On February 9, the HBS Club of Toronto held an in-person fireside chat and Q&A with Ethan Bernstein, Edward W. Conrad Association Professor of Business Administration, to explore the post-pandemic shift in talent markets and what that means for both hiring organizations and job-seekers.

The conversation, titled "How to Hire Your Next Job," was based on Bernstein's ongoing research for an upcoming book on the topic, and took place in a classroom at Toronto's Juno College of Technology. The event's corporate sponsor was Thorek/Scott & Partners.

Club president Suzanne Kwok (MBA 2015) says the discussion focused on the fundamental shift in the way people view their careers and how they can use frameworks Bernstein is developing to address that shift. The topic attracted alumni in various career transitions seeking clarity on their next steps.

According to Bernstein—who has a JD/MBA and DBA from Harvard and served as HBS Club of Toronto president from 2006-08—until recently, job seekers focused mainly on what organizations would hire them to do. Organizations posted jobs, and people applied for them. For many people, though, the pandemic brought back into focus the critical job they "hire" employers to do for them—make progress in their lives and careers—and how divorced that progress has become from the "progression" organizations offer. This is causing turbulence in talent markets that isn't ending anytime soon.

"There's been a fundamental shift in the marketplace, where employees have more power than they had in the past," says Kwok. "So companies are asking, ‘how do we attract and retain the right people?' and individuals are asking, ‘now that I have the power, what do I do with it?'"

For his upcoming book, Bernstein and his coauthors are reconceptualizing career development post-pandemic and building new frameworks for understanding, designing, and supporting career trajectories based on over 1,000 diverse data points from people switching jobs.

"He outlined some key frameworks from his upcoming book, with things to think about when hiring for your next job as well as what companies should be thinking about," says Kwok. "He talked about how to apply the right framework so that you are getting the most out of a career or life choice. The audience included retiring CEOs and board members wondering how to give advice in this market, people in mid-career transitions, and recent MBA grads trying to figure out next steps."

Kwok says the discussion and subsequent networking were so engaging that barely anyone left before their time in the classroom was up.

"Professor Bernstein led the discussion with great questions in the Socratic method, and it made for a very lively and highly interactive conversation," she says. "It was such a great charge afterwards because everyone was saying how great it was to be in person and have that personal dialogue. It felt like a true fireside chat."

When two devastating earthquakes and numerous aftershocks struck Turkey and Syria on February 6, killing close to 50,000 people in 11 cities and destroying or severely damaging upwards of 70,000 buildings, Nancy Hammerman (PMD 69, 1995) immediately thought of her classmate in Turkey, Nuzhet Atabek (PMD 69, 1995).

"Living in Los Angeles, which has had its fair share of earthquakes, I felt called to reach out to him to see if he was okay," she says. Relieved that he was, Hammerman then asked if he knew what organization was most effectively delivering aid to survivors. Atabek gave her a name: the Bridge to Turkey Fund. "I donated immediately. But he and I talked a while and we decided we would try to do more."

The classmates decided to raise awareness about the tragedy through a virtual panel discussion for HBS alumni. A member of the HBS Association of Southern California, Hammerman organized the discussion and the association sponsored it. Atabek agreed to reach out to the HBS and Harvard community in Istanbul and gather a group to describe how this disaster has impacted the most vulnerable, especially the estimated 1,000 children in Turkey left orphaned by the earthquakes. 

"Our purpose was to raise awareness and funds, and hear directly from HBS and Harvard alumni their personal stories, their pain, and their loss, and also focus on the most vulnerable: the children," says Hammerman.

The March 15 online event featured Atabek and fellow panelists Samir Beyaz (PhD 2017, GSA Harvard), an assistant professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, who is from the hardest-hit Hatay Province of Turkey; Alper Gokgoz (MBA 2010), CEO of ING Bank in Turkey; and Yasemin Sirali (MBA 2006), director of sustainability for the FIBA group, who is based in Istanbul. Each panelist shared their perspective on the devastation and their efforts to help. (The full recording of the event can be found here.)

"I knew a lot of people who died," Beyaz said. "My cousin and her husband, two beautiful people who left behind two wonderful kids; and also classmates, friends. My childhood home collapsed."

Beyaz added that his immediate family was safe, but that his cousin and her husband died because no one could dig them out of the rubble. "There are no words to describe the magnitude of the pain," he said. "My main goal now is to reach to those survivors who are vulnerable. I'm doing my best to support the many university students left behind."

To that end, Beyaz and several other Harvard University alumni have established the Harvard Alumni for Turkey Earthquake Relief Fund and are asking their classmates and colleagues for support. The fund is part of the Bridge to Turkey organization, which consolidates funds, and works directly with aid groups on the ground

For Nuzhet Atabek, the news of the earthquake was quickly followed by news that his friend's son, a 33-year-old architect and graduate of Columbia University, had perished. "That was devastating," said Atabek, who then shared some statistics from the affected region. An estimated 50,000 to potentially 100,000 people have died. More than 1,000 children have been orphaned. The total cost to rebuild and restore the region hovers at $100 billion.

Atabek then shared a list of established aid and educational organizations that have already mobilized to help on the ground, but pleaded with his fellow alumni to help. "Those children will need an education," he said.

With one of ING's operations centers located in Kahramanmaras—the epicenter of one of the quakes—Alper Gokgoz said his first reaction to news of the disaster was to check on his 513 employees there and the other 600 working in bank branches outside the area. "We lost five people," he said. "It was heartbreaking, and it's hard to talk about."

Then, he said, the bank immediately mobilized its many resources to help.

"Our building was confirmed to be safe, so we decided to open it up to all the victims," he said. "It was very, very cold in the first days, and we had 1,600 people sheltered there the first night."

Gokgoz and his team organized to get emergency supplies, food, blankets and other essentials. They provided communications support as well as financial and psychological help to employees and their families. For ING customers, the bank provided interest-free loans and postponed credit card payments. Now, ING in Turkey, with $100 million Euros donated by the ING community of banks globally, will work closely with local NGOs to rebuild Kahramanmaras.

"We ask you to ask your relatives and your companies to help us," he said to the audience of alumni.

"This is a tragedy beyond words, so thank you for being here," said Yasemin Sirali, who leads sustainability operations for a group of companies called FIBA. "The only good thing that came out of this tragedy is this solidarity by strangers, toward strangers."

Sirali then described a broad range of earthquake relief efforts that FIBA has undertaken. "Our companies are in various sectors, which has helped a lot for these efforts," she said. "We've allocated $18 million to immediate and long-term relief, and we're prioritizing shelter, food, education and health services via aid organizations."

One subsidiary of FIBA—a mining company—deployed 230 miners trained in search and rescue to the affected region, and worked there for two weeks, saving 30 people. A real estate subsidiary was able to provide space in shopping malls, schools, and dormitories for shelter and food distribution, serving 7,000 people a day.

"We sent 900 tents, hundreds of toilet and shower units, and 14 large trucks full of generators, blankets, food, medical kits, and animal feed," she added.

The next phase will be to build temporary villages for as many as 5,000 people. Beyond that, Sirali said, efforts will shift to supporting 1,000 university students so they can complete their education, and building a rehab center for the hundreds of children who lost limbs in the disaster.

"We can't let the world forget this; it will take a long time to rebuild," she added.

Following the discussion, Hammerman said some alumni had already made donations, and she hopes many more will follow suit.

To learn more, or to donate, go to Bridge to Turkey or Harvard Alumni for Turkey Earthquake Relief Fund.

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