In this issue:

Everybody wants “senior-level AI talent”—for a technology that barely celebrated its first birthday. Résumés are getting torched, recruiters are lost in a fog of buzzwords, and job postings are demanding the impossible.

So what does “AI literacy” actually mean, and how do you prove it when no one has more than a couple years of hands-on time?

I break it all down in this issue.

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The HR Blotter: Case Files From the HR Underworld

Corner Office, Same Consequences - Nestlé just yanked CEO François-Xavier Roger Freixe out of the corner office after discovering an undisclosed relationship with a subordinate. No transition plan, no soft landing, just gone. For workers, it’s a reminder that corporate power doesn’t shield you from the same HR rules that trip up everyone else. In an era obsessed with ethics and compliance, even the top job comes with fine print, and breaking it, can end your career overnight.

The Retirement Myth: Why Work Never Ends - Retirement’s dead, or at least the version with rocking chairs and beach houses. Professionals are grinding well past 65—some because they want to, most because they have to. For companies, that means a workforce packed with veterans who won’t fade quietly. The so-called silver tsunami isn’t a graceful exit, it’s a clash over what experience is worth when the bills don’t stop coming.

Black America’s Job Crisis is Everyone’s Warning Sign - Overall unemployment may look calm at 4.2%, but for Black workers the floor is giving way—jobless rates spiking to 7.2%, youth unemployment exploding past 21%, and college grads finding their degrees buy little more than retail shifts. The middle-class ladder built on government jobs and DEI initiatives is being yanked away, leaving families drowning in debt and moving back in with relatives. History says when Black workers fall first, the rest of the labor market isn’t far behind. If this is the canary in the coal mine, leaders should stop pretending they don’t hear it singing.

Burnout Doesn’t Need Yoga, It Needs a Mechanic - Twelve-hour grinds, panic cycles, and burnout breathing down her neck, that’s what pushed Sage Quiamno at Amazon to hire an executive function coach. Not a cheerleader, but a mechanic for the brain, helping her rewire habits before the job swallowed her whole. Now companies are waking up to the ugly math: distraction and burnout bleed millions. Workers are running on fumes, and without real tools to manage the chaos, corporate wellness slogans are just wallpaper over a collapsing wall.

The Cure for Burnout Might Be Dirt - Turns out the folks covered in grease and grit are holding up better than the ones chained to glowing screens. Construction crews, mechanics, sanitation workers—they sweat through long days but report less burnout than office warriors drowning in endless emails. Why? Their work is real, physical, done when the whistle blows. No blurred lines, no phantom notifications at midnight. For leaders, the message cuts deep: burnout isn’t just about hours worked, it’s about the soul-sucking weight of digital busywork that never ends.

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The Jim Stroud Podcast

Not subscribed to The Jim Stroud Podcast? Then you’ve been flying blind. Here’s a taste of what they’ve been hearing—while you’ve been missing it.

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The AI Experience Paradox: Senior Skills in a Freshly Built World

Taylor Tucker thought she had the game figured out. Former project manager, sharp résumé, strong track record. Then Disney dangled a business analyst role—only catch? The posting demanded “an understanding of generative AI capabilities and limitations.”

She’d been using AI for budgets, marketing, even polishing her résumé. Still, the recruiter’s verdict was cold: her experience with AI would be “a tough sell.” Her reaction? The same one ricocheting through break rooms and job boards everywhere: Didn’t AI just come out? How the hell is everyone suddenly “senior-level” at this?

Welcome to the paradox of our age. Employers are demanding battle-hardened AI veterans for a technology that barely crawled out of beta.

The World Economic Forum says automation could erase 83 million jobs but spawn 69 million new ones. That’s the promise. The problem? The bridge to those jobs is still scaffolding, and the blueprints keep getting redrawn. Meanwhile, job descriptions for marketers, assistants, and writers are dripping with phrases like “AI literacy,” “prompt engineering,” and “AI fluency.” Mentions of AI skills in job posts nearly tripled last year, according to Indeed’s Hiring Lab.

So what does “AI literacy” actually mean? Depends on who you ask. Some leaders, like Wade Foster at Zapier, map it into neat categories—capable, adoptive, transformative. Anthropic takes a different swing with its “4Ds of AI fluency”: Delegation, Description, Discernment, Diligence. Helpful on paper. Murkier when you’re staring down a recruiter who can’t tell the difference between buzzword bingo and actual skill.

What “AI Literate” Looks Like in the Wild

For a marketer, it could mean spinning up drafts of social posts or running AI-powered customer segmentation. For sales, it’s AI scoring leads, crafting personalized outreach, or mining CRM insights. For operations, it’s workflow automation or predictive maintenance.

Translation: AI literacy isn’t just “knowing the tools.” It’s showing you can bend those tools into business results—faster campaigns, smarter targeting, smoother systems.

The Job Hunter’s Chicken-and-Egg Problem

How do you get AI experience if your last company barely touched it? Candidates keep stumbling over job postings that demand “AI-driven personalization” or “data platforms” without ever defining what that looks like in practice.

Here’s the reality check: most companies don’t actually know what they’re asking for. Many are still experimenting, tossing AI jargon into job ads to look futuristic. But that doesn’t mean you can ignore it.

Recruiters in the Fog

Recruiters are stuck playing talent whack-a-mole—searching résumés for keywords in a skillset that isn’t even standardized. Real evaluation means going deeper:

• Green flags: measurable results (“cut content time by 40%”), workflow improvements, proof of training others.

• Red flags: vague “AI expert” claims, résumés drowning in buzzwords, zero mention of ethics or oversight.

Interviews? Forget “Do you use AI?” Instead, drop scenarios: “Customer support is swamped. How would you apply AI here?” Or hand them AI output and watch if they can tear apart the flaws. That’s how you separate the real from the pretenders.

The Wage Premium—and the Mirage

According to PwC’s Global AI Jobs Barometer, postings requiring AI skills have grown 3.5x faster than all others since 2016, with salaries juiced by a 25% wage premium. That’s why employers are stampeding to demand “senior AI skills”—fear, competition, and no real playbook.

The truth? The pool of true “AI veterans” is microscopic. Most candidates’ experience comes from experimenting with tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. But experimentation is exactly where the innovation happens. Employers need to stop chasing unicorn résumés and start valuing adaptability and potential.

The Fix: From Scarcity to Readiness

For job seekers, the move isn’t faking years of AI experience. It’s proving readiness:

• Build a portfolio of AI-assisted projects.

• Show transferable skills—problem-solving, critical thinking, adaptability.

• Stay current by following experts, reading blogs, and tinkering with new tools.

For employers, the playbook is clear:

• Stop asking for “5+ years of AI experience.” It doesn’t exist. SMH.

• Invest in training and mentorship programs.

• Hire for curiosity and mindset, not just tools.

• Create clear pathways for employees to grow into AI competence.

What’s Next

Confusion is temporary. Expect job ads to shift from “must know ChatGPT” to “must understand AI principles.” Expect ethics to move front and center.

Most of all, expect the winners to be those who can do the dance—humans working seamlessly with machines.

As Boston Consulting Group’s Alicia Pittman told it: “It’s better to embrace it than fight it.”

The AI experience paradox won’t last forever. But until it burns off, job seekers and employers both have to sharpen their game or risk being left behind in a labor market that rewrites itself daily.

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The Fine Print

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One more thing before I go…

Unsolicited praise doesn’t land on my doorstep every day. So when it does, I don’t just smile—I throw a quiet little party in my head. Case in point: this gem from a subscriber that flat-out made my day.

RE: Last week’s newsletter “The Future of High-Value Work in an AI World.”

“I want you to know that I think your articles are brilliant. Every day I hear people on tv working the term AI into their conversation, trying to sound as if they understand it and how it affects us. The term rolls off their tongues like a foreign name they’ve learned to pronounce. You, however, understand it well enough to explain its effects on the office environment. I send your articles from time to time to my son who works in [REDACTED] at a firm that [REDACTED]. He will be one of the survivors, possibly even a thriver in the changing environment…. Jim Stroud, you are an amazing futurist!”

Thank you! You know who you are. I appreciate the kind words.

Jim

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