You Got The Promotion. Then Everything Went Downhill. This week’s Careers newsletter has advice on handling the downsides of a promotion, high-paying skills to add to your resume, tips on handling feedback at work and more. This week’s Careers newsletter has advice on handling the downsides of a promotion, high-paying skills to add to your resume, tips on handling critical feedback at work and more.You spent two years working toward it. You made the case, had the conversations and finally got the call: You got the promotion.. The meetings multiplied. The work you were great at got buried under performance reviews, status updates and negotiations over headcount. You went from doing work you enjoyed to managing others doing those same tasks. No one warned you those were twothan anyone admits. But getting promoted into the wrong role is a real career problem, and pretending otherwise just makes it worse. Many promotions move people away from where they excelled to a role that sounds like a reward but is an entirely different job. Some people discover they love the transition, while others realize they traded rewarding work for a So what can you do? Give it some time before drawing conclusions. Every new role comes with an adjustment period. The discomfort of transitioning to a new role can feel a lot like being in the wrong job. Be honest about which one you’re experiencing. If the discomfort persists for several weeks, get specific about what changed. Identify parts of your previous role you miss and consider whether elements of them can be incorporated into the new one. Have a conversation with your boss about reshaping the job before you assume the situation is permanent. Ideally you would talk about this before the promotion. If it turns out the role genuinely cannot give you what you need, stepping back from a title you earned isn’t a failure. Figuring out what kind of work makes you excel is invaluable. Sometimes a promotion is just a tough way to learn that lesson.Did you get a “peanut butter” raise?three characteristicswhy learning how to receive critical feedback may be one of the most underrated skills in your career. I discussed the insights withTreat it as data, not a personal attack. Your boss isn’t judging you as a human being. They’re giving you a signal about your performance. Ask yourself these questions: What does this information tell me? What can I do with it?Listen first. React second. Push for specifics by asking for a concrete example or asking what “better” would actually look like. Then ask for time to process before responding and say thank you. Giving criticism is uncomfortable for most managers. Acknowledging that builds trust and makes them more likely to be honest with you again.Stop treating criticism as something to survive and start treating it as something to mine. The professionals who advance fastest aren’t the ones who never get criticized. They’re the ones who extract the insight from feedback faster than everyone else.Constructive feedback is rarer than many people realize. When someone overcomes the discomfort to give it to you, they’ve handed you something valuable. Workers who handle feedback well build a reputation for being coachable and self-aware. That reputation at work compounds. The ones who get defensive hear less feedback, and receive less honest input over time. That silence isn’t safety. It’s a gap in data that can improve your career.Startup gigs aren’t exactly known for their work-life balance, but these 500 firms are challenging that “startup grind” stereotype. For its seventh annual ranking ofbased on reputation, employee satisfaction and growth. This year’s top 10 includes at least one buzzy AI firm you’ve probably heard of, but many others that you probably haven’t.in February than economists expected—92,000 nonfarm jobs fell off payrolls, which brought the unemployment rate up to 4.4%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. The disappointing report comes after recent data had suggested that the declining labor market was reversing course.tipped workers and some gig workers will face new hurdles . A provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed last July by President Donald Trump, created a temporary income tax deduction aimed at delivering on his “no federal tax on tips” pledge. But as