I Think My Employer Is Circling The Drain... What Do I Do?

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For every company that makes headlines for its amazing stock price increases, there are others that don’t survive to see another day.

In 1991, Drexel Burnham was a wildly profitable multinational investment bank that was forced into bankruptcy by the New York Federal Reserve and the Securities Exchange Commission for illegal insider trading in the junk bond market. At the time of its insolvency, Drexel Burnham had 10,000 employees worldwide. One day they were working for the 5th largest investment bank in the United States and the next day they were in the unemployment line. Ten years later, Texas-based energy, commodities, and services company Enron collapsed; subsequently Enron’s accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, was dissolved because and its 28,000 employees had to move on. Then there was Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns in 2008, followed by Dynegy in 2012 and Theranos in 2018. Today, it is FTX.

Every year companies go down the drain. They can be global conglomerates with tens of thousands of employees or the “Mom and Pop” restaurant on the corner. What binds them is that people are thrown out of work, and if you have ever been part of a corporate meltdown, you know it often happens in slow motion. Long before the lights are turned off and the doors are locked people know an epic collapse is on the way. 

If you suspect your company is going down the drain, what should you do? 

• Don’t panic. Take a deep breath. It’s not your fault the company is failing (we hope) and the company’s fate should not adversely affect your professional standing. Uncertainty about your livelihood, financial security, and future is serious business, and the best thing you can do is remain as even tempered as possible. Try and avoid rash decisions. Proceed with prudence and professionalism.

• Assess the environment. Do not rely on whispers, rumors, or media reports about the fate of your company. Do your due diligence and get the facts. You cannot make an informed decision about your future if you are not informed. For example, let us say your company is headed for bankruptcy. Which kind? Chapter 7 is a complete shutdown. Chances are you will not have a job for too much longer. But if it is Chapter 11, a reorganization and sale, you may survive (if you wish). 

• Get your financial house in order. If things are looking grim, now may not be the time to buy a new sports car or take that vacation in Bali. Until your situation is less ambiguous consider a more conservative lifestyle to make whatever transition is on the way easier and less stressful.

• Decide your play. If your company is going down the drain, you have three potential plays – swim, sink, or hold.

  • Swim: You do not wait to see what will happen and get out as soon as possible.

  • Sink: You go down the drain with the company. Perhaps you need every penny of salary or severance. Maybe you are in a role that will guide the company in its final days and have been offered a lucrative retention to stay until the bitter end. Whatever the case, you’ll be the one to turn off the lights and lock the doors.

  • Hold: This is a form of intentional self-paralysis. You can sit back and watch the train wreck. Maybe it’s bad for you, maybe it’s not. You let it, whatever it may be, happen and let events dictate your next move. 

• And, of course, prepare for a job search. You know the drill. Update your resume. Update your LinkedIn profile. Create a profile and upload your updated resume to applicable job boards. Get your interview clothes ready. Seek help from your professional network. If you prepare in advance, you can make the job hunt and interview process easier to navigate.

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Philip Roufail contributed to this article.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

To Weed, Or Not To Weed? Should I Look at a Career in the Cannabis Industry?

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It’s always greener on the other side, especially when that side is cannabis. Shrouded in mystique and misconceptions, legal weed is either glamorous or reviled; no profession has the allure, pitfalls, and potential to create wealth in ways that the burgeoning cannabis industry does. People who support legal cannabis range from individual budtenders to John Boehner, former Ohio Congressman and Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. The reality is different. Let’s take a look behind the curtain.

Cannabis by the Numbers:

22: U.S. states in which cannabis is fully legal, meaning it is decriminalized and legal for medicinal and recreational use.

22: U.S. states have “mixed” cannabis laws, meaning recreational is illegal and may include partial decriminalization and restrictive but legal medicinal industries. Details vary from state to state.

6: Number of U.S. states in which cannabis is fully illegal.

$24 billion: Annual legal marijuana sales in 2021.

$1-$3M: Range of annual revenues as reported by 20% of cannabis retail dispensaries. 15% had annual revenue of $500,000 - $1M, 13% had annual revenue of $10 million - $30 million, and 12% had annual revenue of $5 million - $10 million.

Cannabis is profitable where it is legal but still exists in a purgatory of legal, professional, and cultural acceptance. If you’re considering a career in the cannabis industry, the good news is that, even with its many restrictions, it’s one of the fastest-growing industries, and has many types of specialties (e.g., cultivation to retail sales). However, the legal cannabis industry is still in its infancy, so its opportunities are equally matched by its obstacles. Factors to consider:

1.     Cannabis is still illegal. Sure, it may be fully legal in 22 states, but it’s illegal on a federal level and mostly illegal everywhere else. Not everybody is down with the wacky weed. When considering a job in the cannabis industry, it’s important to know that your professional reputation may suffer in resistant quarters, and this could result in less mobility in terms of job locations and opportunities. In the cannabis industry you would operate in an industry with a split legal-illegal personality; for example, the most glaring contradiction is that the cannabis industry can make tons of money, but business operators can’t put their money earned from cannibas in a bank. H.R. 1996 The SAFE Banking Act of 2021 has been stalled in Congress since April 2021. Surely there are many legislative battles yet to come before cannabis sheds its legal-illegal status for good.

2.     The cannabis industry is balkanized. National legalization of marijuana will happen, but nobody can say when. Until then, the cannabis industry is a balkanized, uncertain, and ever-evolving landscape. Each state where cannabis is fully legal has its own rules, regulations, and culture. In some legal states, like California, recreational marijuana is legal statewide, but counties can choose for themselves whether they want to allow it so the internal legal-illegal status is further balkanized. The states with “mixed” laws are even more varied and complex. If you are thinking about starting a cannabis business, where you set up your business means a lot. If you are thinking about working in the cannabis industry, your employment options will be greater in fully legal states than in states that allow narrow medicinal use. Federal legalization will allow standardization, but it will be preceded by a tectonic shift in the players. Multi-state operators with experience and deep pockets will survive the post-national legalization shake-up while smaller businesses will be bought out or fold. From a strategic, long-term, career-oriented perspective, pursuing work for a multi-state operator, like Cresco Labs ($26 billion in annual revenue), is the most stable and potentially lucrative path in an uncertain industry.

3.     Licenses are the cannabis industry’s currency. One of the greatest barriers to entry into the cannabis industry is the limited number of licenses to cultivate, process, transport, and sell marijuana. A license means two things – money and red tape. To operate in the legal market, you must have a license or series of licenses, and the gatekeepers to those licenses have overwhelming power over their region’s cannabis businesses. The licensing process may be expensive. If you’re an entrepreneur, the green gold rush is real. Vast fortunes are being made and will be made, but getting in on the ground floor is hyper-competitive and the first event is the battle for a license.

4.     Taxes, taxes, and more taxes. Taxation can be brutal in the legal marijuana market. Everybody wants their cut – the state, the county, and the city just for starters. Stock analysts routinely cite high taxation as a major obstacle to profitability when rating cannabis stocks. Federal legalization will also mean federal taxation, so the outlook is that inflated taxation will only increase. For example, when California transitioned from medicinal to recreational marijuana in 2016, more than the storefronts changed. At the newly legal marijuana dispensaries, prices skyrocketed, high taxation being a primary factor. The illicit market didn’t subside, it got stronger. Now, the legal and illicit markets compete with one another and the illicit market still holds the majority of sales. If you’re thinking about a career in the cannabis industry, it needs tax attorneys and tax professionals with specialized knowledge of the unique legal-illegal quagmire cannabis operators face.

5.     Once the cannabis money train leaves the station it’s not coming back. In the recent 2022 elections, Maryland and Missouri legalized recreational marijuana, but similar initiatives failed in Arkansas, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Maryland and Missouri will soon be addicted to the gonzo cannabis tax dollars that will soon be flowing into their coffers. Since 2014, states that allow adult legal recreational marijuana paid a combined 11.2 billion dollars in taxes (see above). While the journey to full national legalization progresses in small steps, the states that have legalized recreational marijuana reap an immediate enormous financial benefit. From a cannabis career perspective, Maryland and Missouri are the newest states you can add to potential places you can choose to work in the cannabis industry with confidence in your job security. We now know that the cannabis industry is also recession and pandemic-proof. Legal recreational cannabis sales increase every year and are projected to increase in the future. As a retail industry, individual cannabis brands can suffer from poor business decisions (e.g., expanding too fast), but the industry as a whole has foundational job stability. Despite the various obstacles, legal challenges, and barriers to entry, the cannabis industry is a money-making machine for everybody involved. Once it starts nobody is going to stop it.

6.     Cannabis is a vast industry, but in the end, it’s sales and retail. The business-to-business operations of marijuana are a vast network of specialties like hydroponic supply stores, cultivation, processors, extractors, software-POS-hardware systems, and labs that test products for potency and purity – just to name a few. Cannabis’s many tenacles offer interesting job opportunities for highly specialized professionals. For example, genetics is important for brands and discriminating consumers. Brands need people who can create original and proprietary marijuana strains. That’s a thing. That’s a high-paying job. However, cannabis is primarily a sales and retail operation. If you work for a brand, your job is to sell to retailers. If you work for a retailer, your job is to sell to the consumer. That’s the business model, which is the same as every other retail operation. Sales mean people in their cars driving from retailer to retailer servicing existing accounts and getting the product into as many new dispensaries as possible. Retail means budtenders, managers, warehouse operations, logistics, and social media marketing.

7.     A legal recreational marijuana market creates better, safer products. A heavily regulated industry must conform to many onerous state (and at some point, federal) laws, some of which are burdensome such as child-proof packaging, and others that dictate that growers and manufacturers of marijuana products must meet certain criteria to ensure legal compliance and consumer safety. That means an entire category of marijuana industry jobs related to compliance and safety.

8.     Competition among cannabis brands is fierce, so marketing and innovation are needed. Even though there are a limited number of entities that can legally sell marijuana, it seems like there are an endless number of brands vying to gain the kind of name recognition like titans Coke, Pepsi, Nike, and Apple. Full national federal legalization will most likely lead to fewer brands, but the current landscape is very competitive and regional. Brands found on the east coast are different from ones on the west coast. As brands seek to gain market share in their area, they employ plant genetic specialists, product developers, and marketing teams to innovate and punch through the crowded field to get to the increasingly discriminating cannabis consumer.

The cannabis industry has its pitfalls and uncertainties but there is no question that it is lucrative and will only expand. However, the current state-by-state model will eventually be replaced by national legalization and nobody can say for sure how that will transform the current, limited industry. Regional multi-state-operator monopolies are likely, followed by mergers and acquisitions. From an investor and entrepreneur perspective, it’s a rocky road with risks, but the potential payoff is great. For people considering a career in the cannabis industry, there are many types of opportunities and the pool of places and roles from which to choose will only increase. The green gold rush is on and there is still plenty of time to get a ticket. And if you have legal questions, ALWAYS consult an attorney.

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Philip Roufail contributed to this article.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

In College And Looking For Real-World Experience? Consider Co-Op Programs

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It’s a well-established fact that internships are an excellent way for students (or workers of any age and circumstance) to invest in their professional future. Students who work internships throughout their collegiate years are better positioned to land and master their first post-graduate professional job. Internships provide real-world work experience, prized business contacts, and potential references that may ease your transition from school to professional.

There is, however, a more robust and immersive approach to experiential education and academic studies – the co-op. Like internships, co-op jobs provide work experience to students while they earn their degrees. Unlike internships, co-op programs put work and academics on equal footing. There are colleges whose academic structure and curriculum are rooted in the co-op model. For example, Boston’s Northeastern University (among other leading universities) organizes its semesters to accommodate a robust co-op curriculum.

So, what are the differences between internships and co-op programs?

The philosophy behind internships is simple. You concentrate on an academic goal – graduating - and supplement your studies by working short-term jobs in your specialty, primarily during the summer. The co-op route is more complex. Co-op programs integrate academic curriculums with extended job experiences. You have the opportunity to go deeper into your role than an internship affords – co-ops often last a whole semester, or longer.

The main differences are:

1.     Your relationship with your school. If you want to work an internship, your school’s career center is a great way to get help, and referrals and references from professors are always welcome. No academic time needs to be sacrificed. If you’re at a school with a co-op structure or programs, you will spend just as much time away from your school as you will in it.

2.     Schedule. Internships are worked during the interludes of the academic year. Co-op jobs can last up to six months.

3.     Immersion. Given the difference in internship vs. co-op structures and schedules, it is worth noting how vastly different these educational experiences are. Internships are voluntary additions to academic work that do not interfere with the academic schedule. Co-op schools/programs require equal commitment between work and studying, and operate outside the rhythms of most colleges and universities.

Co-op programs have their advantages:

• Because you spend so much time “at work” you should learn more than you would at an internship. It is also fair to say that the businesses offering co-op jobs have high expectations of their employees and will put you to work at much more than fetching coffee. Not only will you have extended and invaluable real-world work experience, but it will also be at a higher level. Your skill sets will sharpen.

• You have time to develop in-depth relationships with your co-workers, which can be called by another name – mentorship. Mentorship and guidance are included part and parcel of the co-op package.

• You increase your chances of getting a permanent job post-graduation. Let’s say you make only one major ally during your co-op job that will go to the mat for you when the time comes to get your first “real” job, you have a major advantage over most graduates.

• Working in the trenches changes your approach to your academic studies. Your time in the "working world” will make you a more discriminating scholar. For one thing, you may appreciate being in a classroom in a way you would otherwise lack, and your studies will be viewed through the kaleidoscope of your co-op work experience.

• There’s potential to earn more money. Co-op jobs tend to pay more and for a longer period of time.

Co-op programs also have their disadvantages.

• Extended work experiences may mean that it could take longer to finish your degree, which requires the resources to sustain long-term academic expenses and the commitment to finish your studies regardless of the required time.

• Many people may find the schedule to be challenging if not unsustainable. On paper, it looks great but transitioning between extended periods in the classroom and at work may be difficult. Not everyone can conform to the unique demands of a co-op program.

• Extended absence from your studies may interrupt your momentum. You may be excelling in your coursework and the switch to work takes you out of that groove. Conversely, you could be just hitting your stride at your co-op job when it ends and you’re back in the classroom.

• The challenges and expenses of earning a college degree are already significant and stressful. The pressures of work never sleep. Choosing to do both in equal measure requires a formidable constitution.

Internships and co-ops share the fundamental belief that students benefit from academics and work in tandem, and prepare them for their future in a way that academics alone cannot achieve. Do your research. The opportunities are out there.

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Philip Roufail contributed to this article.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.