From Nicki Joiner

I spend a lot of time on college campuses, and there’s one thing I hear from students way too often:

“I wish I would’ve known this sooner.”

So it got me thinking… if I could rebuild how colleges prepare students for the workforce from scratch, what would I change? Turns out, I have some thoughts 😅

This platform is largely for “wins”, so I’ve never really talked publicly about the 21 months where I was “losing” before I got my job at JPMorgan Chase.

But I’ve been thinking about that period of my life a lot this week, especially as I’ve watched some really exciting things happen in my career.

I’ve had it on my heart for almost a year to write a letter to all the fraternity and sorority professionals in the month of August, so I here I am sitting in the MSN airport making that happen.

Shout out to Thea Rachel Zunick, Ed.D and Dr. Adam Joiner for the photo 🙃

I got a reminder this week that I needed….

After submitting five conference session proposals, only one was accepted. My first thought? “But I’m qualified.” That’s when it hit me: being qualified gets you into the conversation. It doesn’t always make you the choice.

I want to reflect on that concept with you all this week!

I wore a full suit on my first day at JPMorgan Chase, and by the time I got to the elevator, I realized I was the most dressed-up person in the building. Nobody told me to wear a suit. I just assumed it.

Gen Z is noticing that the rulebook was written with somebody else’s life in mind, and they’re asking a fair question: professional, according to who?

Arizona State University just launched a Bachelor’s degree in Content Creation, and the internet has a lot to say about it but I think the real conversation isn’t about the degree. It’s about how quickly our definition of a “real job” is changing.

This week’s newsletter dives into why I’m actually team ASU on this one.

Will Ferrell didn’t become unforgettable by trying to play every role. He became unforgettable by leaning into what made him unmistakably him.

The same is true for your career.

Too many job seekers are trying to appeal to everyone, when the goal is to become the person people immediately think of for one specific thing.

This week I want to talk about why being remembered beats being seen every time!!

A question from a fifteen-year-old stopped me in my tracks this week:

“How do you know if you’re morally conflicted at work?”

I thought I was there to help students think about their futures. Instead, that question helped me put words to something I’d been carrying myself.

Hot take: most people who buy a franchise didn’t actually do their due diligence. They did the franchisor’s due diligence process. Those are two very different things.

I learned this the hard way and wrote about it so you don’t have to.

One of the most common mistakes I see in a job search is treating your worth and your market value like they’re the same thing.

They’re not.

This week, I’m breaking down why that distinction matters, the three factors that actually determine market value, and how understanding them can help you approach job offers and salary negotiations with a lot more confidence.

If you’ve ever questioned whether an offer reflects what you’re truly worth, this one’s for you.

I’ve spent my career teaching people how to ask better questions before they say yes to something: a job, a degree, a program. This week, I sold my franchise and got an expensive reminder on why that work is important.

When I started, I was so focused on asking IF I wanted something, versus WHAT I actually wanted out of it.

That is the gap where most regret lives.

Not in the decision itself, but in everything we never asked before making it.

After spending a week buried in contracts and legal language, I found myself thinking about a problem that shows up everywhere: expectations.

I want to look at why we can’t hold people accountable to agreements that were never made, and how more clarity; not more complexity might solve more problems than we realize.

60 weeks ago, I started sending a newsletter to a list of eleven people. Recently, that decision led to a podcast invitation and a new opportunity I never saw coming. This week, I’m exploring why networking may have less to do with working a room and more to do with consistently showing up.

When I saw the recent $250M workforce development commitment from the Lowe’s Foundation, it caught my attention.

The first thing I thought? That is A LOT of money. But once I got past that, I started thinking about this: Who pays for workforce development?

I’ve been approaching professional development differently by paying recruiters for their time and asking the questions students are asking most. This week, I’m exploring how AI is actually showing up in the hiring process.