Tagged Amanda Pouchot:

The Second Liberation: How technology advances the state of women.


“If you get paid $40 an hour, and it costs $10 an hour for someone to clean your house– and you don’t actively enjoy cleaning your house– well then.” I still remember my mother explaining to me why we had strangers come into our home to clean when I was in elementary school. From the outside it was perceived as a luxury, in reality it was much more akin to a necessity–  my mother, who was at the time raising me singlehandedly, was working full time as a nursing administrator at a university. A rigorous profession in academics such as hers did not leave room for her to play house unnecessarily if the resources were available to avoid it.

A look at history

I can’t remember a time when my mother wasn’t working. I doubt that she can remember a time when she didn’t work full-time, either. Looking back at that time, it’s clear to me that there had been an uptick in immigration of low-skilled labor. The uptick changed my mother’s life and mine for the better.

University of Chicago professor Patricia Cortes and University of Maryland professor Jose Tessada published a study in 2009 entitled “Low-Skilled Immigration and the Labor Supply of Highly Educated Women.” The study looked at employment data from the 80s and 90s, and concluded that women with PhDs or professional degrees– highly educated women—increased, across the board, by 45 minutes the amount of time spent at work due to the impact of low-skilled laborers’ introduction into the labor market.  Cortes and Tessada note that “low-skilled immigrants work disproportionately in service sectors that are close substitutes for household productions.” In other words, low-skilled labor introduced to the market addressed a market need for domestic duties that were going unmet, or were being met by workers whose skill sets were more productively employed elsewhere. Tessada and Cortes found that this influx of workers only affected the amount of time the highly-skilled and educated women spent at work. No other demographic saw a shift.

Books like The Second Shift and The Price of Motherhood posit that a working mother has two jobs: her professional job, and on top of that, a set of time-consuming domestic responsibilities. These responsibilities exist regardless of whether the woman in question is a single mother. Works like these have also brought a stark truth to light: that in choosing to have a child, a working mother will sacrifice nearly 2 million dollars in earnings—decomposed, that sacrifice is caused by both the costs of child-rearing and the forgone opportunities a mother could have taken up professionally had she decided against raising a family.

Did I miss anything instrumental to psychological development from notwatching my mom wash my clothes, do my dishes, clean the toilet or cook me dinner every night? Did she love me any less because she wasn’t home every day after school to bake me cookies like I assumed everyone else’s mom was doing? I’ll heave a big no at those questions. My mother raised a woman who is in every way her daughter: ambitious, driven, intelligent, and principled.

There are so many arguments that, on the surface, are very cogent, on the subject of whether a mother should give up her career to stay at home and raise her child. The argument we hear in favor of mothers abandoning their careers to raise their children most frequently is actually identical to the one employers use when advising against a having a child: that there’s no substitute for being there. But popular opinion on this issue has shifted dramatically in the past 30 years:  contrary to what people believed in 1983, recent research indicates that the “daughters of employed mothers have been found to have higher academic achievement, greater career success, more nontraditional career choices, and greater occupational commitment.”

Conflating housework and motherhood

The notion that the daughters of highly-skilled women go on to achieve more success and set new precedents in the workplace suggests that the debate of whether those highly-skilled women should spend time with their children is unfairly conflated with whether or not they should also retain domestic responsibilities as a full-time mother would. Whether or not my mom feels like she “missed out” on raising me—not to mention the guilt that mothers place on themselves—the votes are in, and I turned out to be a pretty good egg. But that’s another discussion for another time. It’s an issue better discussed by someone who has children. What I’m more concerned about right now is where technology will be able to take this outsourcing of “chores.”

Moving to New York after college for my first corporate job lent itself to a seamless transition, where I realize that most of my cohort’s transition is somewhat rougher. I went from 0 to 60 in no time flat, starting my career at a firm that put time constraints on me that made it a logistical hardship to cook, clean or launder my own clothes. And technology has made the process of sourcing labor, goods, and extra time easier. In the past two years, particularly, I’ve noticed a transition to the ease at which I can outsource my life in the form of mobile technologies.

Technology hasn’t really changed the fundamental dynamic at hand, but it has made the actual sourcing of labor to perform domestic tasks far easier than it was in my mother’s day. Growing up in Petaluma, there was one delivery option available to my mother: Chinese food. To this day, as an effect,  I can rarely stomach the stuff. Not only were our options homogenous, to be able to order she needed to have already picked up the menu and have cash physically on hand. After a while, of course, the restaurant knew our orders by heart– and if we didn’t have quite enough to cover tip, a simple “we’ll get you next time” was all that was needed. This dynamic is very tough to find in New York City.

Bringing the big city to small towns

My options today are far more diverse—not just because I live in New York now, but also because there are simple technologies that make information, contact, and payment to restaurants near me very easy. On my walk home, I can skim through the options for delivery from my phone and rush to beat the delivery man home. If I have a little forethought, I can minimize my time spend on food by ordering from FreshDirect. If I find myself in the world’s worst work-related pickle, I have options: I can post a task request on TaskRabbit and ask someone to do my grocery shopping for the week, cook me my favorite recipe, and do the dishes, all for a premium of less than fifty dollars. When it comes to needing a new outfit, I don’t even have to move from my office to try it on anymore. I can do that virtually, thanks to technology like Clothia that allows you to virtually try clothing on. Looking into the future, Levo will even be doing more for you and your career thanks to the technology that we are building. If I need a gift, I can send it using e-commerce. I can even order car service to my door without having to pick up the phone.

So how much time am I saving? In terms of sourcing domestic tasks, it’s clear that there’s at least a 45 minute benefit every week. Whether that benefit outweighs the added “compulsion and distraction” element of technology that sometimes makes it feel like my mobile phone is taking over my life, we’ll leave it to be determined. For now I’d like to think that technology is making my life easier and better.
Feb 17
The Second Liberation: How technology advances the state of women. “If you get paid $40 an hour, and it costs $10 an hour for someone to clean your house– and you don’t actively enjoy cleaning your house– well then.” I still remember my mother explaining to me why we had strangers come into our home to clean when I was in elementary school. From the outside it was perceived as a luxury, in reality it was much more akin to a necessity–  my mother, who was at the time raising me singlehandedly, was working full time as a nursing administrator at a university. A rigorous profession in academics such as hers did not leave room for her to play house unnecessarily if the resources were available to avoid it. A look at history I can’t remember a time when my mother wasn’t working. I doubt that she can remember a time when she didn’t work full-time, either. Looking back at that time, it’s clear to me that there had been an uptick in immigration of low-skilled labor. The uptick changed my mother’s life and mine for the better. University of Chicago professor Patricia Cortes and University of Maryland professor Jose Tessada published a study in 2009 entitled “Low-Skilled Immigration and the Labor Supply of Highly Educated Women.” The study looked at employment data from the 80s and 90s, and concluded that women with PhDs or professional degrees– highly educated women—increased, across the board, by 45 minutes the amount of time spent at work due to the impact of low-skilled laborers’ introduction into the labor market.  Cortes and Tessada note that “low-skilled immigrants work disproportionately in service sectors that are close substitutes for household productions.” In other words, low-skilled labor introduced to the market addressed a market need for domestic duties that were going unmet, or were being met by workers whose skill sets were more productively employed elsewhere. Tessada and Cortes found that this influx of workers only affected the amount of time the highly-skilled and educated women spent at work. No other demographic saw a shift. Books like The Second Shift and The Price of Motherhood posit that a working mother has two jobs: her professional job, and on top of that, a set of time-consuming domestic responsibilities. These responsibilities exist regardless of whether the woman in question is a single mother. Works like these have also brought a stark truth to light: that in choosing to have a child, a working mother will sacrifice nearly 2 million dollars in earnings—decomposed, that sacrifice is caused by both the costs of child-rearing and the forgone opportunities a mother could have taken up professionally had she decided against raising a family. Did I miss anything instrumental to psychological development from notwatching my mom wash my clothes, do my dishes, clean the toilet or cook me dinner every night? Did she love me any less because she wasn’t home every day after school to bake me cookies like I assumed everyone else’s mom was doing? I’ll heave a big no at those questions. My mother raised a woman who is in every way her daughter: ambitious, driven, intelligent, and principled. There are so many arguments that, on the surface, are very cogent, on the subject of whether a mother should give up her career to stay at home and raise her child. The argument we hear in favor of mothers abandoning their careers to raise their children most frequently is actually identical to the one employers use when advising against a having a child: that there’s no substitute for being there. But popular opinion on this issue has shifted dramatically in the past 30 years:  contrary to what people believed in 1983, recent research indicates that the “daughters of employed mothers have been found to have higher academic achievement, greater career success, more nontraditional career choices, and greater occupational commitment.” Conflating housework and motherhood The notion that the daughters of highly-skilled women go on to achieve more success and set new precedents in the workplace suggests that the debate of whether those highly-skilled women should spend time with their children is unfairly conflated with whether or not they should also retain domestic responsibilities as a full-time mother would. Whether or not my mom feels like she “missed out” on raising me—not to mention the guilt that mothers place on themselves—the votes are in, and I turned out to be a pretty good egg. But that’s another discussion for another time. It’s an issue better discussed by someone who has children. What I’m more concerned about right now is where technology will be able to take this outsourcing of “chores.” Moving to New York after college for my first corporate job lent itself to a seamless transition, where I realize that most of my cohort’s transition is somewhat rougher. I went from 0 to 60 in no time flat, starting my career at a firm that put time constraints on me that made it a logistical hardship to cook, clean or launder my own clothes. And technology has made the process of sourcing labor, goods, and extra time easier. In the past two years, particularly, I’ve noticed a transition to the ease at which I can outsource my life in the form of mobile technologies. Technology hasn’t really changed the fundamental dynamic at hand, but it has made the actual sourcing of labor to perform domestic tasks far easier than it was in my mother’s day. Growing up in Petaluma, there was one delivery option available to my mother: Chinese food. To this day, as an effect,  I can rarely stomach the stuff. Not only were our options homogenous, to be able to order she needed to have already picked up the menu and have cash physically on hand. After a while, of course, the restaurant knew our orders by heart– and if we didn’t have quite enough to cover tip, a simple “we’ll get you next time” was all that was needed. This dynamic is very tough to find in New York City. Bringing the big city to small towns My options today are far more diverse—not just because I live in New York now, but also because there are simple technologies that make information, contact, and payment to restaurants near me very easy. On my walk home, I can skim through the options for delivery from my phone and rush to beat the delivery man home. If I have a little forethought, I can minimize my time spend on food by ordering from FreshDirect. If I find myself in the world’s worst work-related pickle, I have options: I can post a task request on TaskRabbit and ask someone to do my grocery shopping for the week, cook me my favorite recipe, and do the dishes, all for a premium of less than fifty dollars. When it comes to needing a new outfit, I don’t even have to move from my office to try it on anymore. I can do that virtually, thanks to technology like Clothia that allows you to virtually try clothing on. Looking into the future, Levo will even be doing more for you and your career thanks to the technology that we are building. If I need a gift, I can send it using e-commerce. I can even order car service to my door without having to pick up the phone. So how much time am I saving? In terms of sourcing domestic tasks, it’s clear that there’s at least a 45 minute benefit every week. Whether that benefit outweighs the added “compulsion and distraction” element of technology that sometimes makes it feel like my mobile phone is taking over my life, we’ll leave it to be determined. For now I’d like to think that technology is making my life easier and better.

Willard Mitt Romney, and His Five Attractive Sons: the Wednesday WTF?

We are introducing a new hump-day (note: this hump-reference has nothing to do with Mr. Hump, Kris Humphries, but if anyone is as confused as I am about how this guy gets double doubles nearly every game it’s because he takes almost as many shots as Kobe… I digress)

So this is our Wednesday WTF, which is really just an excuse for us to write about whatever we want each week. It’s our place to share a random thought each Wednesday that has sparked a discussion with the whole Levo team and that we hope will make you think, could make you laugh or will just generally brighten up your week. Some weeks it may even make you angry, but that’s okay too. We’ll figure it all out.

This week’s is an ode to Mitt Romney’s five ridiculously successful, charming and Disney Prince-esque sons. Who are ALL married. Don’t worry, our WTFs won’t always be this shallow, we promise.

We are seeing more grown children get involved in campaigning for their parents. Remember Megan McCain last year who for Father’s day registered Republican for her father?  Then there are the Huntsman girls, whom our Levo team is split on our thoughts about.  You can follow them on Twitter or read about them in GQ – one of them even went on a date with Kris Humphries (take that, hump day!). And how can we not watch and be obsessed with the adorable Obama girls.

Now, back to the Romneys. I’m going to give credit to Mrs. Romney for birthing and raising such a great crop of young men. Mrs. Romney was also diagnosed in 1998 with MS– a crippling disease– that her and her family have worked through to support her. Whether or not you like their politics, one thing the Romneys have done really well is be a great family at least from our view on the outside.

On to the sons. There are five: Tagg, Matt, Josh, Craig and Ben. They range from careers in politics and finance to residencies in radiology. They are smart, pretty and don’t seem to have commitment issues. You can read more about them in the NY Times Style profile from this weekend here.

Mitt Romney and five sons

Now that’s a family we want to play volleyball and hold intellectual conversations with.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this version of the WTF. Let us know if you want to write a guest WTF by emailing Elizabeth@levoleague.com !
Jan 11
Willard Mitt Romney, and His Five Attractive Sons: the Wednesday WTF? We are introducing a new hump-day (note: this hump-reference has nothing to do with Mr. Hump, Kris Humphries, but if anyone is as confused as I am about how this guy gets double doubles nearly every game it’s because he takes almost as many shots as Kobe… I digress) So this is our Wednesday WTF, which is really just an excuse for us to write about whatever we want each week. It’s our place to share a random thought each Wednesday that has sparked a discussion with the whole Levo team and that we hope will make you think, could make you laugh or will just generally brighten up your week. Some weeks it may even make you angry, but that’s okay too. We’ll figure it all out. This week’s is an ode to Mitt Romney’s five ridiculously successful, charming and Disney Prince-esque sons. Who are ALL married. Don’t worry, our WTFs won’t always be this shallow, we promise. We are seeing more grown children get involved in campaigning for their parents. Remember Megan McCain last year who for Father’s day registered Republican for her father?  Then there are the Huntsman girls, whom our Levo team is split on our thoughts about.  You can follow them on Twitter or read about them in GQ – one of them even went on a date with Kris Humphries (take that, hump day!). And how can we not watch and be obsessed with the adorable Obama girls. Now, back to the Romneys. I’m going to give credit to Mrs. Romney for birthing and raising such a great crop of young men. Mrs. Romney was also diagnosed in 1998 with MS– a crippling disease– that her and her family have worked through to support her. Whether or not you like their politics, one thing the Romneys have done really well is be a great family at least from our view on the outside. On to the sons. There are five: Tagg, Matt, Josh, Craig and Ben. They range from careers in politics and finance to residencies in radiology. They are smart, pretty and don’t seem to have commitment issues. You can read more about them in the NY Times Style profile from this weekend here. Now that’s a family we want to play volleyball and hold intellectual conversations with. We hope you’ve enjoyed this version of the WTF. Let us know if you want to write a guest WTF by emailing Elizabeth@levoleague.com !

Cookies Party: Cookies that taste good and help you look good, too!

I love to cook and bake, and I’m an outspoken advocate of the idea that you can be a powerful executive AND a domestic goddess. The idea of creating something you actually want to eat can be intimidating. The best way to start is to simply start.

I’m obsessed with Martha Stewart and Paula Deen. I would give anything to visit Martha’s upstate New York sanctuary and bake with her. These women are my baking idols. But reader, take note: they can also be considered branding idols— and they’re both extremely successful businesswomen. They have both created domestic empires.

Here are some of my favorite cookie recipe’s from the ladies:

Fancy pants “stained glass cut out cookies”

These are cookies that dress to impress. They involve making a small cutout within a cookie and placing a crushed Jolly Rancher in the middle. Once in the oven, the Jolly Rancher melts— and it looks like stained glass. It looks far more complicated to make than it actually is, and is sure to solidify your domestic goddess role.

www.marthastewart.com is not only great for baking, but has incredible and FAST dinner recipes that are my go to many times during the week. I’m also obsessed with the Martha Stewart iPad apps and the Everday Living digital magazine.

Kitchen Sink Xmas Cookies

This cookie quite possibly epitomizes the life force of Ms. Paula Deen. It involves literally everything in your kitchen but the kitchen sink. Paula’s recipe: Take an otherwise fairly normal cookie, and then dip half of it in white chocolate. Sprinkle candy cane pieces. This recipe screams over-the-top richness. You can also substitute her Kitchen Sink Cookie base with a simple sugar cookie, or my favorite: chocolate chip.

www.pauladeen.com is my ultimate go-to when I need something super comforting and rich. I’ve been known to cut out a cup of cream or a stick of butter from her recipes, but no one does delectable like Paula Deen.

Don’t feel like baking? Then there is always the default Pilsbury pre-made sugar dough at the grocery store. Just remember, don’t eat it raw (you know we’re all sneaking bites of the dough— except for snickerdoodles, because that dough just doesn’t taste good).

Also, for those of you who just like to decorate this is my go to Gingerbread House Kitfrom Williams Sonoma. Nicholas Flanders, our resident “Ghost It Out” Powerpoint pro, may or may not have lit one of these on fire last year for fun.

Cooking and baking brings people together— whether it’s the experience of baking or the devouring of the final product. There’s a reason why for centuries so much emphasis and ritual has been placed around eating. So I say “Jump in!”
Dec 23
Cookies Party: Cookies that taste good and help you look good, too! I love to cook and bake, and I’m an outspoken advocate of the idea that you can be a powerful executive AND a domestic goddess. The idea of creating something you actually want to eat can be intimidating. The best way to start is to simply start. I’m obsessed with Martha Stewart and Paula Deen. I would give anything to visit Martha’s upstate New York sanctuary and bake with her. These women are my baking idols. But reader, take note: they can also be considered branding idols— and they’re both extremely successful businesswomen. They have both created domestic empires. Here are some of my favorite cookie recipe’s from the ladies: Fancy pants “stained glass cut out cookies” These are cookies that dress to impress. They involve making a small cutout within a cookie and placing a crushed Jolly Rancher in the middle. Once in the oven, the Jolly Rancher melts— and it looks like stained glass. It looks far more complicated to make than it actually is, and is sure to solidify your domestic goddess role. www.marthastewart.com is not only great for baking, but has incredible and FAST dinner recipes that are my go to many times during the week. I’m also obsessed with the Martha Stewart iPad apps and the Everday Living digital magazine. Kitchen Sink Xmas Cookies This cookie quite possibly epitomizes the life force of Ms. Paula Deen. It involves literally everything in your kitchen but the kitchen sink. Paula’s recipe: Take an otherwise fairly normal cookie, and then dip half of it in white chocolate. Sprinkle candy cane pieces. This recipe screams over-the-top richness. You can also substitute her Kitchen Sink Cookie base with a simple sugar cookie, or my favorite: chocolate chip. www.pauladeen.com is my ultimate go-to when I need something super comforting and rich. I’ve been known to cut out a cup of cream or a stick of butter from her recipes, but no one does delectable like Paula Deen. Don’t feel like baking? Then there is always the default Pilsbury pre-made sugar dough at the grocery store. Just remember, don’t eat it raw (you know we’re all sneaking bites of the dough— except for snickerdoodles, because that dough just doesn’t taste good). Also, for those of you who just like to decorate this is my go to Gingerbread House Kitfrom Williams Sonoma. Nicholas Flanders, our resident “Ghost It Out” Powerpoint pro, may or may not have lit one of these on fire last year for fun. Cooking and baking brings people together— whether it’s the experience of baking or the devouring of the final product. There’s a reason why for centuries so much emphasis and ritual has been placed around eating. So I say “Jump in!”

Resume Cliches

By Amanda Pouchot

I am effective at creative organization problem-solving and I’m highly motivated. My track record shows my dynamic communication skills and innovative abilities throughout my extensive experience.  

Huh?

Read the above sentence again. From the description, do you have any idea what I am capable of (other than run-on sentences)? Neither do I. Other than a ton of adjectives that describe, well, anything, I don’t have any idea what I am actually capable of.

I get it, and I’m a victim of it: expressing yourself on paper is really hard. Putting your life’s work onto an 8.5″x 11″ sheet of paper in a way that makes you stick out to future employers and recruiters is quite the challenge. That’s why we cover it frequently. From formatting, to sentence choice, to word choice, there are a lot of things to consider when compiling your resume.

Today’s lesson thanks to the most popular words used on LinkedIn is move away from adjectives and towards verbs. The words compromising the above run-on sentence are now officially “filler words”: they no longer indicate a candidate who can have significant impact on a company’s bottom line.

Remember in 3rd grade when they told you to show, and not tell? Well, that applies on your resume. Show people what you’ve done in your career. Don’t tell them you are have an effective track record – actually share your track record.  Don’t tell someone you are dynamic and creative– instead, write about the project you lead that shows your creativity and dynamic-ness (yes, I just made up a word, and no, DO NOT do that on your resume).

I read a lot of resumes: whether helping proofread resumes of friends or reviewing recruits for Levo. There are plenty of forgivable mistakes decent candidates make, but if I have absolutely NO IDEA what someone’s actually done based on their resume, it sufficiently impairs my desire to learn more about them to the point where they go in the ‘throw-away’ pile.

Using broad descriptive words, while somewhat fancy, shares very little about your abilities. How am I supposed to know how well you solve problems by putting down “great problem solver”? How do I know whether the problems you solve include finding ways to reduce cost and not headcount, or if your problems are along the lines of figuring out what to order for lunch for a team of picky eaters? Telling me you are a strong problem solver, and failing to actually enlighten the reader by sharing the problem(s) you solved does little.

You’re “motivated.” Good. What else? How do I see proof that you are motivated, and how do I gauge what motivated means to you? You may think motivated means you came to work every day. Motivated to someone else may mean that they showed up 15 minutes early in order to prove to their boss that they were ready for the day and to accomplish more work. State what your motivation has driven you to accomplish.


Words I like to see

Quantifying words: Increased, decreased, brought together, improved by, connected, expanded, reduced, created, developed, implemented. The list goes on. These words are great because they’re hard to use without following up with a quantity, a program, a restructuring, &c. Let the recruiter or your future employer know what you’ve done and how you’ve done it and what the results are– now go forth and conquer the world.

If you’re in need of resume feedback: email your resume to amanda(at)levoleague.com. Before you do, make sure to read all the Levo League Resume series articles. 

Amanda Pouchot is a co-founder of Levo.
Dec 21
Resume Cliches By Amanda Pouchot I am effective at creative organization problem-solving and I’m highly motivated. My track record shows my dynamic communication skills and innovative abilities throughout my extensive experience.   Huh? Read the above sentence again. From the description, do you have any idea what I am capable of (other than run-on sentences)? Neither do I. Other than a ton of adjectives that describe, well, anything, I don’t have any idea what I am actually capable of. I get it, and I’m a victim of it: expressing yourself on paper is really hard. Putting your life’s work onto an 8.5″x 11″ sheet of paper in a way that makes you stick out to future employers and recruiters is quite the challenge. That’s why we cover it frequently. From formatting, to sentence choice, to word choice, there are a lot of things to consider when compiling your resume. Today’s lesson thanks to the most popular words used on LinkedIn is move away from adjectives and towards verbs. The words compromising the above run-on sentence are now officially “filler words”: they no longer indicate a candidate who can have significant impact on a company’s bottom line. Remember in 3rd grade when they told you to show, and not tell? Well, that applies on your resume. Show people what you’ve done in your career. Don’t tell them you are have an effective track record – actually share your track record.  Don’t tell someone you are dynamic and creative– instead, write about the project you lead that shows your creativity and dynamic-ness (yes, I just made up a word, and no, DO NOT do that on your resume). I read a lot of resumes: whether helping proofread resumes of friends or reviewing recruits for Levo. There are plenty of forgivable mistakes decent candidates make, but if I have absolutely NO IDEA what someone’s actually done based on their resume, it sufficiently impairs my desire to learn more about them to the point where they go in the ‘throw-away’ pile. Using broad descriptive words, while somewhat fancy, shares very little about your abilities. How am I supposed to know how well you solve problems by putting down “great problem solver”? How do I know whether the problems you solve include finding ways to reduce cost and not headcount, or if your problems are along the lines of figuring out what to order for lunch for a team of picky eaters? Telling me you are a strong problem solver, and failing to actually enlighten the reader by sharing the problem(s) you solved does little. You’re “motivated.” Good. What else? How do I see proof that you are motivated, and how do I gauge what motivated means to you? You may think motivated means you came to work every day. Motivated to someone else may mean that they showed up 15 minutes early in order to prove to their boss that they were ready for the day and to accomplish more work. State what your motivation has driven you to accomplish. Words I like to see Quantifying words: Increased, decreased, brought together, improved by, connected, expanded, reduced, created, developed, implemented. The list goes on. These words are great because they’re hard to use without following up with a quantity, a program, a restructuring, &c. Let the recruiter or your future employer know what you’ve done and how you’ve done it and what the results are– now go forth and conquer the world. If you’re in need of resume feedback: email your resume to amanda(at)levoleague.com. Before you do, make sure to read all the Levo League Resume series articles.  Amanda Pouchot is a co-founder of Levo.

The Levo League

Posted on Friday February 17th 2012 at 01:39pm. Its tags are listed below.

The Second Liberation: How technology advances the state of women. “If you get paid $40 an hour, and it costs $10 an hour for someone to clean your house– and you don’t actively enjoy cleaning your house– well then.” I still remember my mother explaining to me why we had strangers come into our home to clean when I was in elementary school. From the outside it was perceived as a luxury, in reality it was much more akin to a necessity–  my mother, who was at the time raising me singlehandedly, was working full time as a nursing administrator at a university. A rigorous profession in academics such as hers did not leave room for her to play house unnecessarily if the resources were available to avoid it. A look at history I can’t remember a time when my mother wasn’t working. I doubt that she can remember a time when she didn’t work full-time, either. Looking back at that time, it’s clear to me that there had been an uptick in immigration of low-skilled labor. The uptick changed my mother’s life and mine for the better. University of Chicago professor Patricia Cortes and University of Maryland professor Jose Tessada published a study in 2009 entitled “Low-Skilled Immigration and the Labor Supply of Highly Educated Women.” The study looked at employment data from the 80s and 90s, and concluded that women with PhDs or professional degrees– highly educated women—increased, across the board, by 45 minutes the amount of time spent at work due to the impact of low-skilled laborers’ introduction into the labor market.  Cortes and Tessada note that “low-skilled immigrants work disproportionately in service sectors that are close substitutes for household productions.” In other words, low-skilled labor introduced to the market addressed a market need for domestic duties that were going unmet, or were being met by workers whose skill sets were more productively employed elsewhere. Tessada and Cortes found that this influx of workers only affected the amount of time the highly-skilled and educated women spent at work. No other demographic saw a shift. Books like The Second Shift and The Price of Motherhood posit that a working mother has two jobs: her professional job, and on top of that, a set of time-consuming domestic responsibilities. These responsibilities exist regardless of whether the woman in question is a single mother. Works like these have also brought a stark truth to light: that in choosing to have a child, a working mother will sacrifice nearly 2 million dollars in earnings—decomposed, that sacrifice is caused by both the costs of child-rearing and the forgone opportunities a mother could have taken up professionally had she decided against raising a family. Did I miss anything instrumental to psychological development from notwatching my mom wash my clothes, do my dishes, clean the toilet or cook me dinner every night? Did she love me any less because she wasn’t home every day after school to bake me cookies like I assumed everyone else’s mom was doing? I’ll heave a big no at those questions. My mother raised a woman who is in every way her daughter: ambitious, driven, intelligent, and principled. There are so many arguments that, on the surface, are very cogent, on the subject of whether a mother should give up her career to stay at home and raise her child. The argument we hear in favor of mothers abandoning their careers to raise their children most frequently is actually identical to the one employers use when advising against a having a child: that there’s no substitute for being there. But popular opinion on this issue has shifted dramatically in the past 30 years:  contrary to what people believed in 1983, recent research indicates that the “daughters of employed mothers have been found to have higher academic achievement, greater career success, more nontraditional career choices, and greater occupational commitment.” Conflating housework and motherhood The notion that the daughters of highly-skilled women go on to achieve more success and set new precedents in the workplace suggests that the debate of whether those highly-skilled women should spend time with their children is unfairly conflated with whether or not they should also retain domestic responsibilities as a full-time mother would. Whether or not my mom feels like she “missed out” on raising me—not to mention the guilt that mothers place on themselves—the votes are in, and I turned out to be a pretty good egg. But that’s another discussion for another time. It’s an issue better discussed by someone who has children. What I’m more concerned about right now is where technology will be able to take this outsourcing of “chores.” Moving to New York after college for my first corporate job lent itself to a seamless transition, where I realize that most of my cohort’s transition is somewhat rougher. I went from 0 to 60 in no time flat, starting my career at a firm that put time constraints on me that made it a logistical hardship to cook, clean or launder my own clothes. And technology has made the process of sourcing labor, goods, and extra time easier. In the past two years, particularly, I’ve noticed a transition to the ease at which I can outsource my life in the form of mobile technologies. Technology hasn’t really changed the fundamental dynamic at hand, but it has made the actual sourcing of labor to perform domestic tasks far easier than it was in my mother’s day. Growing up in Petaluma, there was one delivery option available to my mother: Chinese food. To this day, as an effect,  I can rarely stomach the stuff. Not only were our options homogenous, to be able to order she needed to have already picked up the menu and have cash physically on hand. After a while, of course, the restaurant knew our orders by heart– and if we didn’t have quite enough to cover tip, a simple “we’ll get you next time” was all that was needed. This dynamic is very tough to find in New York City. Bringing the big city to small towns My options today are far more diverse—not just because I live in New York now, but also because there are simple technologies that make information, contact, and payment to restaurants near me very easy. On my walk home, I can skim through the options for delivery from my phone and rush to beat the delivery man home. If I have a little forethought, I can minimize my time spend on food by ordering from FreshDirect. If I find myself in the world’s worst work-related pickle, I have options: I can post a task request on TaskRabbit and ask someone to do my grocery shopping for the week, cook me my favorite recipe, and do the dishes, all for a premium of less than fifty dollars. When it comes to needing a new outfit, I don’t even have to move from my office to try it on anymore. I can do that virtually, thanks to technology like Clothia that allows you to virtually try clothing on. Looking into the future, Levo will even be doing more for you and your career thanks to the technology that we are building. If I need a gift, I can send it using e-commerce. I can even order car service to my door without having to pick up the phone. So how much time am I saving? In terms of sourcing domestic tasks, it’s clear that there’s at least a 45 minute benefit every week. Whether that benefit outweighs the added “compulsion and distraction” element of technology that sometimes makes it feel like my mobile phone is taking over my life, we’ll leave it to be determined. For now I’d like to think that technology is making my life easier and better.
The Second Liberation: How technology advances the state of women. “If you get paid $40 an hour, and it costs $10 an hour for someone to clean your house– and you don’t actively enjoy cleaning your house– well then.” I still remember my mother explaining to me why we had strangers come into our home to clean when I was in elementary school. From the outside it was perceived as a luxury, in reality it was much more akin to a necessity–  my mother, who was at the time raising me singlehandedly, was working full time as a nursing administrator at a university. A rigorous profession in academics such as hers did not leave room for her to play house unnecessarily if the resources were available to avoid it. A look at history I can’t remember a time when my mother wasn’t working. I doubt that she can remember a time when she didn’t work full-time, either. Looking back at that time, it’s clear to me that there had been an uptick in immigration of low-skilled labor. The uptick changed my mother’s life and mine for the better. University of Chicago professor Patricia Cortes and University of Maryland professor Jose Tessada published a study in 2009 entitled “Low-Skilled Immigration and the Labor Supply of Highly Educated Women.” The study looked at employment data from the 80s and 90s, and concluded that women with PhDs or professional degrees– highly educated women—increased, across the board, by 45 minutes the amount of time spent at work due to the impact of low-skilled laborers’ introduction into the labor market.  Cortes and Tessada note that “low-skilled immigrants work disproportionately in service sectors that are close substitutes for household productions.” In other words, low-skilled labor introduced to the market addressed a market need for domestic duties that were going unmet, or were being met by workers whose skill sets were more productively employed elsewhere. Tessada and Cortes found that this influx of workers only affected the amount of time the highly-skilled and educated women spent at work. No other demographic saw a shift. Books like The Second Shift and The Price of Motherhood posit that a working mother has two jobs: her professional job, and on top of that, a set of time-consuming domestic responsibilities. These responsibilities exist regardless of whether the woman in question is a single mother. Works like these have also brought a stark truth to light: that in choosing to have a child, a working mother will sacrifice nearly 2 million dollars in earnings—decomposed, that sacrifice is caused by both the costs of child-rearing and the forgone opportunities a mother could have taken up professionally had she decided against raising a family. Did I miss anything instrumental to psychological development from notwatching my mom wash my clothes, do my dishes, clean the toilet or cook me dinner every night? Did she love me any less because she wasn’t home every day after school to bake me cookies like I assumed everyone else’s mom was doing? I’ll heave a big no at those questions. My mother raised a woman who is in every way her daughter: ambitious, driven, intelligent, and principled. There are so many arguments that, on the surface, are very cogent, on the subject of whether a mother should give up her career to stay at home and raise her child. The argument we hear in favor of mothers abandoning their careers to raise their children most frequently is actually identical to the one employers use when advising against a having a child: that there’s no substitute for being there. But popular opinion on this issue has shifted dramatically in the past 30 years:  contrary to what people believed in 1983, recent research indicates that the “daughters of employed mothers have been found to have higher academic achievement, greater career success, more nontraditional career choices, and greater occupational commitment.” Conflating housework and motherhood The notion that the daughters of highly-skilled women go on to achieve more success and set new precedents in the workplace suggests that the debate of whether those highly-skilled women should spend time with their children is unfairly conflated with whether or not they should also retain domestic responsibilities as a full-time mother would. Whether or not my mom feels like she “missed out” on raising me—not to mention the guilt that mothers place on themselves—the votes are in, and I turned out to be a pretty good egg. But that’s another discussion for another time. It’s an issue better discussed by someone who has children. What I’m more concerned about right now is where technology will be able to take this outsourcing of “chores.” Moving to New York after college for my first corporate job lent itself to a seamless transition, where I realize that most of my cohort’s transition is somewhat rougher. I went from 0 to 60 in no time flat, starting my career at a firm that put time constraints on me that made it a logistical hardship to cook, clean or launder my own clothes. And technology has made the process of sourcing labor, goods, and extra time easier. In the past two years, particularly, I’ve noticed a transition to the ease at which I can outsource my life in the form of mobile technologies. Technology hasn’t really changed the fundamental dynamic at hand, but it has made the actual sourcing of labor to perform domestic tasks far easier than it was in my mother’s day. Growing up in Petaluma, there was one delivery option available to my mother: Chinese food. To this day, as an effect,  I can rarely stomach the stuff. Not only were our options homogenous, to be able to order she needed to have already picked up the menu and have cash physically on hand. After a while, of course, the restaurant knew our orders by heart– and if we didn’t have quite enough to cover tip, a simple “we’ll get you next time” was all that was needed. This dynamic is very tough to find in New York City. Bringing the big city to small towns My options today are far more diverse—not just because I live in New York now, but also because there are simple technologies that make information, contact, and payment to restaurants near me very easy. On my walk home, I can skim through the options for delivery from my phone and rush to beat the delivery man home. If I have a little forethought, I can minimize my time spend on food by ordering from FreshDirect. If I find myself in the world’s worst work-related pickle, I have options: I can post a task request on TaskRabbit and ask someone to do my grocery shopping for the week, cook me my favorite recipe, and do the dishes, all for a premium of less than fifty dollars. When it comes to needing a new outfit, I don’t even have to move from my office to try it on anymore. I can do that virtually, thanks to technology like Clothia that allows you to virtually try clothing on. Looking into the future, Levo will even be doing more for you and your career thanks to the technology that we are building. If I need a gift, I can send it using e-commerce. I can even order car service to my door without having to pick up the phone. So how much time am I saving? In terms of sourcing domestic tasks, it’s clear that there’s at least a 45 minute benefit every week. Whether that benefit outweighs the added “compulsion and distraction” element of technology that sometimes makes it feel like my mobile phone is taking over my life, we’ll leave it to be determined. For now I’d like to think that technology is making my life easier and better.

The Second Liberation: How technology advances the state of women.


“If you get paid $40 an hour, and it costs $10 an hour for someone to clean your house– and you don’t actively enjoy cleaning your house– well then.” I still remember my mother explaining to me why we had strangers come into our home to clean when I was in elementary school. From the outside it was perceived as a luxury, in reality it was much more akin to a necessity–  my mother, who was at the time raising me singlehandedly, was working full time as a nursing administrator at a university. A rigorous profession in academics such as hers did not leave room for her to play house unnecessarily if the resources were available to avoid it.

A look at history

I can’t remember a time when my mother wasn’t working. I doubt that she can remember a time when she didn’t work full-time, either. Looking back at that time, it’s clear to me that there had been an uptick in immigration of low-skilled labor. The uptick changed my mother’s life and mine for the better.

University of Chicago professor Patricia Cortes and University of Maryland professor Jose Tessada published a study in 2009 entitled “Low-Skilled Immigration and the Labor Supply of Highly Educated Women.” The study looked at employment data from the 80s and 90s, and concluded that women with PhDs or professional degrees– highly educated women—increased, across the board, by 45 minutes the amount of time spent at work due to the impact of low-skilled laborers’ introduction into the labor market.  Cortes and Tessada note that “low-skilled immigrants work disproportionately in service sectors that are close substitutes for household productions.” In other words, low-skilled labor introduced to the market addressed a market need for domestic duties that were going unmet, or were being met by workers whose skill sets were more productively employed elsewhere. Tessada and Cortes found that this influx of workers only affected the amount of time the highly-skilled and educated women spent at work. No other demographic saw a shift.

Books like The Second Shift and The Price of Motherhood posit that a working mother has two jobs: her professional job, and on top of that, a set of time-consuming domestic responsibilities. These responsibilities exist regardless of whether the woman in question is a single mother. Works like these have also brought a stark truth to light: that in choosing to have a child, a working mother will sacrifice nearly 2 million dollars in earnings—decomposed, that sacrifice is caused by both the costs of child-rearing and the forgone opportunities a mother could have taken up professionally had she decided against raising a family.

Did I miss anything instrumental to psychological development from notwatching my mom wash my clothes, do my dishes, clean the toilet or cook me dinner every night? Did she love me any less because she wasn’t home every day after school to bake me cookies like I assumed everyone else’s mom was doing? I’ll heave a big no at those questions. My mother raised a woman who is in every way her daughter: ambitious, driven, intelligent, and principled.

There are so many arguments that, on the surface, are very cogent, on the subject of whether a mother should give up her career to stay at home and raise her child. The argument we hear in favor of mothers abandoning their careers to raise their children most frequently is actually identical to the one employers use when advising against a having a child: that there’s no substitute for being there. But popular opinion on this issue has shifted dramatically in the past 30 years:  contrary to what people believed in 1983, recent research indicates that the “daughters of employed mothers have been found to have higher academic achievement, greater career success, more nontraditional career choices, and greater occupational commitment.”

Conflating housework and motherhood

The notion that the daughters of highly-skilled women go on to achieve more success and set new precedents in the workplace suggests that the debate of whether those highly-skilled women should spend time with their children is unfairly conflated with whether or not they should also retain domestic responsibilities as a full-time mother would. Whether or not my mom feels like she “missed out” on raising me—not to mention the guilt that mothers place on themselves—the votes are in, and I turned out to be a pretty good egg. But that’s another discussion for another time. It’s an issue better discussed by someone who has children. What I’m more concerned about right now is where technology will be able to take this outsourcing of “chores.”

Moving to New York after college for my first corporate job lent itself to a seamless transition, where I realize that most of my cohort’s transition is somewhat rougher. I went from 0 to 60 in no time flat, starting my career at a firm that put time constraints on me that made it a logistical hardship to cook, clean or launder my own clothes. And technology has made the process of sourcing labor, goods, and extra time easier. In the past two years, particularly, I’ve noticed a transition to the ease at which I can outsource my life in the form of mobile technologies.

Technology hasn’t really changed the fundamental dynamic at hand, but it has made the actual sourcing of labor to perform domestic tasks far easier than it was in my mother’s day. Growing up in Petaluma, there was one delivery option available to my mother: Chinese food. To this day, as an effect,  I can rarely stomach the stuff. Not only were our options homogenous, to be able to order she needed to have already picked up the menu and have cash physically on hand. After a while, of course, the restaurant knew our orders by heart– and if we didn’t have quite enough to cover tip, a simple “we’ll get you next time” was all that was needed. This dynamic is very tough to find in New York City.

Bringing the big city to small towns

My options today are far more diverse—not just because I live in New York now, but also because there are simple technologies that make information, contact, and payment to restaurants near me very easy. On my walk home, I can skim through the options for delivery from my phone and rush to beat the delivery man home. If I have a little forethought, I can minimize my time spend on food by ordering from FreshDirect. If I find myself in the world’s worst work-related pickle, I have options: I can post a task request on TaskRabbit and ask someone to do my grocery shopping for the week, cook me my favorite recipe, and do the dishes, all for a premium of less than fifty dollars. When it comes to needing a new outfit, I don’t even have to move from my office to try it on anymore. I can do that virtually, thanks to technology like Clothia that allows you to virtually try clothing on. Looking into the future, Levo will even be doing more for you and your career thanks to the technology that we are building. If I need a gift, I can send it using e-commerce. I can even order car service to my door without having to pick up the phone.

So how much time am I saving? In terms of sourcing domestic tasks, it’s clear that there’s at least a 45 minute benefit every week. Whether that benefit outweighs the added “compulsion and distraction” element of technology that sometimes makes it feel like my mobile phone is taking over my life, we’ll leave it to be determined. For now I’d like to think that technology is making my life easier and better.

The Levo League

Posted on Wednesday January 11th 2012 at 06:57pm. Its tags are listed below.

Willard Mitt Romney, and His Five Attractive Sons: the Wednesday WTF? We are introducing a new hump-day (note: this hump-reference has nothing to do with Mr. Hump, Kris Humphries, but if anyone is as confused as I am about how this guy gets double doubles nearly every game it’s because he takes almost as many shots as Kobe… I digress) So this is our Wednesday WTF, which is really just an excuse for us to write about whatever we want each week. It’s our place to share a random thought each Wednesday that has sparked a discussion with the whole Levo team and that we hope will make you think, could make you laugh or will just generally brighten up your week. Some weeks it may even make you angry, but that’s okay too. We’ll figure it all out. This week’s is an ode to Mitt Romney’s five ridiculously successful, charming and Disney Prince-esque sons. Who are ALL married. Don’t worry, our WTFs won’t always be this shallow, we promise. We are seeing more grown children get involved in campaigning for their parents. Remember Megan McCain last year who for Father’s day registered Republican for her father?  Then there are the Huntsman girls, whom our Levo team is split on our thoughts about.  You can follow them on Twitter or read about them in GQ – one of them even went on a date with Kris Humphries (take that, hump day!). And how can we not watch and be obsessed with the adorable Obama girls. Now, back to the Romneys. I’m going to give credit to Mrs. Romney for birthing and raising such a great crop of young men. Mrs. Romney was also diagnosed in 1998 with MS– a crippling disease– that her and her family have worked through to support her. Whether or not you like their politics, one thing the Romneys have done really well is be a great family at least from our view on the outside. On to the sons. There are five: Tagg, Matt, Josh, Craig and Ben. They range from careers in politics and finance to residencies in radiology. They are smart, pretty and don’t seem to have commitment issues. You can read more about them in the NY Times Style profile from this weekend here. Now that’s a family we want to play volleyball and hold intellectual conversations with. We hope you’ve enjoyed this version of the WTF. Let us know if you want to write a guest WTF by emailing Elizabeth@levoleague.com !

Willard Mitt Romney, and His Five Attractive Sons: the Wednesday WTF?

We are introducing a new hump-day (note: this hump-reference has nothing to do with Mr. Hump, Kris Humphries, but if anyone is as confused as I am about how this guy gets double doubles nearly every game it’s because he takes almost as many shots as Kobe… I digress)

So this is our Wednesday WTF, which is really just an excuse for us to write about whatever we want each week. It’s our place to share a random thought each Wednesday that has sparked a discussion with the whole Levo team and that we hope will make you think, could make you laugh or will just generally brighten up your week. Some weeks it may even make you angry, but that’s okay too. We’ll figure it all out.

This week’s is an ode to Mitt Romney’s five ridiculously successful, charming and Disney Prince-esque sons. Who are ALL married. Don’t worry, our WTFs won’t always be this shallow, we promise.

We are seeing more grown children get involved in campaigning for their parents. Remember Megan McCain last year who for Father’s day registered Republican for her father?  Then there are the Huntsman girls, whom our Levo team is split on our thoughts about.  You can follow them on Twitter or read about them in GQ – one of them even went on a date with Kris Humphries (take that, hump day!). And how can we not watch and be obsessed with the adorable Obama girls.

Now, back to the Romneys. I’m going to give credit to Mrs. Romney for birthing and raising such a great crop of young men. Mrs. Romney was also diagnosed in 1998 with MS– a crippling disease– that her and her family have worked through to support her. Whether or not you like their politics, one thing the Romneys have done really well is be a great family at least from our view on the outside.

On to the sons. There are five: Tagg, Matt, Josh, Craig and Ben. They range from careers in politics and finance to residencies in radiology. They are smart, pretty and don’t seem to have commitment issues. You can read more about them in the NY Times Style profile from this weekend here.

Mitt Romney and five sons

Now that’s a family we want to play volleyball and hold intellectual conversations with.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this version of the WTF. Let us know if you want to write a guest WTF by emailing Elizabeth@levoleague.com !

The Levo League

Posted on Friday December 23rd 2011 at 12:00am. Its tags are listed below.

Cookies Party: Cookies that taste good and help you look good, too! I love to cook and bake, and I’m an outspoken advocate of the idea that you can be a powerful executive AND a domestic goddess. The idea of creating something you actually want to eat can be intimidating. The best way to start is to simply start. I’m obsessed with Martha Stewart and Paula Deen. I would give anything to visit Martha’s upstate New York sanctuary and bake with her. These women are my baking idols. But reader, take note: they can also be considered branding idols— and they’re both extremely successful businesswomen. They have both created domestic empires. Here are some of my favorite cookie recipe’s from the ladies: Fancy pants “stained glass cut out cookies” These are cookies that dress to impress. They involve making a small cutout within a cookie and placing a crushed Jolly Rancher in the middle. Once in the oven, the Jolly Rancher melts— and it looks like stained glass. It looks far more complicated to make than it actually is, and is sure to solidify your domestic goddess role. www.marthastewart.com is not only great for baking, but has incredible and FAST dinner recipes that are my go to many times during the week. I’m also obsessed with the Martha Stewart iPad apps and the Everday Living digital magazine. Kitchen Sink Xmas Cookies This cookie quite possibly epitomizes the life force of Ms. Paula Deen. It involves literally everything in your kitchen but the kitchen sink. Paula’s recipe: Take an otherwise fairly normal cookie, and then dip half of it in white chocolate. Sprinkle candy cane pieces. This recipe screams over-the-top richness. You can also substitute her Kitchen Sink Cookie base with a simple sugar cookie, or my favorite: chocolate chip. www.pauladeen.com is my ultimate go-to when I need something super comforting and rich. I’ve been known to cut out a cup of cream or a stick of butter from her recipes, but no one does delectable like Paula Deen. Don’t feel like baking? Then there is always the default Pilsbury pre-made sugar dough at the grocery store. Just remember, don’t eat it raw (you know we’re all sneaking bites of the dough— except for snickerdoodles, because that dough just doesn’t taste good). Also, for those of you who just like to decorate this is my go to Gingerbread House Kitfrom Williams Sonoma. Nicholas Flanders, our resident “Ghost It Out” Powerpoint pro, may or may not have lit one of these on fire last year for fun. Cooking and baking brings people together— whether it’s the experience of baking or the devouring of the final product. There’s a reason why for centuries so much emphasis and ritual has been placed around eating. So I say “Jump in!”

Cookies Party: Cookies that taste good and help you look good, too!

I love to cook and bake, and I’m an outspoken advocate of the idea that you can be a powerful executive AND a domestic goddess. The idea of creating something you actually want to eat can be intimidating. The best way to start is to simply start.

I’m obsessed with Martha Stewart and Paula Deen. I would give anything to visit Martha’s upstate New York sanctuary and bake with her. These women are my baking idols. But reader, take note: they can also be considered branding idols— and they’re both extremely successful businesswomen. They have both created domestic empires.

Here are some of my favorite cookie recipe’s from the ladies:

Fancy pants “stained glass cut out cookies”

These are cookies that dress to impress. They involve making a small cutout within a cookie and placing a crushed Jolly Rancher in the middle. Once in the oven, the Jolly Rancher melts— and it looks like stained glass. It looks far more complicated to make than it actually is, and is sure to solidify your domestic goddess role.

www.marthastewart.com is not only great for baking, but has incredible and FAST dinner recipes that are my go to many times during the week. I’m also obsessed with the Martha Stewart iPad apps and the Everday Living digital magazine.

Kitchen Sink Xmas Cookies

This cookie quite possibly epitomizes the life force of Ms. Paula Deen. It involves literally everything in your kitchen but the kitchen sink. Paula’s recipe: Take an otherwise fairly normal cookie, and then dip half of it in white chocolate. Sprinkle candy cane pieces. This recipe screams over-the-top richness. You can also substitute her Kitchen Sink Cookie base with a simple sugar cookie, or my favorite: chocolate chip.

www.pauladeen.com is my ultimate go-to when I need something super comforting and rich. I’ve been known to cut out a cup of cream or a stick of butter from her recipes, but no one does delectable like Paula Deen.

Don’t feel like baking? Then there is always the default Pilsbury pre-made sugar dough at the grocery store. Just remember, don’t eat it raw (you know we’re all sneaking bites of the dough— except for snickerdoodles, because that dough just doesn’t taste good).

Also, for those of you who just like to decorate this is my go to Gingerbread House Kitfrom Williams Sonoma. Nicholas Flanders, our resident “Ghost It Out” Powerpoint pro, may or may not have lit one of these on fire last year for fun.

Cooking and baking brings people together— whether it’s the experience of baking or the devouring of the final product. There’s a reason why for centuries so much emphasis and ritual has been placed around eating. So I say “Jump in!”

The Levo League

Posted on Wednesday December 21st 2011 at 05:51pm. Its tags are listed below.

Resume Cliches By Amanda Pouchot I am effective at creative organization problem-solving and I’m highly motivated. My track record shows my dynamic communication skills and innovative abilities throughout my extensive experience.   Huh? Read the above sentence again. From the description, do you have any idea what I am capable of (other than run-on sentences)? Neither do I. Other than a ton of adjectives that describe, well, anything, I don’t have any idea what I am actually capable of. I get it, and I’m a victim of it: expressing yourself on paper is really hard. Putting your life’s work onto an 8.5″x 11″ sheet of paper in a way that makes you stick out to future employers and recruiters is quite the challenge. That’s why we cover it frequently. From formatting, to sentence choice, to word choice, there are a lot of things to consider when compiling your resume. Today’s lesson thanks to the most popular words used on LinkedIn is move away from adjectives and towards verbs. The words compromising the above run-on sentence are now officially “filler words”: they no longer indicate a candidate who can have significant impact on a company’s bottom line. Remember in 3rd grade when they told you to show, and not tell? Well, that applies on your resume. Show people what you’ve done in your career. Don’t tell them you are have an effective track record – actually share your track record.  Don’t tell someone you are dynamic and creative– instead, write about the project you lead that shows your creativity and dynamic-ness (yes, I just made up a word, and no, DO NOT do that on your resume). I read a lot of resumes: whether helping proofread resumes of friends or reviewing recruits for Levo. There are plenty of forgivable mistakes decent candidates make, but if I have absolutely NO IDEA what someone’s actually done based on their resume, it sufficiently impairs my desire to learn more about them to the point where they go in the ‘throw-away’ pile. Using broad descriptive words, while somewhat fancy, shares very little about your abilities. How am I supposed to know how well you solve problems by putting down “great problem solver”? How do I know whether the problems you solve include finding ways to reduce cost and not headcount, or if your problems are along the lines of figuring out what to order for lunch for a team of picky eaters? Telling me you are a strong problem solver, and failing to actually enlighten the reader by sharing the problem(s) you solved does little. You’re “motivated.” Good. What else? How do I see proof that you are motivated, and how do I gauge what motivated means to you? You may think motivated means you came to work every day. Motivated to someone else may mean that they showed up 15 minutes early in order to prove to their boss that they were ready for the day and to accomplish more work. State what your motivation has driven you to accomplish. Words I like to see Quantifying words: Increased, decreased, brought together, improved by, connected, expanded, reduced, created, developed, implemented. The list goes on. These words are great because they’re hard to use without following up with a quantity, a program, a restructuring, &c. Let the recruiter or your future employer know what you’ve done and how you’ve done it and what the results are– now go forth and conquer the world. If you’re in need of resume feedback: email your resume to amanda(at)levoleague.com. Before you do, make sure to read all the Levo League Resume series articles.  Amanda Pouchot is a co-founder of Levo.
Resume Cliches By Amanda Pouchot I am effective at creative organization problem-solving and I’m highly motivated. My track record shows my dynamic communication skills and innovative abilities throughout my extensive experience.   Huh? Read the above sentence again. From the description, do you have any idea what I am capable of (other than run-on sentences)? Neither do I. Other than a ton of adjectives that describe, well, anything, I don’t have any idea what I am actually capable of. I get it, and I’m a victim of it: expressing yourself on paper is really hard. Putting your life’s work onto an 8.5″x 11″ sheet of paper in a way that makes you stick out to future employers and recruiters is quite the challenge. That’s why we cover it frequently. From formatting, to sentence choice, to word choice, there are a lot of things to consider when compiling your resume. Today’s lesson thanks to the most popular words used on LinkedIn is move away from adjectives and towards verbs. The words compromising the above run-on sentence are now officially “filler words”: they no longer indicate a candidate who can have significant impact on a company’s bottom line. Remember in 3rd grade when they told you to show, and not tell? Well, that applies on your resume. Show people what you’ve done in your career. Don’t tell them you are have an effective track record – actually share your track record.  Don’t tell someone you are dynamic and creative– instead, write about the project you lead that shows your creativity and dynamic-ness (yes, I just made up a word, and no, DO NOT do that on your resume). I read a lot of resumes: whether helping proofread resumes of friends or reviewing recruits for Levo. There are plenty of forgivable mistakes decent candidates make, but if I have absolutely NO IDEA what someone’s actually done based on their resume, it sufficiently impairs my desire to learn more about them to the point where they go in the ‘throw-away’ pile. Using broad descriptive words, while somewhat fancy, shares very little about your abilities. How am I supposed to know how well you solve problems by putting down “great problem solver”? How do I know whether the problems you solve include finding ways to reduce cost and not headcount, or if your problems are along the lines of figuring out what to order for lunch for a team of picky eaters? Telling me you are a strong problem solver, and failing to actually enlighten the reader by sharing the problem(s) you solved does little. You’re “motivated.” Good. What else? How do I see proof that you are motivated, and how do I gauge what motivated means to you? You may think motivated means you came to work every day. Motivated to someone else may mean that they showed up 15 minutes early in order to prove to their boss that they were ready for the day and to accomplish more work. State what your motivation has driven you to accomplish. Words I like to see Quantifying words: Increased, decreased, brought together, improved by, connected, expanded, reduced, created, developed, implemented. The list goes on. These words are great because they’re hard to use without following up with a quantity, a program, a restructuring, &c. Let the recruiter or your future employer know what you’ve done and how you’ve done it and what the results are– now go forth and conquer the world. If you’re in need of resume feedback: email your resume to amanda(at)levoleague.com. Before you do, make sure to read all the Levo League Resume series articles.  Amanda Pouchot is a co-founder of Levo.

Resume Cliches

By Amanda Pouchot

I am effective at creative organization problem-solving and I’m highly motivated. My track record shows my dynamic communication skills and innovative abilities throughout my extensive experience.  

Huh?

Read the above sentence again. From the description, do you have any idea what I am capable of (other than run-on sentences)? Neither do I. Other than a ton of adjectives that describe, well, anything, I don’t have any idea what I am actually capable of.

I get it, and I’m a victim of it: expressing yourself on paper is really hard. Putting your life’s work onto an 8.5″x 11″ sheet of paper in a way that makes you stick out to future employers and recruiters is quite the challenge. That’s why we cover it frequently. From formatting, to sentence choice, to word choice, there are a lot of things to consider when compiling your resume.

Today’s lesson thanks to the most popular words used on LinkedIn is move away from adjectives and towards verbs. The words compromising the above run-on sentence are now officially “filler words”: they no longer indicate a candidate who can have significant impact on a company’s bottom line.

Remember in 3rd grade when they told you to show, and not tell? Well, that applies on your resume. Show people what you’ve done in your career. Don’t tell them you are have an effective track record – actually share your track record.  Don’t tell someone you are dynamic and creative– instead, write about the project you lead that shows your creativity and dynamic-ness (yes, I just made up a word, and no, DO NOT do that on your resume).

I read a lot of resumes: whether helping proofread resumes of friends or reviewing recruits for Levo. There are plenty of forgivable mistakes decent candidates make, but if I have absolutely NO IDEA what someone’s actually done based on their resume, it sufficiently impairs my desire to learn more about them to the point where they go in the ‘throw-away’ pile.

Using broad descriptive words, while somewhat fancy, shares very little about your abilities. How am I supposed to know how well you solve problems by putting down “great problem solver”? How do I know whether the problems you solve include finding ways to reduce cost and not headcount, or if your problems are along the lines of figuring out what to order for lunch for a team of picky eaters? Telling me you are a strong problem solver, and failing to actually enlighten the reader by sharing the problem(s) you solved does little.

You’re “motivated.” Good. What else? How do I see proof that you are motivated, and how do I gauge what motivated means to you? You may think motivated means you came to work every day. Motivated to someone else may mean that they showed up 15 minutes early in order to prove to their boss that they were ready for the day and to accomplish more work. State what your motivation has driven you to accomplish.


Words I like to see

Quantifying words: Increased, decreased, brought together, improved by, connected, expanded, reduced, created, developed, implemented. The list goes on. These words are great because they’re hard to use without following up with a quantity, a program, a restructuring, &c. Let the recruiter or your future employer know what you’ve done and how you’ve done it and what the results are– now go forth and conquer the world.

If you’re in need of resume feedback: email your resume to amanda(at)levoleague.com. Before you do, make sure to read all the Levo League Resume series articles. 

Amanda Pouchot is a co-founder of Levo.

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