KQED's Forum How Did You Find Your Life’s Work?
May 8, 2026
Jodi Kantor, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and New York Times journalist, discusses finding life’s work and her new book. She explores why today's job market feels hostile. She explains why focusing on need and craft matters. She offers practical steps like experimentation, tracking tasks, and using events to build real connections.
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Pursue Craft Not Just Jobs
- Do pursue a craft rather than only chasing jobs to avoid feeling disposable and to build unique, transferable value.
- Jodi Kantor says craft protects you from churn because skills can't be taken away even if jobs vanish or hiring becomes digitized.
AI Has Made Job Search Lonely
- Hiring has become digitized and alienating, turning job search into a lonely, black-box process dominated by AI screens.
- Kantor highlights applicants applying to 150 roles, AI interviews, and resumes read by automated systems that erase human feedback.
Craft Produces Hourly Satisfaction
- Craft delivers deep, moment-to-moment satisfaction that sustains long careers and counters disenchantment with work.
- Kantor describes investigative reporting's ‘best day’ confronting a subject as an example of mastery joy.
