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Update: We still think this is a great roundup of podcasts for working women — but if you're looking for something a little more recent, here's our latest discussion of the best podcasts for smart women.
In the past we've talked about our favorite magazines as well as summer brain candy books, but we haven't talked about podcasts. I've been getting more and more into them (on walks, or while prepping/cooking dinner via my Echo), so I thought an open thread would be fun.
(Another fun question: would you ever be interested in a Corporette podcast? Would you like interviews with working women, “Ask Kat” questions, general discussions about some of the stuff we talk about here on the blog? I actually just made a guest appearance on a podcast on Thinking Like a Lawyer, the podcast from my friends over at Above the Law, discussing whether the office thermostat was sexist.)
So let's hear it, ladies — what are your favorite podcasts? What do you recommend to other working women? What is a must-listen? Another question: do you try to get career advice and the like during your podcasts, or prefer to listen to fun topics or general interest stuff?
For my $.02 — these are some of my favorites:
Kat's Favorite Podcasts
- The Broad Experience: This smart podcast focuses on issues facing working women.
- Interviews with people I'm curious about: I like to search the podcast store for a specific name — I'm often more interested in listening to the person being interviewed than I am in listening to one show repeatedly. Sometimes I'll get on a kick and listen to 3-4 interviews all featuring the same author or entrepreneur.
- Various internet business podcasts: Smart Passive Income Podcast, Internet Business Mastery, Problogger Podcast, Entrepreneurs Journey Podcast, Social Media Marketing Podcast
- General entrepreneurial podcasts: This Is Your Life with Michael Hyatt, Glambition Radio, The Tim Ferriss Show
- Happier with Gretchen Rubin: I've never read her books but like her newsletter, and download the occasional podcast.
- Serial: Because, c'mon, who hasn't listened to this?
Some of Kate's Favorite Podcasts
- Parenting: The Longest Shortest Time (Kat's note: I'm just getting into this parenting podcast on Kate's suggestion, and really like it!)
- General News/Stories: The Moth, This American Life, Fresh Air, Slate's Serial Spoiler Specials, Invisibilia
- Podcasts I don't listen to regularly but would recommend to others: Planet Money (NPR), Mark Kermode and Mayo's Film Review (BBC), Radiolab (WNYC), Pop Culture Happy Hour (NPR), Mortified
We've also rounded up some favorite podcasts of Corporette readers that have been previously mentioned in the comments:
Podcasts for Working Women – Reader Favorites
Career & Success
Finance Podcasts
- Investing Insights from Morningstar.com
- Motley Fool Money
- Marketplace Money
- You Need a Budget
- The Dave Ramsey Show
- The James Altucher Show
- The Clark Howard Show
Stories/General Interest
- Snap Judgment
- TED RadioHour
- Freakonomics Radio
- The Dinner Party Download
- Strangers
- The New Yorker podcasts
- The Bryan Callen Show
Science/Medicine
- Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine
- Star Talk
- Scientific American podcasts
- White Coat, Black Art
- Quirks & Quarks
- How Stuff Works
History & Politics
Hobbies: Books, Cooking, Knitting, Etc.
Writing, Art, Music, Design
Language Learning
- News in Slow Japanese, News in Slow French (other languages available)
- Coffee Break language podcasts (French, Spanish, German, etc.)
What are your favorite podcasts? How do you listen to them — with a special app like Stitcher, or through iTunes, the iOS Podcasts app, or something else?
Pictured at top: My Podcast Set I, originally uploaded to Flickr by Patrick Breitenbach.
LondonLeisureYear
I listen to a ton of podcasts… the current complete list is:
Dinner Party Download
Culture Gabfest – Slate
Note to Self
Death Sex and Money
Reply All
The Longest Shortest Time
The Mystery Show (currently off season)
Of a Kind
Risk!
Slumber Party with Allie and Georgia
Call Your Girlfriend
Savage Lovecast
This American Life
RadioLab
Popculture Happy Hour
Wait Wait …Don’t Tell Me
Serial (currently off season)
Invisbilia (currently off season)
Story Corps
Muppet
For my drive to work, Kevin & Bean on KROQ. Nothing redeeming about it, just good fun!
Celia
Are they still broadcasting??? They were on when I was in high school!
MJ
Bhahaha…I’m from LA and they must be ancient by now. But KROQ was my jam when I was in middle and high school fo sho.
Sydney Bristow
I wouldn’t put James Altucher in the financial podcasts category. His is more interviews with a variety of people.
One I didn’t see that I would add is Nerdist.
I listen to news podcasts every morning, but they are just audio versions of the newscast so they might not count as typical podcasts.
NBC Nightly News
The Rachel Maddow Show
Morning Joe
Meet the Press
Anderson Cooper 360
Financial podcasts I listen to:
The Clark Howard Show
You Need A Budget
Dave Ramsey
General interest:
The Tim Ferriss Show (and The Random Show if it isn’t just duplicated on his main show page)
Exponential Wisdom (Peter Diamandis is fascinating)
The James Altucher Show (and sometimes his companion daily podcast called Ask Altucher)
The Knowledge Project
The Bryan Callen Show
Happier with Gretchen Rubin
The Joe Rogan Experience (only the specific guests that I’m interested in)
Chase Jarvis
The Good Life Project
The School of Greatness
Runner 5
I listen to Happier with Gretchen Rubin too. I haven’t read her books and I was initially sceptical but I love it.
Jess
Death, Sex and Money (the best!!); Serial; Undisclosed (the follow-up to Serial); Breakdown; This American Life
anon
Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.
Sarah C
I was going to recommend Happier with Gretchin Rubin! I also really love the History of English podcast! I’d totally add a Coporette podcast to the list :)
CountC
Slate’s Working! It’s so interesting to hear about other people’s jobs. Otherwise, I’ll echo what everyone else has said already!
Runner 5
I’ve only recently discovered this podcast and I listened to about five episodes of it in a week! I love it!
Anon for This
Slate’s Mom and Dad are fighting is a great parenting podcast.
Nicole
Definitely The Broad Experience and Death Sex and Money!
I also like:
-Criminal/Reveal (you can tell I watched a lot of SVU in the past)
-Call Your Girlfriend (very entertaining and on point)
-Slate’s Political Gabfest
-Canadaland (for listeners in Canada – great show)
-Really enjoyed Start Up Podcast when that was being done (on a break currently), especially season 2.
Lyssa
I love podcasts, though I don’t think that I listen to many (any?) that relate to working. One I’d like to plug that I haven’t seen mentioned is “Behind the Stats.” It takes any numbers/statistics/percentages that have been tossed out by politicians, celebrities, and commentators and breaks them down to figure out where they came from and how reliable they are. It’s British, so sometimes it’s a little less relevant to me (though they handle statements by American politicians quite a lot), but they also drop in a lot of that dry British humor that I really enjoy. It’s a really great reminder to question everything that you hear.
I did not listen to Serial. At some point, I was going to, then it became so popular that I felt obligated to and therefore, resistant.
I would definitely listen to a [this site] podcast.
Runner 5
“Behind the Stats” is also known as “More or Less” – it’s presented by Tim Harford, the Undercover Economist. It was my ‘gateway podcast’ I think!
Terri
I listen to a handful of podcasts: Dave Ramsey, Freakonomics, TED Talks/TED Radio Hour with NPR, America’s Test Kitchen, Stuff You Should Know. Going to check out the Broad Experience based on this article….but….I’m the one person who hasn’t listened to Serial. I saw the SNL parody before I listened and now can’t get that out of my head when I’m trying to focus on what she’s saying lol.
cbackson
I clearly have overlapping taste with a lot of the ladies here. I would add This Week in Startups (awesome if you’re into tech industry stuff), Marketplace, and Actuality.
Anonymous
ANOTHER ROUND
I can’t quite believe this list… It’s pretty not diverse.
Anonymous
By “not diverse” I suppose you mean lacking adequate representation of racial minority and LGBTQ groups
Eliza
It’s a self-selecting group. There’s no good or bad about that.
What do you like to listen to?
Josie Pye
Food podcasts–The Sporkful and Spilled Milk.
PW
I listen to a few podcasts religiously, State’s The Gist (http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/gist.html), as many others have mentioned, I wouldn’t say it is really helping my career, but I like staying informed.
There are a number of podcasts I listen to that are legally oriented, as I’m applying to law school in a few weeks and have found podcasts to be a great way to get exposed to what the legal field has waiting for me. My favorites are:
– The Gen Why Lawyer Podcast (http://www.genylawyer.com/category/podcasts/)
-The Law School Toolbox Podcast (http://lawschooltoolbox.com/podcast/)
-The Enchanting Lawyer Podcast (http://www.enchantinglawyer.com/category/podcast/)
Looking forward to listening to some of the others mentioned, particularly The Broad Experience!
Runner 5
I’m a big podcast listener. My subscription list, in no particular order:
Stuff Mom Never Told You
A Way With Words
More or Less
This American Life
Best of Today (This is from BBC Radio 4’s daily current events morning show – 3-10 minute soundbites from each day’s show. Highly recommended)
NPR’s How to do everything
Deutsche Welle – Inside Europe
A Playful Day (craft)
NPR’s Planet Money
The British History Podcast
No Such Thing as a Fish (a new discovery which I love – it’s made by the people behind QI)
The Economist – The Week Ahead
Call Your Girlfriend
The Allusionist (about words)
Slate’s Political Gabfest
The Splendid Table
Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4
Guardian Politics Weekly
Freakonomics Radio
#Millennial
Happier with Gretchen Rubin
Deutsche Welle – Alltagsdeutsch
Slate’s Lexicon Valley
CraftLit
The DC Rainmaker Podcast
Slate’s Working
Actually Knitting
Commuter Knitter Podcast
The Stitch Sisters
Pins and Needles
Pienaar’s Politics
Down Cellar Studio Podcast (craft)
Slate’s Whistlestop with John Dickerson
Prairie Girls Knit and Spin
Slate’s Double X Podcast
The Infinite Monkey Cage (hilarious, science comedy talkshow. Try it and see)
Knitmore girls
Books on the Nightstand
MuggleCast
Kelly
The Lively Show by Jess Lively — about intentional living. Some features of small business owners. Very engaging!
Eliza
The Coffee Break French podcasts are fun and educational, and if I’m feeling particularly ambitious I’ll listen to News in Slow French. Both provide free options as well as subscription versions.
Radiolab is also great.
Janine
All Things Considered
Planet Money
Hardcore History
Tropical MBA
Revolutions
Men in Blazers
RadioLab
…and a little weekly public policy podcast called AEI Banter (that I may or may not cohost…)
http://www.banter.aei.org
cdubd
Ask Me Another! So fun.
Diaries of a Working Mommy
This is a great list, Thanks for sharing!
Sara
Several of my favorites are listed. I would add Entreleadership to the list as well. Somewhat entrepreneur based, but great general information on leadership and personal growth.
Also, for anyone interested in health and lifestyle podcasts, I highly recommend Girls Gone WOD, The Paleo Women and Harder to Kill. All three have their roots in the CrossFit/Paleo community but really have a much broader range of topics than those roots might suggest. Great discussions on health, wellness, exercise, body image and a ton of other women’s health topics.
TB
I adore The Broad Experience
Also, career-wise – Ellevest and Best Work Best Life with Kathy and Mo
Jay
It has nothing to do with being a “working woman,” but my absolute favorite podcast is The Read, hosted by Crissle and Kid Fury. My second favorite was the Editors Roundtable from Foreign Policy magazine, but the best hosts/panelists from the ER have just launched a new podcast called Deep State Radio, so that’s my new second favorite for politics/current events done in an irreverent way.