Greetings from Denver!

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Resources of the Week!

1. Adam Karpiak posted two awesome job boards lists (here and here- many of these are super niche (I hadn’t heard of them). I will be checking them out to see what kinds of fees/jobs they have and add to my Top Job Boards List soon, but check them out!

2. And sign up for a networking chat!

Work Travel!

This week, I’m at Zapier’s annual retreat in Denver. And pretty much the only time I travel for work these days is for these retreats!

But in my pre-Zapier life, travel was a regular thing - I regularly took 2-4 work trips a month for years. At at that stage in my life, I LOVED it! It was a great opportunity to explore the country (and on occasion, even make my way out of the US!), and my work travel funded a ton of my personal travel.

So, I figured I’d share a few tips and lessons learned.

Maximize Efficiency

TSA Precheck/Global Entry and CLEAR are huge timesavers - and CLEAR was covered by my status, while my credit card covered the cost of Precheck and Global Entry so those were no brainers for me - check your own card, you may have these perks as well (and if you don’t, it might be worth switching cards!)

Keep a toiletry bag just for travel so you only need to swap things out when something runs out. I personally had standard outfits for travel too - for example, rewearing the same pants and shoes for 2 days so I only needed to pack a top, or doing a dress with a cardigan, where I only needed to pack a single dress.

For 2 day trips, I often didn’t even pack a suitcase and could fit everything I needed for work and my hotel in a large bag. (I used the Lo and Sons OG for years before switching to a backpack which is now my preference). I have been using this bag from Knomo for years as a professional backpack option but if I want to pack a ton or am doing more personal travel, I looove this bag from Knack* (which is the one I’m using on this trip - the link here is an affiliate link as an FYI!!)

The Perks

Now on to the good stuff - I was able to accrue so much status/points that it often covered my personal travel, and I was frequently upgraded to Business/First (even internationally!!)

A few of my tips:

1. Choose an airline and stick with it. Sometimes, I would even take less convenient flights to stick with United/Star Alliance. But this is how I hit 1k every year and regularly got upgrades. Plus as your status grows, you earn more miles with each flight.

2. And do the same for hotels, car rental companies, etc. Often your cards or airline status can come with perks at certain brands - for example, I had a automatic status with Marriott through my airline status.

3. Use your own cards (if your policy allows for it). I had credit cards with travel benefits, and used these to book my work travel so I got even more miles/points for travel. Not every employer lets you do this but if they do, then it’s a great way to fund your own travel while booking work travel.

4. Lounge Access! Certain reward cards may offer Priority Pass (like the Chase Sapphire cards) which gets you access to lounges or credit for free food in airports, but you often have to sign up separately. And some co-branded cards get you lounge access (like United Club card which is worth the fee if you travel United a lot like me!) Both of these links are referral links, but the points bonuses are higher for referrals than signing up on your own so I wanted to share them - I get points too of course).

🙋Answering Your Questions🙋

Each week, I’ll answer a few of your questions in this section. You can submit your questions here.

That’s tricky!

1. Review your agreements closely - you could run it by ChatGPT or maybe ask an employment lawyer to check it and give you guidance? There may be some work product that’s shareable. Or it may be OK to share in private settings with a watermark or something.

   I might try to check with HR to see if blurring names/logos or that sort of thing is an option. I would frame it as “given the volatility in the job market, I want to be prepared for any future job searches should we have layoffs and want to make sure I understand parameters for creating a portfolio.” Make sure to get their response in writing.

2. Share publicly available content - anything that has been shared on social media or other public platforms should be fair game!

3. Create dummy projects - obviously this takes extra work, but worst case, you could create similar projects or heavily edit existing projects to make them unrecognizable and share that.

4. Weigh the risks - if you’re mass applying, you probably don’t want a portfolio that breaks the rules out there. If you’re sharing it with a single trustworthy company, then the risks of it getting back to your employer are low. And generally, if there are no real damages to sharing the content, then you’re likely to simply receive a Cease and Desist letter. At that point, I’d probably stop sharing, but there wouldn’t be any real ramifications. Personally as someone with a higher tolerance for risks in the professional workplace, this is what I’d do!

   
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