The September Surge & More New Content

I hope everyone has had a lovely summer season! I’ve been staying in Austin most of the summer and it’s felt “cool” in the sense that we’ve had under 100 degree days consistently this year. Truly the bar for “cool” is on the floor, as they say.

If we haven’t caught up in a bit, feel free to respond back to this note and let me know how your summer shook out! A few quick updates from me this month…

The September Surge & Why It Matters

As we approach the halfway mark of the month, it’s pacing to be another year for the ~hot & trendy~ September Surge. If you’re not familiar with the phrase, it’s the time of year where the number of job openings increases significantly due to a renewed focus on hitting end-of-year goals coming out of the summer season. Employers tend to re-focus on filling staffing gaps during this time to allow their teams to finish the year strong and to prepare for the upcoming new year. If you want to learn more about what this means from both the employer and employee perspective, Forbes wrote a helpful article on it.

If you are someone who is hoping to get a new job in early 2025, I would highly recommend you keep an eye out this next month or two. The average job search length is still about 3-6 months, but normally during busier seasons like this one things can be expedited.

If you’re happily employed and not looking to job search (many of you I’m hoping!), it’s also a great time of year to reflect on your own achievements as we head towards the last quarter of the year. I know Q4 can be historically pretty packed from both a business and personal perspective with the holidays sprinkled in there, so any “career admin” work you can get ahead of the rest of this month will help set you up for that much more success come 2025!

Podcast Features & An Upcoming Series

I’ve been really trying to get in the swing of my full content era this past month, which has mainly been focused on my Instagram and TikTok. I’ve debated making a solo podcast for a bit, but due to current bandwidth I haven’t committed to that path quite yet. In the interim, I’ve been chatting with a few people that I really respect in the podcast land:

• I recently chatted with my friend Danielle Doolen, who is an incredible Career Writer, on her podcast The First Ten Years. This was a really fun experience for me since it was my first long-form episode focused on my career path and my general career advice (v. super tangible tips on job searching). You can listen to the full episode here: Marnie Lemonik on determining your next career move.

• Earlier this summer, I was able to play “interviewer” on the Career Contessa podcast and interview one of my mentors who is also the Founder of Career Contessa, Lauren McGoodwin. If you haven’t heard the episode yet, I picked Lauren’s brain about her own job search - which she did after being a full-time entrepreneur for 10 years. It’s a great conversation where Lauren shares all the things that have changed (and not changed) since she was last in the job market. A “Part 2” episode will be released in the coming weeks!

Last but never least - in October, I’ll be launching a monthly series on the Career Contessa podcast where Lauren and I will be tackling some Q&A inspired topics. I’ll share the episode links, along with all the details, once its officially live!

What I’m Loving This Month: Substack

As a few of you know, I really love writing and it’s been my on-and-off again side hustle to coaching for the past year. If you enjoy reading about career topics and haven’t checked out my advice column from last fall, “Ask a Coach”, you can read my previous articles here.

I’m excited to make writing more of a focus as I shift into “back to school” energy with my new Substack! My goal is to publish a post every week and the topics may be a little varied. I’ll definitely do career-focused advice like I’ve done in the past, but I’m playing around with some more general life angles too (very basic philosophy vibes). If you would like to get even more emails from me and subscribe to keep up with my writing, you can do so below.

Until Next Month <3

If you have any topics or questions you’d like to see covered in my October newsletter, always feel free to DM me on Instagram. Sending you all wishes for a lovely, cozy and fun Fall ahead.