't know what to do. And I was like, what? Like, you're not talking to a person? I know. And job applications are demoralizing because of the screening process. bots are eliminating cam, and it's at the same time job seekers are using AI to write their resumes and cover letters. So it's really kind of dystopian in many ways with robot gatekeepers

and then robots to fight the gatekeepers. So talk a little bit about this. So what you're saying is so important. And for anyone who's like middle age like us and has had a job for a while or hasn't applied or what you just said, I just want to underline is completely true. Hiring is being digitized, not by everybody, but by a lot of employers. And so the experience of being young and looking for a job, which we think of as a social experience filled with handshakes and conversations, that notion is somewhat outdated. Think of giant digital portals that are black boxes that are not giving you any feedback and whether you really have a chance or not. It's usually the first interview is that. Think of the AI interviews where

young people are talking to machines. I'm talking to young people like your nephew who say to me, Jody, I applied for 150 jobs and I didn't meet anybody in the process. And so the first thing to sort of separate is to say, like, do we know what's going to really happen with AI and entry level employment long term? No, I think it's too early. Like, I don't really trust the prognostic. It's what's going to get hit first. That's right. Well, yeah, yeah, but like any prognosticator who's like overly certain about the ultimate answers, I don't personally trust her by. But what we can tell people right now is that, yes, the hiring process itself has been truly digitized. I think the advice on that is pretty clear, which is that personal connection is actually becoming more important in the face of these digital tools.

If you can get one. The worst version of that is like NEPO baby's gone. wild, right, where like the kids who are already hooked and connected are getting all the best stuff and everybody else is left out in the cold. The better version of that is that we are advising young people on how to forge connections themselves, and we are teaching them ways to reach past the technology. There's actually a space in the book where, like, I know that reaching out to strangers is really intimidating when you're just starting. So I actually give a list of my tips as an investigative reporter.

Because, you know, I cold call and cold email people all day. I saw the movie. It was really cool. Thank you for watching that. But they don't know what to do because you can't get a person. I mean, what I did with my nephew is I got 100 rejections from newspapers across the country when I left Columbia, including very small ones, Chattanooga, wherever. And they were all, you know, I wrote these onion skin notes on typewriters because I'm old.

And then I got rejections and I stapled them together and I still have them. And I had someone come up to me saying, you're the kind of people we needed back, you know, as a young person, when after I'd become successful. And I go, oh, look, you rejected me. And your rejection was super fucking rude. Like, so it's not that different because it was sort of a form letter is what we used to get back, right? And unless you called, and the way I got a job was I called and I called. Larry Kramer at the Washington Post and started insulting him and then went down there. Like it was, I had a rejection letter and a form letter, and then I just ignored it completely. Well, first of all, it sounds to me like a uniquely Karaswishian thing to be able to get a job by insulting somebody.

I'm not sure anybody but you could pull that off. But here's what I think is different. You're right that the onion skin and like the, you know, faceless emails and whatever are a little bit the same. But here's what's different, which is that employers are actually having. tremendous trouble telling anybody apart right now because the AI software has homogenizing effect on applicants. So instead of rewarding the charm or engagement or spark of intelligence in a cover letter, it's scanning these keywords. So then the kids are all putting identical keywords in their letters and resumes. And as a result, employers are very frustrated.

They're getting too many applications because it's really easy to apply for a zillion jobs digitally. But also it's making everybody look the same. That's what AI does. The most valuable thing about you, your edge, your spark, your initiative, the crazy thing that happened to you. It is not making it into the process. And so you have to find a different way to forge that connection. Right, right. Now, one of the things that's also happening, Elon Musk is and others.

have heard from all of them, that AI will make work optional and that money irrelevant, so-called AI abundance scenario, which AI optimist envision, we shall all be looking for a day when the robots take all our jobs, because that's a good thing, and we'll all have abundance. Let's assume for a second they're right, and they're actually going to share the wealth, which they're not, and you can earn a decent life from UBI, which is universal basic income alone. But imagine that happened, so people could pursue whatever crash they found fulfilling without worrying about money. Talk a little bit about that because they never get this out of their, you know, this is a hair up their ass on this topic. Oh, my God. I mean, listen, I don't know what's going to happen, but I have a 20-year-old kid.

Am I going to tell her that she doesn't have to worry about career stuff because before too long we'll be in an age of AI abundance and she's just going to be able to, like, play a guitar all day? You know, I mean, I think we need a humility about what the hell is really going to happen to employment. And our children and young people need to make durable, well-crafted plans based on time-tested principles that won't, like, protect them from everything. bad thing because that's not realistic, but we'll give them the best chance of going the distance. I mean, like, work happiness is still possible. Like, I mean, look at this moon expedition. Like, I fell down the Instagram hole of watching all the astronaut videos, and it's extraordinary.

They're having a good time. They have everything that I think we want out of work. They have teamwork. They have true fellowship with one another. They have done something absolutely extraordinary, even if it's been done before, like getting to the moon is still basically impossible. And they pulled it off. There's, you know, like an immense accumulation of learning and technical craft that their mission was based on. They were accomplishing something for themselves, but also something for the collective. Like it was really. It was a nice woke workplace, I'll tell you that. I was like, look, it works. And it's woke. Right. People who are graduated now are surrounded by negative images of work. It is the severance era on TV, right? And so to have, I think, that very public, positive example of that moon mission is just great. Right. So it is an outlier. Everyone does not get to be an astronaut. But you're talking about what it's at, like, find workplaces that have that challenge, right? Because a lot of workplaces are like severance. I mean, I think that hit a note. because it feels like that. So how do you not end up in one, right?

I mean, here's a piece of just like direct advice, right? You have to go work for the best people you can in terms of bosses. Like that is, speaking of severance, the difference, if there are two jobs that are identical for a person who's graduating. And one is that like kind of a faceless, disembodied corporation. And the other is working for somebody you really admire who, you know, is a teacher and has a track record of encouraging young people, there's no comparison, even if there are certain things about the first company that you favor or even if they pay a

little more. Right, right, right. No, 100 percent, it matters the people that are there. So one of the things that's important is we think about money, career choice, and risk. You encourage graduates to, quote, embark on some calculated risk. Yeah. What does calculated risk look like to someone who's just graduated from college with, say, $40,000 in student loan debt, which is the average federal student loan balance. I'm so glad you

asked because I think this is the situation right now. The world is so nuts and things are so topsy-turvy. We're living through climate disasters and school shootings and political turmoil, you know, et cetera, et cetera, that everybody wants stability. Like that's natural. That's rational. And I meet a lot of young people who just want to find like what seems like safe harbor. the most stable path. And I get that. My role is not to tell them that they're wrong, but my role is to point out that you don't really get anywhere great without taking on some risk. It's just like a necessary ingredient in business, in other areas. So what does a well-calibrated risk look like? I think it looks like saying, I don't need a perfectly coherent.

resume. When I'm 18 or 22 or 24 years old, I can try something new. It's saying I can maybe go work for something that's just starting. Yep. This is what I tell them all the time. Yeah. You know, not completely established. I can maybe disregard some conventional wisdom that doesn't seem completely right for me. You know, I dropped out of law school to become a journalist. All my best career decisions, Kara, were about disregarding what other people thought. Yep, 100. I say this to young people all the time. I'm like, what do you have to risk? And it's often very high level, like Stanford. I'm like, I don't know. I took a risk at 45. So you certainly. It's not, what skin is it off your nose if it doesn't work out? Like initially, I challenge all young people to that. Now, every episode, we get an expert to send us a question. Here's yours. Oh, great. Hi, Karen Jody. I'm Vivian, too, otherwise known as Urich BFF online. I'm a personal finance content creator. And you've probably heard the Joe. that the economy is so bad right now, people are just following their dreams. And knowing that

meaningful work is the most fulfilling thing, and more and more people also seem to be thinking about choosing a financially secure career that buys them the lifestyle they want. For new grads and younger people, how would you recommend that they walk this tightrope? And when would you recommend picking one versus the other? Now, just for people to know your husband, Ron Lieber, is your money columnist for the time. So you're well steeped in this world. Talk about that choice, because a lot of people, like you said, you forewent law school, which was a moneymaker. Oh, totally. I can remember my father's face as I told him that I was leaving my earning power over here to become a journalist. I think that is a great question and the question

for many young people. And thank you, my rich BFF. I want to say two things. I want to say, first of all, I want to challenge everybody out there to think about the difference between achieving financial stability and equipoise versus chasing untold wealth. I think those are two different things. I think it's hard to see the difference when you're 21 years old. You have the $40,000 in debt that you just mentioned. You don't know what compound interest is yet. You know, you don't know how a mortgage really works. You know, for the young people reading this book, do I want you to suffer and want and not be able to pay your bills? No, absolutely. I want, like, you need financial stability. You may, you may even get to financial stability plus. I think that is different

than a default pursuit. Of craving enormous wealth. Yeah, like, ostentation. And there, this is a very hard thing to see, but there is a way in which pursuing only money is actually selling yourself short. So that's, that's, that's, the first thing I would say. The second thing I would say is that it's not or. You know, I think if I can just be like everybody's mom for a second, I want three things if you're young and starting out. This is what I want for you. I want financial stability plus, right? Like I want you to have what you need or better. I want you to find meaning in what you do. And I'd like you to contribute something to other people. To me, Those are the three. And I don't understand why our universities don't make that explicit.

Talk about why they're not. Are they helping or hindering that goal? So it varies. You know, the way we usually think of universities are like, what are the fancy universities? What are the fancy universities? There's a different way to organize it, which is which are the universities that are really good at helping students meet their career destinies and which are not? Most of them are not. I can tell you. I wasn't helped at all. That's where I want to go. That's where I want to go. So there are exceptions. Before I say the harsh thing, I want to give credit to the people out there really doing exceptional work. Most students are telling me, I feel like my education is completely disconnected from this question of how to find your life's work. I won't

use his name because I'm not sure he would want to say it publicly. But yesterday I spoke to a student at Northwestern. I mean, a truly great university filled with amazing things. And this kid said to me, like, college is great, but it does not feel like a path to finding my life's work. I'm also seeing a lot of schools, including Columbia, my alma mater, where there is really no effective way of students reaching alumni. No, there isn't. In their fields. And so it's like, you know, you pay this ridiculous amount of money for this education or you're able to scrape together, you know, the loans or the financial aid, and you become part of this club of people who have gone to this university, except the club is not even really a club because you don't have a path

to reaching the person who graduated 20 years ago who could be like a real role model and a real connection for you. There was an interesting moment at the deal book conference this past December, Andrew asked me to moderate a panel with university. Ross Orkin asked me to moderate a panel with university presidents. And I asked them what I think is the hardest question in this topic area right now. I said to them, and these were killer university presidents, right? Like, just incredibly impressive people. I said to them, for the kid, the good kid, the hardworking kid with good grades.

who has applied for 150 jobs and not even gotten a bite, what would you say to that kid? Right. Because that to me is like, it's really, really, really hard. They had trouble answering the question. And I don't want to be too harsh on them because it's easy to beat up on higher learning and, like, their university presidents who are trying to do 5,000 things at once. But they struggled. They struggled with the question.

And it was finally the only one. who really had a good answer was John King, who is, interestingly, he's the head of the Sunni system in New York. Where it's a lot about working. Yeah, his feet are really planted, you know, on the earth in terms of, you know, kids from a very diverse array of economic backgrounds. And he said, try to add a new craft. He said, learn something that is going to change your resume and give you like a kind of a new shop at a different kind of job. But anyway, that's just to finish up the answer to your question of like, I think they're trying to quickly catch up, but it's a real problem that we've got this entire elaborate university system that's not

answering the question. I was glad to take the courses, but it never helped me with any, all these jobs. That's why I worked all through college, because that's how I got ahead. So when it comes to first jobs, which I think are critically right, that they should provoke collisions between your assumptions and reality. I think my son's doing one right now. What's he doing? He's working for a city council. candidate in San Francisco. And he was painting the office and now he's running the office. And I'm like, just paint the fucking office. I redid the whole mail system at the Washington Post, all the mailboxes. I've relabeled them all. Like I just, I'll do whatever it took, right,

to just be there physically. And also the people I met there, I mean, one of my intern clubs is Renee Sanchez, Laura Blumenfeld, Mike Abramowitz. And Ryan Murphy was one of the interns when I was. It's crazy. I know. It was crazy. But it was also really. helpful to have all these people that I still continue to have relationships with over the years. But it was collisions of meeting, you know, I was lucky enough to be at the very bottom rung of the Washington Post and then had some bad jobs, and I'll get to that in a minute. But talk about how that works, because I think that's one thing that I was like, do whatever you need. Just do stuff. Don't worry about, like, where it leads. Correct. Correct. There is, I think there are a lot of

young people who have bought into the fallacy that like a first job is like an Olympic dive where the entry into the pool needs to be technically correct for you to succeed. That is not true at all. And what you want in a first job is stimulation. Careers are made from stimulation and reaction. So especially if you're like kind of confused about what you want to do with your life and I love those people, those are my people. I would say like get the most interesting first job you can. I think the very bad first jobs are the quiet ones. Like being a receptionist in an art gallery where nobody comes in all day. What are you going to learn there?

Being a research assistant like can be really exciting in the sciences, but in some fields it can be really dull. I mean, it's basically an extension of your university experience that, you know, I've continually heard over the years. and I know somebody who dropped out that getting the Rhodes Scholarship can actually be like kind of a depressing experience because you're in a dark British library for a couple of years at a time. I think the best first jobs are the ones with a ton of activity, meeting a ton of new people, being thrown into situations. Like things that are new, right? Like it could even be a restaurant. It doesn't have to be something fancy, but anything that's starting where there's just a ton to be done. A political campaign is a class.

I mean, this sounds like what your son's doing. Your political campaign is such an amazing first job because it's like the painting and the office and the money. He did the painting. He was meeting with voters with the candidate. He learned he was like, landlords have a point. I'm like, excellent. You learned that because he was sort of a renter guy, you know, because he does. But you know what I mean?

He learned something. Well, and also what's so beautiful about working at a political campaign is that it matters. The stakes are very real. It's also chaos. Chaos is not a bad thing. Chaos is not a bad thing, and it's better than the depressing news about the workplace is permeating college right now, Kara. It is seeping down to freshman year. Right.

I first heard this at Stanford, and then I started to hear it at other schools. On text chains, a lot of students have this, like, grim inside joke where they won't write the word job, J-O-B. they will write J. asterisk B. No, no. Like, it's like they won't say the word Voldemort. Like, they're like, the real thing is too scary. I got to write the asterisk.

Oh, no. So, you know, what I would say to those people is that they feel that way in part because they're sitting inside libraries. Yeah, I hated the library. Right? And they're not getting, it actually feels better to be in the chaos of a political campaign. whatever. Yeah, even if you think you don't want to be in politics for the long haul. Yeah. Yeah, I did so many stupid jobs and they were the best ones I did. So you also encourage people to consult their demons so that loss becomes a fuel for career. Talk about why you think there might

be reluctant to do that and what's the plus of it? I have gotten fired so many times. I have gotten in so many beefs. Like, I love a demon. I love a no. I had someone tell me I was too confident and I was like, fuck you. But I'm always like, don't worry about it. It doesn't matter. And it doesn't matter later either, by the way. You're talking about a slightly different demon than I mean. Let me hear what you mean. You have a talent for confrontation that not everybody has. I'm talking about all of the brilliant devoted people in the medical field who went into that field because there was some tragedy or struggle early in their life, right?

I just made a whole CNN series about it, but my dad died. Exactly, right? And all, you know, like this young woman, Xaria, from Columbia, but I could give you a lot of other examples. People who, you know, when you're young, you feel very disempowered. You know, when you're confronting something hard, you feel like you don't have agency. And I'm talking about the person who faces like a family medical tragedy when they're young and says, I'm going to learn the craft of medicine because I need to establish some agency. control over the situation. Or another person like that is actually my husband, Ron Lieber, who, as you said, is the personal finance columnist here at the Times. So Ron grew up on financial aid and his parents divorced and they had some contentious situations about money. And Ron felt like money was this dark, mysterious thing that was coloring the relationships that he did not understand. So he learned to craft journalism and he became a personal finance columnist. And he became a personal finance columnist. And he was. and he is now helping other people, you know, essentially to protect their wallets and deal with financial catastrophe. And for him, it's a kind of, I think when people do that, it's very beautiful and it's very moving because they're taking something negative in their life and they're turning it into a source of strength and power. I just interviewed Rejobs for this series. And of course he has plenty of money. That's not the issue.

But he pursued Yosemite, which is looking at cancer treatments. And, you know, it's really, I think he's much happier because, you know, he had any choice in the world. He didn't have to work at all. And I think it does give it an interesting meaning. He obviously starts with a lot more advantages than other people, but I do think it's something that is actually possibly very impactful because of that. I agree. That's a demon. His dad dying, yeah.

Totally. And also cancer treatment, like, is actually a pretty optimistic field right now, the strides that are being made or, I mean, as a recent cancer. patient, I can tell you, like, it was like I couldn't believe how optimistic the experience of being treated was, yeah. So work, speaking of meaning, work gives some people satisfaction meaning. I've always had that the case. A lot of people, a job is just a job. And I know young people talk about that. And they want to find meaning and satisfaction from their families, which they should, friends and communities, not how they make a living. You hear that a lot. And how do you respond to someone says the goal of trying to find your life work and your career cedes too much of

self-worth and identity. And let me pause something. There's a very famous quote, you know, on my deathbed, I didn't think about my job. And I thought, well, I'm going to. I had a great job. I love my job. It was fun. And I also loved my family. So it was kind of a different thing. So talk about that because you do hear that from a lot of young. My job's not going to be the thing. I sense you love your job. I really love my job. I think, first of all, you don't have to choose, right? Like, we want both. We want both for you. We want you to have a great family life and a great professional life. like the world is not yet so impoverished that you only get to have one or the other. And then I would say like, I think, you know, this book is coming out next week.

I'm getting ready to show it to the world. And I think a really important thing for an author to say is, my book is not for everybody. It is not for everybody. If you are that person who, like, has totally cut off the idea of work and making you happy, than like, there's nothing I can do for you. My book is for the people who want a fighting chance of seeing their ambitions and dreams realized and want to show up at their workplace every day,

saying, like, at some level, I just believe in this. We'll be back in a minute. This episode is brought to you by FedEx. These days, the Power Move isn't having a big metallic credit card to drop on the check at a corporate launch. The real Power Move is leveling up your business with FedEx intelligence and accessing one of the biggest data networks powered by one of the biggest delivery networks. Level up your business with FedEx, the new Power Move. Okay, when I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids and I want to give back to.

to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my out of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth Advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. Hi, everyone. I want to tell you about a new podcast from Vox called America Actually. It's hosted by political journalists. and someone I really admire, Astead Herndon. And the show asks the questions, What will America look like after Donald Trump?

Kids, there will be an after Donald Trump. Trump's been running a one-man show for over a decade, but we're heading towards the first open presidential election since 2016. And it'll play out in the country that will feel very different. America actually digs deep into the questions that you and your friends are asking about politics, culture, and economy by an expert, reporter as said. It'll map out the people and ideas that will shape the future beyond Trump. You can watch America actually on the Vox YouTube channel and listen wherever you get your podcasts. I have to ask about California Representative Eric Swalwell, who's announced on Sunday night that he's suspended his campaign for government. This is a wake of allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staff member and engaged in sexual misconduct. These are young people that one was an intern. You know, this is the kind of thing that you just sit there.

and say nearly a decade into me too, it's still an issue in the workplace. Oh, totally. I almost felt a responsibility in a weird way to write the book because I felt like, oh, God, I've like reported some of the worst things about the workplace. Right. You have. Yeah. And even though I'm very proud of that work, I don't want young people to look, you know, at work as like a, like a danger zone of exploitation. Exactly. You know what I would say? I haven't reported on the Swalwell story in particular, but I think what's interesting is the way it fits in the larger climate. I mean, even if we just talk about California, we're also talking about Caesar Chavez, you know, in that stunning story that my colleagues reported just a week or two ago. Megan Tewy, my work partner on the Weinstein story, interviewed Giselle Pelico. And so what I, you know, what I would say is that the reckoning continues. Even in a climate of back. even with the president of the United States, essentially leading the backlash against Me Too, the fact that women are still speaking up, are still coming forward. I have read a zillion obituaries for the Me Too movement. And I think they're wrong because the conversation continues. You know, all the coverage you did and the Weinstein and that whole thing affected people's thoughts about the workplace. Did you uncover any of that? Absolutely.

Absolutely, absolutely, because it was so devastating, not just in the Weinstein story, but others. But to see that what should be the tools of forward motion, you know, HR, workplace law, mentorship, opportunity, the idea that these could all be used for bad things, it's devastating, you know, and the idea that it can go unaddressed for so long. One of the things I got from your stories that made me the status is so many of these women, especially in the Weinstein thing, or you could say add, we're so excited about their careers, right? And the actors or, you know, and the possibilities were endless for them. And that to me was like the, I guess, you know, this idea of losing your innocence in that way. But it was really, when this happened again, I'm like, oh my God, why does it not stop? Well, to address the first part of what you said, a thousand percent, like Weinstein. took women's aspirations. You know, all these women, whether they were assistants or actresses, they wanted a piece of the action. And he knew exactly how to turn those into vulnerabilities. You know, if you want the job, if you want the script, if you want the Oscar campaign, you know, you've to come to my room, et cetera, et cetera.

I think what I would say is that the lesson of them into reporting, Kara, is that this stuff is just universal, right? It's like in every community. That was like, that was the shock of the Me Too moment in 2017, which is seeing these women all across the world, they have like nothing in common economically, culturally. They're all different. How can it be that every society, every career field, every economic milieu, they all have this problem. Right. Yeah. I would agree.

It means you'll have plenty of work if you want to continue. So let's end by taking a step back. You acknowledge in the book that graduates are facing, quote, a giant structural problem with the employment market, not a personal failing, end quote. You've covered the workplace in power as an investigative reporter for decades. You're really talking about power. And you've seen how change actually happens or doesn't in institutions, as we just discussed. Obviously, there's no easy solution.

But if we as a society want to tackle big structural problems that are preventing people in finding fulfilling careers, if you could do one thing, where should we start? Oh, it's such a good question for a reporter, because as you know, the starting premise of all my thinking is like, you can't change reality, right? Like, you got to start with all the givens. I think if I were, since you were giving me the chance for one second to be the queen of the world and do anything, I would have colleges and universities get really serious about how. people find their life's work. Like it has to, I think the economy is probably going to force it to happen, in fact. Like it, like it can't. And high schools, not just colleges and universities. High schools, too. High schools. Like, what, like, the idea that we are killing ourselves to get into college, killing ourselves to pay for it. And yet it is not helping us enough to find our life's work. It's, it's not, it's not working. If I were the queen of the world, I would have a giant

meeting with really good food, like for all the college and university presidents, and we would lock ourselves into a room until we figure out how to do this better. To get people into the right places? Yeah, because young people don't have the levers to make their schools do this. And so I would, the room would be comfy, you know, good ventilation, nice food, but I would lock us in until we come up with the answer on their behalf. That is a great answer. That's what you should do. Or you have all the young people start working, all the old people go to school later. That's what I just told Scott. He's like, what are you doing after this? You seem to have checked every box. I said, I'm going back to school just for pleasure. Really? What would you study? Anything. Archaeology, something completely without any purpose just to know.

I just was like, I was a worker, you know, from the get. And I didn't, I like school. And I said, in 10 years, I'm quitting and going back to school. I love it. For no reason whatsoever. I'll probably end up being like the world's most famous archaeology. I can't help being successful at work. But I really want to do something that doesn't have a point. But we do need to help them find a direction. You're absolutely right. That's when I think about young people.

And they're all different, by the way. That's the thing. Anyway, it's a great book. Everyone should read it and give us a graduation present. And one thing I will say to young people, don't worry so much. You'll be okay. You will. If I had to go back and tell myself something, well, I was never really that agonized.

But for people who are, just you'll be okay. Amen. Amen. Most of you will be. Not everybody. And most of the world has a much harder time than we do in this country. So we should count our blessings in that regard. Anyway, thank you so much, Jody.

I really appreciate it. It's a great book. And I love this little pivot for you. You're a little pivot happening. Thank you. And it's a good pivot to do. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Take care. Hi, everyone. Want career advice from Kara Swisher? Now's your chance. Send a video to On at Voxmedia.com and you might be featured. I can't wait to see what you've got. Ask any question. I'll try to answer it. Today's show is produced by Christian Castro Roussel, Michelle Aloy, Catherine Millsop, Megan Bernie, and Kalyn Lynch. Nishat Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Aymn Whalen and Corinne Ruff. Our engineers are Fernando Aruta and Rick Kwan. And our theme music is by

Trackademic. If you're already following the show, you're graduating with honors. If not, we're holding you back a year. Go wherever you listen to a podcast, search for On with Caro Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Caroushisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media

Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Monday with more.