Career Hot Takes, a Friend Who Quit Her Job for a Candle Business, and Other Things I Think About on Saturdays
- Apr 18
- 6 min read
THE SATURDAY COLUMN · APRIL 18, 2026 · FULL BLOOM SEASON
A column about passion, paychecks, the lies we tell ourselves on LinkedIn, and why your career is not your entire personality.
By Lauren Deats · 8 min read · Career Bloom Solutions
It's Saturday morning.
The house is quiet for exactly eleven more minutes, so I'm sitting at the kitchen counter with coffee that's still hot, which feels like a personal victory. I've spent the whole week talking about career audits and ATS formatting and company culture and I love all of it, but right now? Right now I just want to talk. Not coach. Not consult. Just say the things I actually think when I'm not being professional about it.
So consider this my Saturday column. The stuff that doesn't fit neatly into a blog post with action items and a free download. The career hot takes I share with my friends over chips and salsa. The opinions I've been forming over nearly 12 years in HR that would probably get me uninvited from certain corporate events.
No homework today. Just honesty.
The One About the Candle Business
I have this friend. We'll call her M, because she'd kill me if I used her real name even though she'd also probably be flattered that I wrote about her. M is smart. Like, genuinely brilliant. She had a corporate marketing job that paid well, great benefits, the whole package. And she was miserable.
So one day, M calls me. And she says, "I'm quitting. I'm starting a candle business."
Now. Let me tell you what I did not say. I did not say "follow your passion, girl!" I did not say "yes queen, burn it all down!" What I said was, "Okay. Walk me through the plan."
There was no plan. There was a Pinterest board, a Shopify account she hadn't finished setting up, and a very strong feeling that if she could just escape the cubicle, everything would fall into place. Because that's what every motivational Instagram account had told her. Follow your passion. The money will follow. Leap and the net will appear.
M quit. She made candles. She poured her entire savings into inventory and branding and a booth at a local market. And the candles were beautiful. They smelled incredible. She was talented.
She was also broke within four months.
"Follow your passion" sounds beautiful on a graduation card and absolutely useless when you have rent due on the first.
Here's my career hot take on this, and it's the one that gets me the most pushback: "follow your passion" is the worst career advice ever given. Not because passion doesn't matter. It does. But because it skips every single step between "I love this thing" and "this thing pays my bills." It leaves out the business plan. The financial runway. The market research. The part where you figure out if anyone will actually pay for what you're passionate about.
M is fine now, by the way. She went back to marketing, negotiated a higher salary than before, and she still makes candles on the side. They sell out every holiday season. But she builds her passion on a foundation that doesn't wobble, and that foundation is a paycheck that covers her mortgage.
The people who tell you to burn it all down and follow your dreams are usually people who had someone else paying their rent while they figured it out. The rest of us need a strategy, not a motivational poster. And that's not pessimism. That's respect for your own stability.
Meanwhile, on LinkedIn
Speaking of things that aren't real: can we talk about LinkedIn for a second?
I was scrolling yesterday and I saw a post from someone announcing their new role. The post was beautiful. Perfectly written. Grateful. Humbled. Thrilled. Blessed. All the words. And the comments were full of "so deserved!" and fire emojis and clapping hands.
And I happen to know that this person applied to 60+ jobs, cried in their car at least twice, and almost gave up entirely three weeks before they got the offer. I know because they told me. In private. Where nobody was performing.
LinkedIn is the Instagram of the professional world. It's a highlight reel dressed up in business casual. Nobody is posting about the 47 applications that went nowhere. Nobody is posting about the interview where they completely blanked on their own work history. Nobody is posting "just got ghosted by a recruiter for the sixth time this month, feeling humbled."
So if you're scrolling and you feel like everyone else has their career figured out except you, please hear me: they don't. They're just not posting the messy parts. You're comparing your behind-the-scenes to someone else's press release, and that comparison will eat you alive if you let it.
Nobody is posting "just got ghosted by a recruiter for the sixth time this month, feeling humbled." Stop comparing your behind-the-scenes to someone else's press release.
A Few More Career Hot Takes While I Still Have Coffee
On resumes: Your resume does not need to be one page. That rule was invented for new graduates. If you have a decade of experience and real results, use two pages. Three if you're a senior exec or in academia. Every line should earn its spot, but squeezing your career into one page doesn't make you look concise. It makes you look like you're hiding things.
On job postings: Seventy percent of what's listed is describing the dream candidate, not the minimum bar. If you meet 60% of the requirements, apply. Let them tell you no. Stop rejecting yourself on their behalf. That's their job, not yours.
On "we're like a family here": Run. When a company says they're like a family, what they usually mean is: we have no boundaries, we expect you to sacrifice your personal time, and if you push back you're betraying us. Healthy companies call themselves teams. Teams have roles and expectations and boundaries. Families guilt-trip you into working Thanksgiving.
On cover letters: Not dead. Just mostly terrible. The reason people think they don't matter is because most of them are generic, resume-repeating snooze fests that start with "I am writing to express my interest." A good cover letter tells the hiring manager something the resume can't. If you can do that in three paragraphs without putting someone to sleep, write it.
On loyalty: Your company would let you go on a Tuesday if the budget required it. That's not mean. That's business. So when a better opportunity comes along and you feel guilty about leaving, remember that loyalty is earned through how they treat you, not through how long you've stayed. Stay because it's good. Leave when it's not. That's the whole equation.
On salary transparency: The fact that we're still debating whether companies should post salary ranges in 2026 is embarrassing. You wouldn't go car shopping without knowing the price. Why are we expected to go through three rounds of interviews before finding out a role pays $20K less than we currently make? Post the range. The end.
On networking: "Work the room" is the worst networking advice alive. I'm not a DJ. Real networking is finding one person you actually want to talk to and following up like a normal human being. One thoughtful message beats 30 business cards at a mixer every time.
The Last One, and It's the Most Important
The best career move you can make has nothing to do with your career.
Get some sleep. Drink some water. Go outside. Call your friend back. Take the Saturday off without checking your email. Watch something dumb on TV and don't feel guilty about it.
The hustle culture lie that says you need to be grinding 24/7 to be successful was told by people trying to sell you a course. Your career is important. It's a big part of your life. But it is not your entire identity, and treating it like one is the fastest way to burn out and lose yourself in the process.
The version of you who shows up rested, connected to the people you love, and not running on fumes? That's the version who performs best at work. That's the version who nails the interview. That's the version who negotiates the raise. That's the version who has the energy to actually enjoy the career she built.
Your career is important. It is not your entire personality. The version of you who rests is the version who performs.
So today, do something that has absolutely nothing to do with your career. I'm going to finish this coffee while it's still warm, which at this point is aspirational, and then I'm going to go be a person for the rest of the day.
I'll be professional again on Monday.
COMING MONDAY
Week 4: In Full Bloom
The final week. Offers, negotiation, and closing out the month strong.
Written by Lauren Deats · Founder, Career Bloom Solutions · careerbloomsolutions.com
Comments