Amy Lindgren

Second Sunday Series – Editor’s Note: This is the eleventh of 12 columns on making a career change which appear the second Sunday of each month, from September through August. Last month’s column discussed launching your job search, while the months before focused on networking; getting experience in your new career; LinkedIn for career-changers; resume strategies; the back-to-school decision; career-change steps in your 60s; 10 ideas for choosing a new career; a sample timeline; and questions to consider when changing careers.

And it’s show time!

If you’ve been following this monthly series on changing careers, you’ve been learning strategies for everything from making training decisions to revising your résumé to launching a job search in your new field.

Now it’s time to finish up this project by meeting with employers — interviewing for a job, that is.

In fundamental ways, interviewing for a career-change job is no different from interviewing for any other position. You’re likely to have some virtual meetings and others in person, for example. You’ll certainly meet with the decision-maker and/or your prospective boss, while also likely talking with an HR recruiter or potential co-workers.

The questions will be similar as well, but with this key difference: Interviewers will want to know about your career change. Their interest will come not from curiosity (mostly) but from a concern about your commitment to the field, your ability to do the work, and whether they should take a bet on hiring you.

You’ll have concerns as well, especially since you’ve invested time and money in making this change. Following are some ideas to help improve your interviews.

Anticipate career change questions: “Why did you change careers?” would be the obvious query, along with, “Do you think you’re ready for this work?” and “What are your goals for this field?”

You don’t need to blurt everything out at once, but setting the tone at the beginning of the interview will help. For example, when asked “Tell us about yourself,” you might balance the answer this way: One-third about your past career, one third on your career-change decision, and the last third highlighting the blend of strengths you’ll bring from both parts of your background.

To avoid going on and on, practice speaking for a minute or less for each section; then you’ll be in the right zone for total length on this answer.

Do your research: As soon as your interview is scheduled, it’s time to call everyone you can who has insight into the company, the industry, and/or this role in particular. With luck, you already have some contacts from your career-change process.

As possible, augment these conversations with online research and a review of your own notes or training materials. Your goal is to familiarize yourself with the language and issues connected to this position so you can sound informed and ready during the interviews.

Ask your own questions: Key questions for a career-changer will focus on the path for growth and training opportunities. In addition, a good way to ensure you’re coming in at the right level is to ask what your work would be focused on for the first 90 days.

Remember to negotiate: Although you may be feeling relief or even gratitude to receive an offer, don’t let those emotions keep you from negotiating.

Unfortunately, if you had been working at a higher level in your past career, your new offer might be lower than your last pay. While that’s not ideal, it’s also not the new company’s “fault.” That is, they’re not bringing you on board based on your former position, but on what they expect from you in this job. And that’s at least partly an untested theory at this point.

Of course you can (and probably should) negotiate the pay. But assuming that won’t go as far as you’d hoped, remember there are other forms of compensation and reward to be considered as well.

For example, do they offer tuition reimbursement, professional memberships, admission to industry trade shows or conferences, or on-the-job training? These are all extremely important for a new entrant to the field and might provide more value to your career than the added pay would have.

Whatever offer you accept, this topic can (and probably should) be revisited once you’ve been on the job awhile. For help with that, come back next month. The final article in this series will discuss tips for settling in and succeeding in your new career-change position.

Related Articles

Working Strategies: Checking in on your summer job or internship

Working Strategies: Independence Day and New Year’s resolutions

Working Strategies: Land or Launch: Should 20 somethings be living at home?

Working Strategies: Next steps for ‘non-trad’ grads

Working Strategies: Launching your career-change job search

Amy Lindgren owns a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com.

Beginning around the end of the month, a major reconstruction project will knock the Third Street/Kellogg Bridge offline for three years, closing a key connection between downtown St. Paul and Dayton’s Bluff on the city’s East Side. The bridge will carry its last travelers on July 29.

It’s a project at least a decade in the making, with planning for a new bridge underway since lane and capacity restrictions rolled out in 2014.

The decision was made to limit bridge traffic 10 years ago after city engineers discovered, during pre-design research for repairs, that the bridge was “functionally obsolete” and “structurally deficient” under federal standards, and that its badly cracked cantilevers, or wing-like bridge supports, required costly repair or full replacement.

After years of asking the state to help back construction, the $2.5 billion statewide infrastructure package approved in the waning hours of the 2023 legislative session included $25 million for a new Third Street/Kellogg Bridge, the largest project funded at the time in St. Paul using state surplus or bonding dollars. A new bonding bill did not come together this year.

The final price tag for the new city-owned bridge — $91 million — will include $80 million in state bonds, $7 million in federal funds and $4 million in local funding.

In 2014, replacing the then-32-year-old city-owned bridge had been estimated to cost $30 million to $40 million, compared with $8 million to repair and strengthen the cantilevers. “In those last 10 years, we have also seen industry-wide cost escalations, the result of world conflicts, supply chain disruptions, and impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic and inflation,” said Brent Christensen, assistant city bridge engineer, on Friday.

“It’s really exciting that it’s finally happening,” said St. Paul City Council member Rebecca Noecker, who represents downtown and chairs the city’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority. “It’s been a decade. … I think the best thing we can do is get the work done as quickly and efficiently as we can. It will really be a new and improved Third Street bridge.”

Drivers cross the Third Street/Kellogg Boulevard bridge in St. Paul on Friday, July 5, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

‘Long overdue’

Council member Cheniqua Johnson, who represents Dayton’s Bluff, said that while three years of traffic detours will require patience, the alternative to bridge replacement could be even costlier at a later date.

“We need to make proactive repairs rather than reactionary ones,” she said. “I’m willing to wait three years if that means repairing something that is long overdue.”

Public Works staff held a virtual public presentation on June 26, and outreach to impacted properties is underway.

A long road to a new bridge

By early August, bridge work will close Kellogg Boulevard from Broadway Street to Mounds Boulevard. Vehicular traffic will be detoured north to East Seventh Street, though pedestrians and bicycles can use Fourth Street. The downtown St. Paul Union Depot, a transit hub for Amtrak, interstate bus services and the Green Line light-rail corridor, will remain accessible from Lowertown.

Undated courtesy rendering, circa July 2024, of the new Third Street/Kellogg Bridge, which will be constructed over the course of three years beginning around August 2024. The bridge will feature two travel lanes in each direction and a 12-foot-wide bicycle/pedestrian path on each side. It will replace the old bridge, constructed in 1982, which has been deemed structurally deficient and limited to three travel lanes. (Courtesy of City of St. Paul)

The new bridge will have two vehicle lanes in each direction, taller concrete beams and a 12-foot-wide shared-use bike/pedestrian trail on each side, protected by barriers, as well as custom railings with artistic designs. Under the bridge, etchings in the concrete will attempt to evoke the Lakota theme of “Kapemni,” a symbol for intertwining and balance in the universe, according to Public Works officials.

Some public transit advocates had hoped for a dedicated bus lane for Metro Transit’s bus rapid transit services like the Gold Line, which will connect St. Paul to Woodbury when it debuts next year. That won’t be the case.

“I think we achieved BRT goals and needs without providing a dedicated lane,” said Christensen, noting that even at peak periods a dedicated lane would not carry any vehicles on it between 10-minute bus trips. “Over the course of this 2,200 foot bridge, there are no intersections. It’s free flowing. It’s kind of a win-win. The BRT needs are being met and the public also benefits from having a second lane.”

Related Articles

Obituary: Homeless man in Vadnais Heights believed ‘love is bearing one another’s burdens’

Met Council AFSCME workers vote for strike authorization

Forbidden Festival promises eight-hour college music event, open bar, at St. Paul’s Allianz Field in September

A downtown St. Paul church opposes an 88-unit supportive housing facility by Dorothy Day Center

Wadena area priest placed on administrative leave after allegations raised

Demolition to begin this year

Bridge demolition will begin this year, making room for a new foundation and substructure to be installed by the end of 2025. Beams and decks, and then railings and lighting, will be added into 2027, when the new bridge is scheduled to come online by that summer, according to the city.

City engineers had been monitoring the long, linear cracks on the bridge supports with limited concern until they began poking into federal design standards a decade ago, during pre-design work for repairs. That’s when they learned exactly how out of step the structure was with updated standards, which rated the Third Street/Kellogg Bridge “structurally deficient” and “functionally obsolete.”

Cracks found along the bridge’s cantilevers — the support arms extending from the structure’s piers — raised concerns about overloading, inspiring the city to limit traffic in September 2014 to two lanes westbound and one lane eastbound, instead of two lanes in either direction.

A 2014 inspection report by the city noted “extensive cracking at cantilevers” and “longitudinal cracks” at the top of six piers near where the columns meet the cantilevers. Even prior annual inspections had been moved up to about every four months.

Built in 1982

The city-owned bridge was built in 1982 by the Minnesota Department of Transportation and carried about 10,000 cars daily at the time lane restrictions were imposed. Most bridges built in that era have a life expectancy of about 50 years or more.

The bridge design, known as a T-pier, is not uncommon among the state’s 20,000 bridges, according to MnDOT, but state officials have said its cantilevers are somewhat longer than average, making it more susceptible to impacts from heavy loads.

More information about the project can be found online at stpaul.gov/Kellogg-3.

Goodbye Bridge Walk

What: People can take a final walk across the bridge before the deconstruction process begins. The public is welcome to walk on the separated sidewalk area at their own pace and time. St. Paul Public Works will have tables with project information at both ends of the bridge.
When: 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday, July 21
Where: Meet at Eagles Club (287 Maria Ave.) or start at the west end of the bridge at the intersection of Lafayette Street and Kellogg Boulevard.

Related Articles

A downtown St. Paul church opposes an 88-unit supportive housing facility by Dorothy Day Center

St. Paul: Shepard/Warner Road to reopen Wednesday

St. Paul’s Union Depot to host food truck festival this weekend

Amtrak Borealis topped 18,500 passengers between St. Paul and Chicago in first month

Lunds & Byerlys in downtown St. Paul cuts five hours per day

Ryan Faughnder | Los Angeles Times (TNS)

Remember the metaverse? It was just a couple of years ago when it seemed as if every technology, media and entertainment company was scrambling to adapt to a future in which regular people would live parallel digital lives online, walking around as virtual reality avatars in 3D computerized worlds.

That hype hasn’t amounted to much so far, perhaps because audiences have watched movies like “Ready Player One” and “The Matrix” and absorbed their dystopian lessons.

And, besides, there was a new shiny object. With the emergence of ChatGPT, big tech moved on to a much more immediate and seemingly concrete futuristic subject: artificial intelligence.

Studio heads — from Sony Pictures’ Tony Vinciquerra to Paramount’s soon-to-be owner David Ellison — are banking on AI models to streamline production and save money. Even Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, the parent company of Facebook, which sunk billions of dollars into its metaverse dream, has, like many others, turned more of its focus to AI.

Suffice to say that much has changed in the two years since author and investor Matthew Ball wrote the book “The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything.” Ball, whose essays are highly influential in the spheres of media and tech, has revised and expanded his opus, even giving it a new subtitle: “Building the Spatial Internet.”

When I talked with Ball last week, he certainly hadn’t given up on his ideas about the web of the future, even though AI has clearly eaten the metaverse’s lunch in terms of tech industry enthusiasm and consumer anxiety.

Apple’s Vision Pro has made some progress toward growing the market for headsets, despite its $3,500 price tag and the lingering stigma against wearing a computer on your face. Meanwhile, crypto currencies and other blockchain technologies, which feature prominently in plans for the metaverse, have quietly rebounded after a bumpy period, he said.

Ball also has been writing a bit about the state of the theatrical box office.

This conversation is edited for length and clarity.

What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the space since you published your original metaverse book a couple of years ago?

The three most substantial shifts are in head-mounted displays, inclusive of wearable glasses, as well as goggles, blockchains, and then artificial intelligence. Each of those three categories seems to have experienced decades of development just in the last two and a half years.

Let’s take ’em one by one, starting with headset computers. Apple comes out with its Vision Pro, and suddenly people are talking about VR and AR goggles again. What happened?

That’s a great example. We saw the category’s most high-profile and probably most important product launch, bringing massive validation of this as a category from a company with unprecedented experience disrupting stale, stagnant or unsuccessful categories and being able to overcome the stigma.

Seeing all of those things come together — Apple’s investment, Apple’s brand, Apple’s retail footprint and their attendant ability to communicate value proposition — is a remarkable case study.

It does feel like the Apple Vision Pro was a chance to take the technology more mainstream. Did it work?

Look, I don’t believe in citing anecdotes as though they’re data, but my followers on Twitter should be as over-indexed to the Vision Pro and head-mounted displays as anyone. I regularly ask those who own one, how many of you used the device within the last 48 hours, and how many of you haven’t used it in the last 30 days?

And the result usually shows that only about 20% of people have used it within the last 48 hours, and two-thirds haven’t touched it in a month. And if you have my followers as an example, who spent $4,000 on a device and after owning it for five or fewer months haven’t touched it for 30 or more days, it’s clear that it’s missing the mark, at least thus far.

Is it a content problem that’s keeping these devices from reaching the masses? Or is it a technology or hardware problem?

The consensus answer is that it’s three different things. It’s the price, it’s the form factor and it’s the applications or content. And right now, all three of those things are limitations, and they’re also interconnected. One of the reasons why the device is uncomfortable and heavy is because it’s high-powered. It’s high-powered so it can run better content experiences. But that also means it’s expensive. If you trade off on the power, the price comes down, but the experiences become diminished.

OK, what about blockchain?

Blockchain has probably gone through puberty over the last two and a half years. Of course, we’ve had the combined market value of cryptocurrencies fall from $3 trillion to $800 billion and then nearly reclaim its all-time high. And along that path, you had the decline of FTX and many others.

Related Articles

Data of nearly all AT&T customers downloaded to a third-party platform in security breach

Best Buy to host Geek Squad camp in Roseville

Astronauts confident Boeing space capsule can safely return them to Earth, despite failures

After 100 years, Dakota County dam upgrade expected to double hydropower output

Too much screen time harms children, experts agree. So why do parents ignore them?

That is to say, we have a much larger sample size and better understanding of the technological limitations, the culture around these products and the extent to which they were often confused with financial speculation and, in some cases, regulatory arbitrage. You’ll find that there are many constituents who still believe that crypto is an essential aspect of the future of the internet, but we certainly can better understand the shortfalls.

Well, this technology also has one of the worst branding problems possible, to the point where the biggest laugh line of the Tom Brady roast was Nikki Glaser making fun of him for pitching crypto.

I agree that it has a stigma problem. That’s certainly true. And NFTs have not really recovered in any way, shape or form. But crypto overall has seen a resurgence. There’s greater legal clarity, there’s greater institutional adoption and it’s back to about 85% of its all-time high, even though we’ve gone from a zero-interest-rate period to a 45-year high in interest rates.

Where does AI come into your theory of the future of the internet?

It is absolutely true that artificial intelligence has taken marginal dollars away from investment into AR, VR and the metaverse. It has changed the narrative around the metaverse hype cycle. I do think that there’s not enough appreciation of how intertwined these topics have always been, and the essential ways in which everything that the metaverse requires and all of the technologies around it are fundamentally reliant on AI.

The CEO of Roblox has said that he believes that within a few years, it will be possible to speak entire worlds into existence. Disney’s ability to create a virtual space even a shred of the size of Disneyland is incredibly cost-prohibitive. If you wanted to actually create something equivalent to Galaxy’s Edge in a virtual world, it’s actually not clear that that would be cheaper than constructing the actual Galaxy’s Edge as it exists today.

Through artificial intelligence, we are actually seeing those costs start to come down extraordinarily, and that’s transforming what’s possible. At the end of the day, the dream of going to a virtual Disney theme park is not just to walk through the Avengers Campus, it’s actually to go there and interact with Iron Man, as played by Robert Downey Jr.

You recently wrote about the long-term declines in theatrical movie attendance per capita. Do you see the broader adoption of these digital technologies further disrupting traditional entertainment consumption?

Yeah. As I detail in the piece, there’s kind of a misconception as to what has caused the decline in theatrical moviegoing. It’s essentially limited to 2- to 24-year-olds, who are going less than ever.

Among that younger demographic, we often hear the argument that no matter how much you play Roblox or Fortnite or Call of Duty, that doesn’t displace going to the movies one more time per year, right?

And yet, we do see that social media platforms, social video platforms such as TikTok and social gaming experiences have substantially displaced typical behaviors, whether it’s going to the movies, babysitting or going to the mall with friends. And this is consistent with broader measures that show that we spend more time by ourselves than ever before.

This trend has been going for long enough that it’s hard to argue it’s going to slow down. The question is, of course, where is the floor?

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.