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Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
This U.S. Destination Was Just Named the No. 1 'City on the Rise' for Its Affordability and Job Market
A growing tech and health care sector is drawing young professionals to this Michigan metro. Finding a new job is challenging and takes time. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median duration of unemployment in June 2025 was about 10 weeks. And while that is the median, some job seekers have been on the market for over a year. There is, however, a way to speed up the process, and that's by moving to a city with a fast-growing job market. On July 15, LinkedIn released its new list of cities on the rise, which highlights emerging U.S. cities that offer both "vibrant job markets and growing professional communities." And it named the Grand Rapids, Michigan, area the No. 1 spot. "A growing tech scene and booming insurance industry are helping Grand Rapids redefine its industrial identity while drawing a wave of young professionals thanks to its growing job market, bustling downtown, and proximity to Lake Michigan," reported LinkedIn. It added that the top industries hiring in the area include manufacturing, health care, and professional services, while the top employers are Corewell Health, Grand Valley State University, and Meijer. Here, workers can expect an average income of $65,235 and an average home listing price of $524,195. This makes the price-to-income ratio of the homes slightly higher; however, according to Apartment Advisor, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $1,250, a far more affordable option. Other cities joining Grand Rapids include the Boise metro area in Idaho at No. 2, followed by the greater Harrisburg area in Pennsylvania (third), the Albany metro area in New York (fourth), and the greater Milwaukee area in Wisconsin (fifth). For this list, LinkedIn explained that it partnered with Economic Graph to define "on the rise" cities, which included migration data, along with "year-over-year growth across each metric: where talent is landing, where roles are opening, and where people are moving (relative to leaving)." LinkedIn also analyzed each destination at the metropolitan area level rather than just the city proper to "better reflect how people actually live and work today." LinkedIn has seen job applications grow by 45 percent year-over-year, with 11,000 applications filed per minute, according to a company statement shared with Travel + Leisure. See the complete list at Read the original article on Travel & Leisure Solve the daily Crossword
WIRED
6 hours ago
- WIRED
The Extravagant Rise of the Corporate Incentive Trip
Aug 6, 2025 10:40 AM From skydiving trips in Dubai to Michelin-starred meals in Paris, some companies are rewarding top performers with once-in-a-lifetime travel experiences. Business travel doesn't typically conjure up the most glamorous images: working group sessions in overlit conference rooms, awkward dinners with coworkers at unmemorable chain restaurants. But for some lucky employees, there's a special subset of work travel that isn't just something to look forward to but something to fight for: the corporate incentive trip. Mark, a former sales director at LinkedIn who asked to not use his real name, is a frequent flyer in the world of corporate incentive travel, wherein companies motivate employees to crush their sales goals with the promise of all-expenses-paid stays at luxury hotels and bucket-list sightseeing experiences. He has qualified for seven or eight such trips awarded to the company's top performers, including one to the Four Seasons Resort Peninsula Papagayo in Costa Rica and another to the Apurva Kempinski in Bali. 'It kind of ruined travel for my wife and I, because we've now gone on so many of these trips that we know that these places exist,' he says. His company typically buys out the entire hotel—often a Four Seasons—for thousands of top performers, who are each invited to bring along the one person they feel has most contributed to their success. (Mark, a smart man, generally brings his wife.) While there's usually a few hours of meetings or talks one morning, the rest is actual, genuine fun: Mark remembers being skeptical of a 'white party' on the beach in Costa Rica, before it ended up turning into a huge rave, with everyone covering their face in neon paint and dancing until the wee hours. 'It was probably one of the more fun parties I've ever attended,' he says. Corporate reward or incentive travel is a common motivational tool in sales-focused jobs, particularly in the finance, insurance, pharma, and auto industries. (MLMs love them too.) It's also a mainstay at big tech companies like Microsoft and Salesforce, the latter of which hosted Katy Perry for a private performance on its 2022 President's Club trip to Hawaii's Mauna Lani, an Auberge resort. In 2014 a report by the Incentive Research Federation showed US businesses had spent over $22 billion on incentive travel, and 46 percent of companies surveyed relied on it as a reward for top performers, with sales programs using it the most. (A 2022 follow-up study correctly predicted incentive spending would go on to grow substantially across the board.) In the past few years, as the world reopened after the height of the pandemic and tourism skyrocketed, these trips have become increasingly opulent and bespoke, with companies vying to outdo one another with five-star extravaganzas that most employees might never experience outside of their honeymoons or that one bougie friend's destination wedding—if that. 'After Covid, things went crazy,' says Sean Hoff, the founder of Moniker Partners, a corporate-retreat-planning agency based in Toronto. Companies that had once brought top employees to nearby locations like New York City or Miami were suddenly asking him to plan excursions to Asia or the Middle East. Many of Hoff's clients are real estate developers or brokerages based in Canada, and as the market boomed, 'it almost became like a mini arms race, where different builders were trying to compete for who could offer the most incredible trip,' he says. While companies typically spend between $4,000 and $6,000 per attendee, Moniker's most lavish trips can cost up to $25,000 a head. One especially decadent trip to Paris for a group of real estate brokers included a stay at Hôtel Plaza Athénée, the fashion-industry hot spot once favored by Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie O, and Grace Kelly where rooms go for more than $1,500 a night. Attendees were whisked around the City of Light in 1960s Citröen CV2s; activities included a behind-the-curtain tour of the Louvre, hosted by the head curator, and a private meal in Le Jules Verne, the two-Michelin-star restaurant inside the Eiffel Tower. This story is part of The New Era of Work Travel , a collaboration between the editors of Condé Nast Traveler and WIRED to help you navigate the perks and pitfalls of the modern business trip. Moniker also flew over a group of Realtors to Dubai and Abu Dhabi on Emirates business class ($7,000 to $8,000 per head, almost half the total cost of the trip). After a week spent skydiving above Palm Jumeirah, off-roading over sand dunes, and partying at a specially erected Bedouin-inspired camp with camels and belly dancers, the group headed to Abu Dhabi to test-drive F3 cars and watch the last F1 race of the season from a private lounge overlooking the track. 'Money can get you to F1 and do these things, but you can't necessarily put together a Bedouin camp,' says Hoff. 'It's about the prestige and something that they can't get on their own.' 'After Covid, things went crazy. It almost became like a mini arms race, where different [companies] were trying to compete for who could offer the most incredible trip' Nowadays, with travel influencers strip-mining far-flung reaches of the planet for content, the promise of a pool and a piña colada is no longer enough to get employees excited—they want bragging rights, too. Research shows that these trips are a powerful motivating factor for employees: the not-for-profit Incentive Research Foundation claims that, if properly designed, incentive travel programs can increase sales productivity by 18% and produce a 112% return on investment. They also help with 'soft' goals like improving camaraderie and boosting employee morale. Jake, an executive at a liquor distributor in Maryland, has been planning incentive trips for his company for over a decade and has personally been on trips to Ireland, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Scotland, and Barbados with his current company. 'There is a lot of competition that happens at the end of the fiscal year, and some horseplay and a little bit of gamesmanship to how the sales teams manage it,' he says, noting that sales teams hide their earnings from their competitors until the last possible day to get an edge. 'You want to get there if you can, and you'll go the extra mile come the final few months of the year to get your deals across the line to qualify for it,' says Michael, a Vancouver-based sales director for a large tech company who has been rewarded with trips to Aruba, Hawaii, Cancún, and St. Lucia for being a top performer. This year he and his wife were invited to spend four nights at the 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay, the five-star luxury resort in Kauai. Because he's the father of a six- and an eight-year-old Michael's vacations these days tend to be to Disneyland or a kid-friendly all-inclusive, so this perk has unexpectedly become 'the one trip a year that is truly for us,' he says. With the rise of remote work and deepening concern that robots may soon come to replace human workers, some companies are focused on making sure that when their employees spend time together, it really counts. Research suggests that AI use in the workplace increases loneliness and social isolation, with 39% of executives in a recent KPMG survey expressing fear that the new technology will diminish social interaction at work. 'The more AI gets involved, I think the more important it is that employees have the chance to bond outside of work,' says Gary McCreary, a hospitality industry veteran who recently started his own company called GLM Luxury Events. Currently he's working on a reward trip for 24 people—members of an investment firm and their spouses—that starts with three days in Venice followed by eight days cruising on a vessel from the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection in the Adriatic. (The brand has been hyping its new yacht offerings lately and this summer hosted such celebrities as Martha Stewart, Tessa Thompson, Sofia Vergara, and Naomi Campbell on a lavish brand trip.) He estimates the trip will cost around $75,000 per couple. 'The bar is just set so much higher these days, because you have all the travel bloggers out showing these amazing inspirational places, and that causes people to want something that really has a wow factor to it,' McCreary says. Mike May, the president of Brightspot Incentives & Events, says he has noticed a trend toward more immersive activities rooted in the local culture. 'Instead of everywhere you go somebody trying to do a zip line or a catamaran, planners are looking for what's the authentic experience in that destination that these travelers could only do there,' he says. On a recent incentive trip to Sintra, Portugal, rather than booking a restaurant, he helped organize a private dinner at Pena National Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Gifts are often a perk of these trips too, and long gone are the days when companies could hand employees a branded T-shirt or water bottle and call it a day. Chardell Robinson, a VP at corporate travel agency Cadence Travel Management, says it has increasingly focused on bespoke keepsakes rooted in local traditions, like hand-painted olive oil jugs on a trip to Marbella, Spain. Often Cadence will set up a gifting suite designed like a miniature market featuring local artisans with customizable handicrafts for when employees arrive. Cadence practices what it preaches; this year the company rewarded its own top performers with an eight-day trip to Japan that featured stays in the Bvlgari Hotel Tokyo and the Ritz-Carltons in Nikko and Kyoto. Activities included making their own prayer beads at a Buddhist temple from 784 AD and a private samurai sword lesson with the choreographer for both Kill Bill movies. Yet with travel costs rising across the board and many industries buffeted by global financial instability, some wonder if the glory days of incentive travel might be going the way of the Concorde. Business class flights in particular, whose prices have surged in recent years, have been among the first luxuries getting snipped from the budget, multiple corporate travel agents said. Sean Hoff notes that, after a few years of boom time, contractions in the real estate market led many of his top clients to scale back. (He also says that many of his international clients are choosing to avoid US travel right now due to concerns about treatment at the border.) Jake has seen the same thing in the liquor business: 'The industry now in general is a little more about data points and achieving sales goals and a little less about the fun or conviviality,' he says. Companies are increasingly thinking about the optics of these Gatsby-esque bacchanalias amid so much economic decline and uncertainty. (A Salesforce employee says the company stopped inviting massive performers after activist investors called for cost-cutting measures, noting dryly that 'hiring Katy Perry and firing 8,000 employees was a wonderful combo.') Mark says LinkedIn has also cut the number of employees who qualify over the years—from 20 percent when he started there a decade ago to 5 percent in 2025. But even as the number of chosen ones has dwindled, the experiences themselves remain as extravagant as ever. After all, that's kind of the point. 'You can make it more exclusive, but you can't lower the bar for the experience because that's the thing that's motivating people to put in the work,' he says. 'If it starts to become just any average trip and not some legendary experience, people will respond accordingly.'
Forbes
7 hours ago
- Forbes
Maximize Your LinkedIn Reach With 3 Essential Components Of Every Post
The LinkedIn algorithm changes all the time but one thing remains: your post has to add value. The algorithm wants to see that you are contributing to the platform, your followers and beyond, by producing content they want to see. But honestly, that sounds vague. Who is the judge of value? What does it even mean? Is there some kind of checklist we can see to run every post by? Not exactly, but LinkedIn has spoken. And that's nearly as good. Include these three components in every post to stand the best chance of it reaching the people who actually matter to you: your dream customers, current and future. Don't skip these 3 essential components of every LinkedIn post LinkedIn is a business platform for professionals. Not required: images of you and your world that have no context or message. Essential: you, teaching a specific group of people things they want to know. This is easy when you think about it. Picture your dream customer. Stare them in the eyes. Then ask them what they want to know. Find out their knowledge gaps. What, if they knew how to do, would change their life for the better, related to your field? This is the source of all your LinkedIn content. Open the LinkedIn post creator and type directly to this person. Imagine you are sitting opposite from them, with the sole goal of helping them. Sure, this is the information you charge for. But giving it away now will mean you can charge for implementation. The right people will always want someone to do it for them. You'll never be short of work (and likes) when you lead with knowledge and advice. This is the second biggest indicator of an awesome post that the algorithm loves. Is your post rooted in your unique, specific expertise? Could only you give this information? The feed is full of generic tips that help approximately no one. LinkedIn wants to know your slant, your take, the context you have from your experience that no one else has. To get this information, go inward. Open the LinkedIn post creator and start with a bold line. 'I…' and then complete the sentence with the thing you achieved that you're most proud of. 'I helped a coach triple their revenue with 3 edits to their LinkedIn posts.' 'I completed an ironman and made partner in the same month.' Don't be shy. What follows this line sets up the post, 'Here's exactly how I did it.' or 'Here's how you can too.' Use the rest of your post to share the method. Break it into a five step process. Name each one. Describe what you did, and be real. Give generously. Teach your target audience things they want to know, to achieve things they want to achieve, and give your method to make it easy for them. LinkedIn wants to know who to show your post to. This makes total sense. The more people see content that's relevant to them, the longer they stay on the platform. The more ads they see, the more ad revenue LinkedIn makes. Simple. So make it simple for them to promote you. The first few comments you get on each post matter. Your dream customer adding their thoughtful words gives off big signals that your post is a good one. So make success inevitable. Seed your post. Send it to a bunch of people in your professional community. Ask for their comments. Do the same for them. You can complain about gaming the system or you can play the game like the winners play. Your LinkedIn profile can grow beyond your wildest dreams, your posts can achieve whole new levels of reach, and dream customers can fill your DMs. But only if you swallow your pride and try new things. LinkedIn doesn't care about your ego. It will happily give you a handful of likes on every post. But you want hundreds. So get involved. Beat the LinkedIn algorithm when you add value with every post You can try all the hacks and test every trick, but the underlying premise is simple. LinkedIn's algorithm rewards valuable information, from credible people, that a specific group of people love. When you write your posts with this in mind, you'll be algorithm-proof forever. Write content to fill the knowledge gaps of your dream customer, demonstrate your authority in the first few lines, and get the comments going to send the right signals. Play the game, think long term, and study your LinkedIn results without taking them personally. Follow my LinkedIn profile checklist for landing coaching clients.
