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đ Starbucksâ New Foe
And homework from the future boss
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This is Nick. This is Jack. And Happy Hanukkah â Because this yearâs holiday carries more than ever. The festival of light in a moment that feels dark. And the unsung hero of Hanukkah: The jelly donut known as âSufganiyah.â Few things can unite us like food and few things are as delicious as this Jewish jelly-injected jewel. Sorry dreidel, itâs not personalâŠitâs the powdered sugar.
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1) McDonaldâs Surprise Nostalgia Chain
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A brand new beverage-focused chain just landed in Bolingbrook, Illinois. Itâs called CosMc â straight out of the McDonaldâs universe. Churro frappes, backyards⊠the Midwest has it made.
Who/what is CosMc: The cute orange alien is a second-fiddle McDâs mascot that is the name and face of the new chain. Stand down, Grimace.
But this is Fast Drink, not Fast Food. Get it right, or get sent to Mars. This spinoff isnât taking on Burger King, itâs taking on Starbucks. Letâs look at the menu:
đ„€ 13 aggressive beverages: Blueberry Ginger Boast, Sâmores Cold Brew, and customizable with boba, syrups, energy, and Vitamin C shots.
đ„¶ Served cold: Because Ÿ of Starbucks sales are from cold drinks, McDâs is Stealing Like an Artist (IYKYK).
đš Customizable too: An extra pump of s'mores syrup is more profitable for CosMc.
đŻ Like Starbs: Thereâs not as much food on the menu as beverages. Go for the frappuccino, leave with the peanut butter donut holes.
CosMcâs whole menu is designed for Instagram â Itâs the first fast food (or drink) chain made for TikTok.
The Takeaway â
The secret to successful spin-offs: be cousins, not siblings. McCafe is McDonaldâs sister coffee chain, but itâs stopped growing because itâs too similar to McDonalds coffee. Whereas CosMc is more different from the OG chain than alike, like a cousin. The slanted golden arch and use of a D-list McDâs character make it still part of the family⊠but CosMcâs different enough to be its own entity.
2) âThereâs Homeworkâ â Sincerely, Hiring Teams
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New job trend: Employers are adding âtake-home assignmentsâ to the hiring process. Projects, papers, presentations â Sounds like college homework.
Some examples of pre-work, work thatâs included in a job application process:
Software engineersâŠhave to complete a coding project.
Copy editorsâŠhave to write a 6-page paper.
Consultants⊠must deliver a 12-minute PowerPoint analysis.
Turns out take-home assignments like this are surging: The number of job apps with a take-home element are up 87% since 2019, according to Glassdoor.
Audition vs. Interview: The pre-work work is longer too â Bloomberg profiled one interviewee who had to role-play as CEO, and had to record a theoretical customer Zoom callâŠcamera on đŠ.
Pro tip for hiring teams: Pay candidates for the work assignedâŠunless you want an angry Glassdoor review.
The Takeaway â
The No. 1 trick to work hiring is homework. Studies show that the traditional interview process is flawed. The âtake-home-workâ method is actually the most effective interview tool â for both the company and the applicant. Doing a sample shows the employer if the applicant can do the work. And it shows the applicant if they like the work.
Itâs worth the wait: Fire fast, hire slow â Our No. 1 rule of hiring.
Problems arise: When a simple assignment turns into free labor.
The solution: Make the assignment a reasonable length of time or pay for it. Because in this economy, no one should work for free.
On the PodâŠ
đź GameStop just sneakily announced something Wall Street is calling âalarmingâ â the CEO was just told to buy stocks with company $$ (more background info in the movie Dumb Money). To hear about how GameStop isnât just a video game company anymore, listen to todayâs pod.
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Hereâs what else you need to know today â
đ Google just unveiled Gemini, their ChatGPT competitor â Googleâs most capable AI yet can understand text, images, video, audio. The stock jumped 5% on the news, and so did Sam Altman.
đ President Biden warned pharmaceutical companies that the cost of drugs is too high. If prices don't come down, the government will cancel patents of taxpayer-funded meds to let competition in.
đ Rent the Runway just enjoyed its 1st ever-quarterly profit. Return-to-office has more women switching up their OOTD. Meanwhile, we have worn the same crewneck all weekâŠ
đ«ą The National Retail Federation just admitted a mistake: It over-reported the amount of theft at retail stores from organized crime. CEOs had been blaming crime for poor results, when it might have just been their own performance issues (just like Target).
đ An estimated 5% of remote workers are âdouble dipping,â according to McKinsey. Reply to this email if youâre two-timing. We need deets.
đŻThe woman who threw food at a Chipotle worker was sentenced to 1 month in jail and 2 month in a fast food job. The best sentence yet.
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The Got Milk ad campaign is one of the longest ever, lasting 20 years. It was funded by the milk industry to get you to drink more milk. But milk sales actually declined all 20 years of the campaign. Moo.
And one more thing. Whatâs a Hanukkah tradition ya gottaâ share?
âNick & Jack
FYI, the writers of this newsletter own stock of Google, McDonaldâs, and Chipotle.
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