Coffee Break: Lip Nectar Hydrating Lip Stain

61 Comments

1. What are things on resumes/cover letters that stand out to you in a good way? Conversely, what makes you roll your eyes?

   1. Any conspicuous identification of generational wealth is a big no no for me. I’m not interested in hiring someone with a silver spoon. Horses, sailing, and voluntourism are red flags

      1. wow

      2. just to play devil’s advocate, i work at at top 20 college with a lot of FGLI students and recently met one who has gotten involved with sailing since coming to college. there are also a lot of opportunities for students to participate in no-cost to low cost voluntourism type of things. maybe someone is into horses bc they grew up on a farm?
         i will also say one of the hardest working people i ever encountered in college has a parent who is very well-known in the finance community and whose family’s net worth is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. I actually knew this guy and spent a lot of time with him (my boyfriend’s roommate) and didnt know any of this until a year later when someone told me.

         1. Yeah my college had a sailing program anyone could join and lots of people did with no experience. It was a fancy school but within the school, participation in sailing was not a good proxy for wealth (though I suppose maybe this person is not hiring from Ivies etc at all).

      3. Curious – are you in a metro area where horses are pretty exclusively a $$$ activity? I grew up in rural MD, and taking horseback riding lessons cost less than something like travel soccer, especially if you didn’t do many (or any) competitions. It’s definitely more of a class marker in big cities (LA, NYC), but very feasible for middle-class-ish people in other parts of the US.

         1. Same with sailing if you grow up near a body of water. My son is heavily involved in competitive sailing, and it costs us less than $1500/year. We live in an area with an active fishing fleet, and learning to handle small craft is still part of the culture here.

         2. Hello from another horseback rider from rural MD! It was not an expensive hobby for me at all.

            1. My sister was the one who was the real horse girl – I was her reluctant chauffeur and only occasionally took lessons. It was kind of fun, though I have no desire to spend my adult leisure time with a 1,200 pound animal who is afraid of plastic bags! Seriously.

      4. This is obviously tr011ing but I will say that I’d be inclined to give a second look to anyone who has a hobby not heavily involving screens. They have better attention span, for one.

      5. Other than volunteering related to the job, do you see hobbies regularly featured on cover letters?

         1. I was surprised by this comment too! Are people really mentioning this in their cover letters for jobs? (not eg. college application personal statement)

            1. The OP referenced both cover letters and resumes. A line at the bottom of the resume listing a few hobbies is still very common.

         2. A little late here, but it’s common to see interests and hobbies on finance resumes

      6. I ride horses and I assure you I do not have generational wealth. As a teenager, I worked at the barn to pay for lessons. (now mid-career, I have earned from my job wealth to pay for that hobby now)

      7. I get this perspective. But I worked as a trail guide in a rural midwestern state in order to fulfill my ‘horsegirl’ fantasies (never owned a horse but my boss did offer to sell me one for near price once…) and then joined the equestrian team at my semi-fancy east coast college.

   2. KPIs!!! KPIs!! As a technical hiring manager, tell me how much better you did, how much you saved, how many programs were impacted, how much time your system improved. Cover letters are pretty “take it or leave it” for me as I don’t often get CLs that are interesting, but I do care if we need to relocate you for the job – why do you want to relo?

   3. A tailored narrative demonstrating that you understand what my org does and what the job description is, and how your experience uniquely suits you to the position. Specific examples of your work. Not KPIs but substantive examples. Avoidance of business-speak and buzzwords.

   4. Any cover letter that explains why you’re applying to this job gets a second look from me. We get a lot of applications from people in unrelated positions (think clinicians when we do population research) and if there’s no cogent explanation for why you’re here, I assume you just blindly blasted out the resume to my company.

      1. Same. Tell me you have a slight clue about what this position is and how your skills fit within that. I get so many applications from people who have super specialized skills for a generalist position, with no real explanation about why they’re applying. They’re really very different jobs!

         1. Totally – all it takes is a “I’m shifting from X to Y for Reasons” and you’re good to go.

            1. Yes. Just give me SOME indication that you know what job you’re applying for!

            2. agree with this whole thread!

   5. If (as the hiring manager) you request that people address the cover letters to a certain department or person, it’s amazing how many people don’t bother to follow simple instructions.

   6. I roll my eyes at anything that implies that you single-handedly accomplished something, particularly if you are coming from a big company and/or you’re junior. You’re part of a team, so if you put that you drove a massive project with massive results, I’m going to ask you A LOT of questions about what, specifically, YOU did.

      I do like to see numbers that show the impact, details on the roles and seeing increasing responsibilities.

      I think general inclusions about being a team player, being results-oriented, being a good communicator, any mentions of basic software like GSuite or Office, are useless. Everyone will say they’re good at basic skills required for a job and knowing how to use email is not a skill.

      1. +1 to all of this, but especially to your first paragraph. I’m in-house counsel and we’ve been hiring. I see resumes of big law junior associates and their job descriptions basically read like partner’s bios. I need to know what *you* did, not what your law firm did.

   7. I roll my eyes at assertions like “I am the perfect fit for this position/XYZ experience makes me uniquely qualified”. But it’s super common so rolling my eyes is all I can do.

   8. I have had fantastic experiences with people who received scholarships /cohort program things where they have mentors or coaching kind of support for underrepresented populations- specifically rural youth and first gen. Some of my hardest working and smartest hires.

   9. I don’t like resumes that compliment the applicant (eg, don’t tell me you went to a “prestigious” university and worked at a “top-tier” law firm/ I can assess that for myself (fwiw, it wasn’t and you didn’t)).

      I judge resumes over two pages and like resumes that clearly highlight to me how your experience hits the competencies I’m looking for.

      1. My resume is two pages, and I landed many interviews in my last job search, two offers, and a manager-level job at a big 4 firm. Your judgement is not universally shared.

         1. +1. My best track record is with my 2-pager.

            1. But she said up to 2 pages is ok. What is up you two?

         2. She specified over two pages, no need for the defensive reaction.

         3. She did say “over 2 pages” which means 2 is fine.

   10. Lot of this advice sounds like folks who haven’t been in hiring (or looking) in a long time. Unless you’re fresh out of school, no one has space or time for hobbies. ATS dictates a lot of what you’re seeing and will even scan cover letters. So my advice would be to try to work in keywords the same way you would with the resume. And ATS often weights measurements. A lot of systems will look for at least some KPI outcomes. I wish it could be as human as many of you all still believe it to be.

       1. I am the one who said to leave out buzzwords and KPIs in favor of actual substance. I do a lot of hiring and can assure you that I read the cover letters and weight them heavily in my decisions about whom to interview. You can pander to ATS elsewhere.

2. Just got invited to a cookie swap and I’m considering it. Are they worth the time and energy? What would you bake?

   1. Yes – they are so fun! My go-to for this type of thing is Smitten Kitchen’s confetti cookies recipe. They are so pretty and so easy to make. Chocolate buried cherry cookies is another crowd pleaser. Or a classic cookie like peanut butter blossoms.

   2. I love a cookie swap!

   3. Yes, they’re fun! Take a family favorite.

   4. Define worth it!

   5. It’s so fun – we used to do it in law school and I loved it. I’d wind up with a nice tin of Christmas-y cookies for snacks and entertaining. I’d probably make English toffee because it’s delicious and my only real cooking “trick.”

   6. I’d go to be social and have fun, and then probably not eat a lot of the cookies later, to be honest, I’d give them away when I get home.

      I think Swedish caramel cookies with a little bit of cinnamon is a great cookie to make. Low effort, but very moorish, and forgiving to being both slightly undercooked and overcooked.

   7. It’s just a party, go. I always just make grocery store take and bake cookies, maybe adding sprinkles. You don’t have to become Betty Crocker to enjoy the thing.

   8. New York Times Mexican hot chocolate cookie recipe. Freeze a bag of mini marshmallows, use your hands to mix the dough (it’s very dry), wrap the dough around three frozen marshmallows per cookies, freeze your dough balls, then bake them straight from the freezer. I use half the recommended cayenne pepper.

3. did anyone see the WSJ article about how trump is trying to get wegovy and zepbound to be sold for $149 on TrumpRX? I despise the man and would gag at the thought of using it, but that would be awfully useful.

   1. TrumpRX sounds like a headline from the Onion.

   2. Yeah – the original set of drugs and prices announced for it seemed not very useful (ie based on rack rates no one is paying anyway) but this would be genuinely useful.

      Here’s the way I’d think of it. There’s plenty of shiplap coming out of this administration and landing on all of us. If there’s some random bribe/political gimme/etc that ends up being useful for you, by all means, take it. Then vote him and his cronies out ASAP.

      1. what would worry me is that it creates a strong implication of that good price going away when Trump loses his grip on power.

   3. The Atlantic has a good article explaining this.

4. Has anyone heard of COAST fire? I used a calculator and with my current savings and desired retirement (Age 50, $70k spend a year), I am on track to hit it in a year. Does this mean I could keep working but not have to save any more money and still be able to retire?

   I guess the catch would be that then I couldn’t buy a house or pay for kids’ college? I’m 29 and am wondering if I can start spending more on clothes than I currently do (basically never). I’m shocked at the math here.

   1. all i know is there are a lot of different kinds of FIRE, including (i kid you not) lean, chubby, and fat. maybe look on reddit?

   2. It would be foolish of us to try to answer your “does this mean I could not have to save any more more money?” question without understanding your actual financial situation. But yes, buy yourself some clothes! Why not?

   3. At 29 you’re far too young to decide to step off the gas. Life is long my dear and you’re just getting started.

   4. Yes, you can spend more money on clothes.

      But no, you won’t be able to retire early and only spend $70k a year. My in-laws in their 50s spent that much on health care premiums and deductibles last year. The calculator you used didn’t check your assumptions about your spending, did it?

      1. Yea… it does not seem realistic to me to budget only $70k/year for retirement. Maybe when you’re young and healthy but all my grandparents were at six figure healthcare spend for many years and that was with Medicare.
         But yes buy some clothes, you can clearly loosen the purse strings a bit. It’s a far cry from that to total retirement.

   5. Fundamentally, if you’re on track for your other financial goals, it seems reasonable to intentionally spend more on other things that improve your quality of life now – so yeah, maybe start putting a dedicated clothing spend into the budget.

      There are things other than retirement it’s worth having savings for – you mentioned a possible house or kid expenses, but also things like an emergency fund if you lose your job, a new car, medical expenses, buffer if your landlord doubles the rent, needing in-home care, so I wouldn’t go full on “never save anything more!” but it sounds like you might benefit from rethinking your current budget and putting in more room for “wants” given that you can afford it now!

   6. Yes, I hit it prior to getting married and having kids and it made it very easy to become a SAHM when it turned out that that was what I truly wanted for the first 3 years of my kids’ lives. So grateful to 20s me for still living on my college budget while working in big law.

   7. First, $70k/year seems low to me, unless you live in a very LCOL area, never go out, etc. Maybe it’s my VHCOL lens, but especially once you have kids, that figure will likely increase.

      And it doesn’t account for one-time, big expenses (like birth… I don’t have kids, but I know from family and friends that birth can get very expensive, depending on your insurance coverage).

      I like FIRE Calc, which gives you different scenarios based on several financial factors, years to fund, etc. I agree with the other posters that you can probably afford to spend more on things you want now, but I would be hesitant to stop saving, assume your spend level is going to hold steady for 50+ years, and that you’re already ready to call yourself financially independent.

   8. Yep, we hit it a few years ago. We still throw employer match into retirement accounts (and maybe a bit more depending on where we fall in a tax bracket). We shifted to saving more after tax in a brokerage account and green lit more travel spending. We still do our best to live frugally and intentionally outside of our chosen splurge area (travel).

      We expect that we’ll continue to work full time for another 10-15 years and will have to take a really hard look at our spending projections before we actually step away from corporate health insurance.

5. thanks for info.

Comments are closed.