• The day after Thanksgiving, my mom always prepares a leftover stuffing "brunch bake."
• The recipe calls for five simple ingredients, including 2 cups of leftover stuffing.
• I think it's the perfect warm, hearty meal to start the holiday season.

If your family traditions are anything like mine, Thanksgiving weekend serves as the official kickoff to the holiday season.

Every year, 18 of us gather to enjoy a classic feast, including everything from Italian staples like cavatelli with homemade tomato sauce and meatballs, to turkey, sweet potato casserole, and my personal favorite: sausage-cranberry stuffing.

The best part about our stuffing is that it has a second life as the star ingredient in my mom's leftover stuffing "brunch bake."

Whether you're a novice in the kitchen or want something quick and easy to whip up, this recipe always comes in clutch. In fact, it takes roughly seven minutes to put together before popping it into the oven to bake.

When it's done, I think it delivers an ideal blend of stuffing, egg, and melted cheese. Here's how to make it.

This recipe calls for five simple ingredients, including leftover stuffing.

What I love most about this recipe (other than it being a family heirloom of sorts) is the simplicity. The main ingredient — leftover stuffing — is already made and ready to be placed in the casserole dish.

For Thanksgiving, my mom prepares a more elaborate stuffing, but for any cozy night of the week, you can whip up a simple stovetop option — with or without sausage and cranberries added to the mix.

As for the remaining ingredients, you only need eggs, butter, milk, and your cheese(s) of choice.

To start, I preheat the oven, grease a casserole dish, and add a layer of stuffing.

The first step is to preheat the oven to 350° Fahrenheit, and grease a 9-by-13-inch baking dish using butter or cooking spray.

Then, I spread 2 cups of leftover stuffing across the dish, making sure it's perfectly distributed in one even layer.

Next, I whisk together eggs, milk, and cheese.

Next, I add 4 eggs, ½ cup of milk, and ½ cup of Monterey Jack cheese to a large bowl and whisk thoroughly.

In addition to the stuffing itself, you can also customize the cheese(s) you decide to use. I think cheddar, muenster, or Swiss cheese also work nicely, but you can choose whatever your taste buds prefer.

Then, I pour the mixture over the stuffing and top with more sliced cheese and butter before baking.

Once the mixture is combined, I pour it over the stuffing, then top the dish with more sliced cheese and a few dabs of butter — 2 tablespoons to be exact.

To finish, I pop the dish in the oven uncovered and bake it for about 30 minutes, or until the eggs are completely cooked. However, keep in mind that the cook time may vary slightly based on your oven.

After giving the bake a few minutes to cool, it's ready to enjoy.

Once the timer dings, I allow the bake to cool for a few minutes before slicing and serving.

Starting our day with this warm, hearty "brunch bake" truly makes the morning after Thanksgiving seamless. Plus, it's something I look forward to as we celebrate the season with traditions like getting a new Christmas tree, decorating, and tailgating.

I love that recipes like this put leftovers to good use, help cut down on food waste, and take minimal time away from our weekend activities.

• A United Airlines plane made a U-turn over the mid-Atlantic and returned to New York on Monday.
• The flight from Newark to Cape Town turned back after a medical issue, United told Business Insider.
• 236 passengers and 14 crew were in the air for over eight hours before landing back in Newark.

Passengers on a United Airlines flight from Newark to South Africa faced an unexpected ordeal when the plane turned back over the Atlantic Ocean.

United Flight 1122 departed Newark Liberty International Airport on Sunday evening at 8:32 p.m. local time, bound for Cape Town, according to flight-tracking data from Flightradar24 and FlightAware.

However, instead of completing its nearly 8,000-mile journey, the Boeing 787-9 got four hours into the flight and roughly a quarter of the way to Cape Town when it made a U-turn mid-Atlantic and flew back another four hours to the US.

The Dreamliner, tail number N24988, landed safely at Newark around 5:03 a.m. Monday, roughly eight and a half hours after takeoff.

A United Airlines spokesperson told Business Insider the plane returned "to address a medical issue with a customer."

"The flight was met by medical personnel on arrival," the spokesperson said. "Customers were rebooked and will be on their way today."

236 passengers and 14 crew members were on board at the time of the incident.

The Newark-Cape Town route is one of United's longest, typically taking nearly 14 hours nonstop.

For travelers expecting a sunrise over South Africa, the turnaround meant they instead saw the New York skyline again before breakfast.

United has since rescheduled the service for Monday evening, giving passengers another shot at making the 7,800-mile trek — hopefully this time, all the way to Cape Town.

• An AI researcher advised Gen Z to focus on tasks and AI skills rather than job titles.
• Human judgment, oversight, and social skills remain essential.
• Workers who can use AI effectively will be best positioned before deeper automation begins.

Gen Z is graduating into a labor market reshaped by AI pilots, hiring freezes, and jittery managers.

That doesn't mean a jobs cliff is imminent, said James Ransom, a research fellow at University College London, who studies the impact of AI on work.

But it does mean the rules of entry into the job market are changing fast — and the smartest move isn't to chase prestigious titles, he said, but to understand the tasks inside those jobs, then show how you can supervise and scale AI to do them more effectively.

"I do think in the short term there's a potential productivity dividend, or a windfall that people need to be trying to grab," Ransom told Business Insider.

"That doesn't mean that you just wholeheartedly embrace AI for the sake of it. It does mean critically looking at what it might do — particularly things where a human is still needed in the loop, but they might be able to be supercharged in what they do," he said.

Audit the work, not the role

Ransom's thinking builds on research from global institutions, including the IMF, OECD, and the World Bank, which have mapped automation risk by breaking jobs into their component tasks.

Ramson specifically pointed to an International Labour Organization report released in May.

It found that few jobs are fully automatable, since most include tasks that require human input — a nuance Ramson said is often lost when people label entire jobs as either secure or doomed.

"You look at these indices and, you might say, 'Okay there's a job here, senior accountant, where eight out of nine tasks are potentially exposed,'" he said.

"However, when you start to look closely, you see that the ninth one that's not exposed is managing a team and quality checking. That's pretty indispensable, so that doesn't mean this one is necessarily at risk," he said, clarifying that this is a hypothetical example.

Ransom said the key for Gen Z is to demonstrate AI fluency.

"Your typical organization does not have people who understand what an LLM is, what its strengths or limitations are," he said.

He said that for younger workers, this era favors those who can show their skills through measurable impact.

"Particularly where you can point to actual gains or time savings," he said.

"Whether it's X number of outputs that you achieved or time saved, accuracy, and how then that can be replicated — where you've got a playbook," he added.

The human advantage

Ransom sees the present AI rollout as a brief window of opportunity before the real disruption begins.

Companies are still in an "augmentation" phase, he said, where people can use AI to boost productivity — but that could eventually give way to "a crunch" as automation matures and headcounts shrink.

He compared it to the ATM era, when banks initially hired more staff before reducing their workforce once the technology took hold.

The same cycle, he said, may now be unfolding across white-collar industries: firms hire to experiment, expand, then trim the excess.

The pace of that shift, he added, will be uneven, hitting local labor markets and industries at different speeds.

Even as he studies automation risk, Ransom rejects both utopian and dystopian narratives.

"I certainly don't think we're heading towards a tech utopia where everyone lives happily ever after," he said. "I also don't think we're heading towards imminent superintelligence."

He expects the "human-in-the-loop" era — where a human checks and guides AI — to probably last three to five years, with oversight, judgment, and persuasion remaining indispensable.

"To safeguard yourself, do the things that AI can't," he said. "Particularly things that involve interaction, social skills, leadership, oversight of things, and being able to use AI to solve problems."

• I made sweet potato pies using recipes from chefs Trisha Yearwood, Carla Hall, and Alton Brown.
• Yearwood's pie was simple but a bit watery, and Brown's fell apart as I ate it.
• I thought Hall had the best recipe, which called for a homemade pie crust.

Nothing screams fall quite like sweet potato pie. So, I decided to try recipes from three celebrity chefs — Carla Hall, Trisha Yearwood, and Alton Brown — to see how they would compare.

Each varied in difficulty, as some used premade pie crusts and one required making each component by hand.

Here's how each sweet potato pie stacked up.

Before making Hall's pie, I needed to prepare the dough.

Though the other recipes I tested called for premade pie dough or canned sweet potatoes, Hall's version of the pie didn't come with shortcuts.

Per the recipe's instructions, I roasted 2 pounds of sweet potatoes for nearly two hours, and then scooped out the filling of each to make the custardy pie.

The recipe also called for making pie dough from scratch using sugar, salt, all-purpose flour, and unsalted butter. I dissolved the sugar and salt in hot water, let the mixture cool, and then combined it with cold, cubed butter and flour.

Once I formed the dough, I chilled it until it was firm. Making the dough was a little time-consuming, but overall, it was one of the easiest homemade pie crusts I've made.

Once the dough was done, I gathered the rest of the ingredients.

Hall's recipe called for eggs, evaporated milk, light-brown sugar, butter, salt, and an assortment of spices.

Most of the ingredients were simple except for the hand-mashed sweet potatoes and homemade pie dough. 

Hall's pie filling was very smooth.

To make the filling, I mixed the mashed sweet potatoes with cinnamon, ginger, allspice, nutmeg, salt, butter, brown sugar, and evaporated milk until the mixture was smooth.

Then, I whisked in the eggs and the filling was complete.

Next, I shaped my dough.

I rolled out the dough and placed it in my baking dish, pinching the edges to form a uniform crust.

I was concerned when the bottom of the crust became cracked.

Though the pie crust rolled out easily and looked flawless, things changed once I put the pie tin in the freezer.

I noticed the pie had cracks along the bottom. I tried to close them by gently pushing the dough around those areas but they were still there even after a blind bake. I had to hope the filling would be thick enough to not seep through the bottom of the crust.

I added the filling and baked the pie at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes. Per the recipe, I then reduced the temperature to 350 degrees and baked the pie for about 40 more minutes.

In the end, Hall's dessert was delicious and reminded me of pumpkin pie.

After about five hours of prepping, baking, and cooling, my pie was ready to eat.

It had a great structure, and the crust was durable even with the cracks. The filling held together well, and nothing fell apart as I ate. 

I thought the crust was a little bland on its own, so I probably won't nibble on this part of the pie by itself. But when eating the crust and filling together, this pie was excellent.

The filling was sweet but not overly so, and the spices subtly came through.

Yearwood had the simplest sweet potato pie recipe.

I don't mind having some easy recipes in my back pocket so I was excited to find that Yearwood's sweet potato pie was made with simple ingredients but didn't skimp on special touches, like a sugary crust.

The recipe called for either canned or roasted and peeled sweet potatoes, sugar, eggs, butter, milk, vanilla extract, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and homemade or store-bought pie crust.

Because the other two recipes I tested called for roasted and steamed potatoes, I decided to use a canned version here. I also opted for a store-bought crust.

Yearwood's filling came together quickly.

Using canned sweet potatoes and store-bought crust made this recipe incredibly quick to make.

I just had to combine the ingredients in an electric mixer, pour the filling into the frozen pie crust, and add sugar on top. Then, I let the pie stand for 15 minutes so the sugar could fully melt before baking.

The sugary topping seemed to be Yearwood's secret weapon.

The only problem I ran into was the low oven temperature, 300 degrees. The recipe said the pie only needed to bake for about one hour, but when I checked on it, the filling was still too wet and the crust was nowhere near browned. 

After about one hour and 40 minutes in the oven, the pie was ready. The sugar on top formed a delicate, delicious-looking crust over the filling.

Yearwood's pie tasted good, but the texture wasn't perfect.

Yearwood's pie was sweeter than the others, but I could still taste the sweet potato and the spices. 

The only issue was that the filling was a little bit watery for me. The pie still held together well but I wished the filling was slightly firmer.

In the future, I'd try baking this pie at 325 or even 350 degrees and extend the baking time to see if it helps improve the texture.

I looked forward to the maple-pecan topping on Brown's sweet potato pie.

Brown's sweet potato pie combined a from-scratch sweet potato mash and a premade, frozen pie crust. The filling itself called for plain yogurt, dark-brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, egg yolks, and salt.

I was excited to try the topping, which consisted of chopped, toasted pecans and a drizzle of maple syrup. I figured the maple syrup and pecans would perfectly complement the sweet potato pie.

I used a makeshift steamer and prepared my sweet potatoes.

I started by peeling and cubing a very specific 1 pound and 3 ounces of sweet potatoes, which needed to be steamed for the filling.

I don't have a steamer basket, so I made do with a soup pot that had an inner straining basket. I propped it up above the water in the pot with some crumpled aluminum foil.

I let the potatoes steam until they were really soft, which took about 30 minutes, and then put them in the fridge to cool.

The filling looked similar to the others, despite having yogurt in it.

Next, I combined the sweet potatoes with the other ingredients, which included plain yogurt and five large egg yolks.

I tried to make Brown's pie and topping look as perfect as possible before baking.

Then, I poured the filling into the pie crust and added the highly anticipated topping.

I baked the pie at 350 degrees for about an hour.

Brown's pie tasted too much like yogurt for me, and it didn't maintain its shape.

Though I let the pie cool in the fridge before serving, I found the crust didn't hold up. The instability wasn't a huge deal to me — obviously, I like it when the pie looks neat, but I think flavor is the most important part. 

Unfortunately, Brown's pie missed the mark for me. Despite using a small amount of plain yogurt, it was the strongest flavor in the filling. I thought the pie was too tangy and earthy, and I didn't get any sweetness or spice.

I like many of Brown's dessert recipes but don't think I'd try this one again.

Though it took the longest to make, Hall's pie was well worth my time.

Though I enjoyed Yearwood's sweet potato pie and the crispy pecan topping on Brown's version, Hall's dessert was my favorite. Even my partner, who has pretty discerning tastes (my polite way to say he can be a bit picky), said he loved Hall's pie.

The only thing I might add to Hall's pie is the sugar-topping trick I picked up from Yearwood. I think a slightly crisp, sugary topping on Hall's pie would make it even more delicious.

This story was originally published on October 24, 2023, and most recently updated on November 24, 2025.

• Jay Neo landed a dream job with MrBeast at the age of 18.
• Now 21, he is the cofounder of a new creator economy AI startup called Palo.
• Palo is launching out of stealth with $3.8 million in funding.

What actually makes a video go viral?

Jay Neo, the 21-year-old self-described "content nerd" who formerly worked for YouTube's most-followed creator, MrBeast, has been obsessed with finding the answer to that question since he was a teenager.

Neo spent his teen years running Discord servers for games like Minecraft and making short-form video content.

The key metric Neo had his eyes on was retention: Are people sticking around for the whole video? Or are they scrolling away?

Neo said he meticulously studied each video's retention graph to see where people were dropping off. Understanding how and why someone might scroll past a video can help creators course-correct for the next video.

This focus on retention helped land him his job with MrBeast at 18, Neo said, where he worked on short-form content strategy.

The goal post at MrBeast?

"You want to make a video that a billion people would want to watch," Neo told Business Insider.

One video Neo worked on — "Would You Fly To Paris For A Baguette?" — racked up over 1 billion views. In the short video, MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, asks someone if they'd fly to Paris to bring back a baguette for $100. After the first person said no, he upped the ante to $300.

The hook of escalating offers in that video is an example of "stair stepping," Neo explained, a format that he and the MrBeast team tweaked from similar videos popular on TikTok to "Beastify" it — meaning it had to be at least a little "absurd." Neo said this led to a new formula for the Beast team, where someone would travel far and bring something back.

"At Beast, and everything I've ever done, we found formulas," Neo said. Often, there were droves of data behind those winning video formulas.

After his stint at MrBeast and running other content accounts, Neo is launching a new AI startup for content creators called Palo.

Using AI to crack algorithms

For the past year and a half, Neo and his cofounders — Shivam Pankaj Kumar (who's held engineering roles at Microsoft and Palantir) and content creator Harry Jones — have been building Palo AI, a personalized toolkit for creators. Creators feed Palo's AI their entire content catalog, and the startup's AI then dissects that material.

Large-language AI models "are a perfect thing not for replacing the creator, but for analyzing every little thing," Neo said.

The platform analyzes elements like a video's "hook" — the first few seconds that need to convince the viewer to keep watching — and presents creators with patterns "in a simple way so that you can make better decisions, make tiny tweaks, get way more views," Neo said.

The creator economy startup is coming out of stealth with $3.8 million in funding from PeakXV, NFX, EdgeCase Capital, and several angel investors, including ex-MrBeast head of vertical platforms Rohan Kumar.

"The challenge today is that to keep up with the latest viral hooks and strategies to beat the algorithm, you have to spend hours per day getting brain-rotted consuming content," said Josh Constine, who invested in Palo via his fund Unexpected Investments. "Palo goes and does that research grunt work for you so creators can stay in flow and stick to their craft."

The funding is going toward overhead AI computing costs and hiring engineering talent, Neo said. Palo's team of eight works out of a house in Palo Alto, California.

The platform's technology is powered by a "cocktail" of AI models, including OpenAI and Google Gemini. The product has been available to creators with over 1 million followers, and Palo is expanding to include creators with 100,000 followers or more. The startup plans to introduce a subscription model that will cost $250 a month, Neo said.

Palo's AI assists creators in writing scripts for short-form videos and outlining content with storyboards.

The platform also has its own network, where creators can follow one another. Neo said the company plans to expand features there, such as connecting creators within similar niches, as well as adding tools to introduce creators to potential advertising partners.

While there are dozens of generative AI startups people can use to help make content, Neo wants established creators to use Palo to analyze their existing content so that their videos can break through.

• Ukraine's online Delta system has drastically reduced the time needed to detect and engage Russian targets.
• The battlefield management tool has increased decision-making speed, a top Ukrainian official said.
• Detecting Russian targets and relaying data to units used to take days, but now it takes only minutes.

What once took Ukraine days now takes minutes. A senior defense official told Business Insider that Kyiv’s forces can spot, target, and strike Russian positions almost instantly with the help of a key battlefield command and control tool.

Before the debut of Delta, Ukraine's digital battlefield management system, the average time between detecting a Russian target to relaying the data for a strike might take as much as 72 hours, said Lt. Col. Yurii Myronenko, Kyiv's deputy minister of defense for innovation.

"During this period, the target often changed its position, rendering the data outdated," explained Myronenko, a former drone unit commander who oversees the digital transformation for the Ukrainian military.

The Delta system has reduced the cycle to around two minutes, underscoring how technology has sped up Ukraine's combat engagements.

The system also reflects how Ukraine and the battlefield continue to be a testing bed for new domestic — and foreign — defense technology. Kyiv has lobbied for Western companies to develop and showcase their weaponry in combat to gain experience they couldn't get elsewhere.

Delta is an integrated system that provides situational awareness to the Ukrainian military by combining real-time data collected from satellite imagery, radars, drone reconnaissance, front-line units, and other means.

All this information is fed into an interactive digital map, where users — from Ukraine's navy to its air force — can easily identify enemy positions or track friendly forces with a full operational picture of the battlefield.

The battlefield management system has been in use since the early days of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022 and has undergone changes and upgrades since then, including its integration into the cloud. Units constantly tested Delta and shared feedback with Kyiv, which then adjusted it to fit operational requirements.

Delta operates in accordance with NATO standards and even served as the main command-and-control system during a major exercise hosted by the military alliance earlier this year, a key example of how the West is leaning on Ukrainian innovations and experience.

"Its adoption has become the foundation of a modern approach to battlefield management, significantly increasing efficiency and decision-making speed at all levels," Myronenko said.

Different reaction times for different weapons

As emerging technologies continue to dominate in Ukraine, Delta is increasingly playing a role in the country's battlefield management. Some 90% of Ukrainian military combat units are actively using the system, the deputy defense minister said.

Delta, he explained, has "fundamentally transformed the approach to collecting, processing, and sharing intelligence."

"From manual work with paper maps, Ukrainian forces have transitioned to a digital, integrated platform that reflects the real battlefield and enables effective action even under high-tech adversarial conditions," he said.

While Delta has shortened the cycle between target detection and the relaying of data to units for engagement, not all strikes occur in minutes. It can depend on a range of factors, including unit readiness, the type of target, and weather and terrain conditions.

Distance to the target is also important. Ukraine's weapons systems are designed to strike Russian positions at distances ranging from a few miles to hundreds of miles away, Myronenko said.

For instance, a small first-person-view (FPV) drone can launch from the ground and reach its target in as little as three minutes, but that depends on factors like pilot readiness, wind, and terrain.

Similarly, a 155mm howitzer, which can fire artillery shells dozens of miles, can fire within a few minutes of receiving a command if the gun crew is set up and prepared.

More complex weapons with longer ranges — like certain fixed-wing drones or tactical rocket or missile systems — that can strike hundreds of miles away may require 30 minutes or several hours for pre-mission planning and launch preparation, even if the flight time is much shorter.

Myronenko said that external factors — terrain, weather, time of day, and signal latency — can impact the speed of engagement for any weapon system. And there's a human element too: crew fatigue, workload, or level of experience.

"Therefore, it is more accurate to say that short-range tactical systems provide the fastest response near the front line, whereas long-range systems operate within a longer but more complex and meticulously planned cycle," he said. Still, Ukraine's Delta system has significantly cut down reaction time.

• As an experienced chef, I've got great tips for how to cook turkey well and properly serve it.
• Give yourself plenty of time to defrost your turkey and, while cooking, baste it every 30 minutes.
• Despite what you may see in the movies, carving a turkey tableside at Thanksgiving isn't realistic.

Whether it's brined, fried, basted, or roasted, turkey is a staple on any holiday table. The best way to prepare it, however, is a never-ending debate.

As a chef with over 15 years of experience under my belt, I have my own opinions.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when purchasing, defrosting, and preparing a turkey, plus my favorite tips for cooking a truly delicious bird.

Be mindful when choosing the size of your bird and the cooking method

Although many households prepare a turkey every year, it's easy to forget how much you'll need for a generous serving.

Of course, you should also consider how many leftovers you want to enjoy without having so much turkey that it goes to waste.

Plan for 1 pound of meat per person for a bone-in turkey. If you're going for just the breast portion or anything without bones, plan for ½ pound per person.

Then, decide on how you'll be cooking it because the best method may vary depending on the bird.

Roasting at a lower temperature for longer will always result in a more tender turkey — especially if you spring for heritage birds, which typically have leaner, darker meat that retains moisture when cooked low and slow.

If you're looking to cook a turkey quickly, consider trying the spatchcocking method, which involves removing the bird's backbone and roasting it flat. This can significantly reduce the cook time.

And don't forget, kosher turkeys already have some salt introduced to them in the butchering process. Be careful not to over-brine them, which can make the meat too salty. 

Always plan ahead

The larger the bird, the longer it takes to defrost. Some bigger frozen turkeys can take up to three or four days to thaw.

Though you can expedite the defrosting period by rinsing the turkey with cold water, I think that's pretty wasteful.

If you don't have room in the fridge to store and process your bird, grab a cooler and let the turkey defrost there. Be sure to brine or season your turkey at least a day in advance so all those delicious seasonings penetrate the meat.

Make sure to take your turkey out of the fridge or cooler one hour before cooking to let it come to room temperature. This helps the bird cook more evenly, resulting in juicy meat and crispy skin.

Invest in a good thermometer

A good thermometer allows you to easily monitor your bird from start to finish.

I recommend using an updated digital model with a probe that's inserted into the turkey and a thermometer that stays outside the oven so you don't have to repeatedly open the appliance as the bird cooks. 

Baste your bird minimally

Basting is a wise idea when making a whole roast turkey.

Judicious basting will help keep the meat juicy, but a few too many flavoring sessions could prevent the skin from crisping.

After all, this process requires you to open your oven door and lose some heat from the oven each time you bathe the skin in pan juices.

Limit yourself to no more than one basting every 30 minutes for the best results. 

Let the turkey rest

Plan to have your turkey done before the meal so that it (and you) can take a break.

Allowing the turkey to rest for anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours will make a significant difference, as it'll allow the juices to redistribute.

Carve and plate your turkey in sections

Many Thanksgiving movies and TV episodes depict turkeys being carved at the table, but I don't recommend it.

It can be challenging to serve meat and keep it all warm while trying not to make a mess at an already crowded dinner table.

Instead, once the turkey is cool enough to handle, break it down into sections by breasts, thighs, wings, and other parts in your kitchen.

Pop the pieces onto an oven-safe platter, cover the plate, and warm the turkey in the oven at a low temperature before serving. To make things extra tasty, add some of those pan juices you used for basting.

This story was originally published on November 22, 2022, and most recently updated on November 21, 2025.

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You have a better chance of getting accepted at Harvard than finding a job these days.

That's the brutal reality of the current labor market. The no-hiring-no-firing environment, dubbed the Great Freeze, is driving job seekers up a wall. And the numbers paint an even darker picture, writes BI's Aki Ito.

The average job opening last quarter received 242 applications, according to exclusive data from hiring-software provider Greenhouse. That means you have a 0.4% chance of getting the average job you apply for. Meanwhile, the acceptance rate for that school near Boston: 3.6%.

(If it makes you feel better, it could be worse. NASA took only 10 people for its 2025 Astronaut Candidate Class from more than 8,000 applicants, giving it a 0.125% acceptance rate.)

On paper, that might seem like a dream scenario for employers. Instead, they're feeling just as overwhelmed as they need to sort through the influx of résumés.

As Greenhouse CEO Daniel Chait put it to Aki: "Nobody's happy with the current situation."

So what's to blame?

Everyone's favorite scapegoat, artificial intelligence, is high on the list. The tech has supercharged job seekers' ability to blast themselves out to any job opportunity, essentially muddying the process for everyone.

The job market has led some workers to feel that staying put is their only option.

"Job hugging" has become the phrase of the day, as people fear joining the beleaguered job seekers fighting for scraps. (Oh, how far we've come from The Great Resignation.)

What if you just can't see yourself sticking things out, though?

Business Insider has a five-part series of personal essays from people who have quit their jobs and have no regrets.

First up is Jenny Wood, who quit her job as a Google executive after she felt her life was no longer sustainable.

I understand a Big Tech exec is probably in a lot better position financially and professionally to walk away from their gig compared to the average American. But Wood offers real, actionable advice for people regardless of income level or seniority.

It doesn't always go well initially. In the coming days, we'll have a story from a former Apple worker who quit only to find themselves homeless. (They are in better shape now, and have no regrets.)

Got a story of your own? Reach out to my colleague Jane Zhang.

• As a young politician, Wasserman Schultz said she was urged to "do something" about her curly hair.
• A Fox News host called her "Frizzilla" in 2012, while Adweek described her hair as "ramen noodle-like."
• Studies show women with curly hair are often seen as less professional.

When Debbie Wasserman Schultz was in her mid-20s and preparing to run for the Florida State House, every older woman she sought advice from urged her to "do something" about her curly hair.

"They would say, you're going to have to get a haircut and you've got to just have more manageable hair — a more professional look," Wasserman Schultz, now 59, recalled during Monday's episode of "We Are Spiraling," a new podcast about curly hair by former journalist Priya Anand, who has curly locks herself.

Although Wasserman Schultz decided to go with a new, more manageable hairstyle, the former chair of the Democratic National Committee said she refused to succumb to a straight iron. That sense of pride in her natural ringlets, however, did lead to backlash. For example, in 2012, a Fox News host called her "Frizzilla," while that same year, the publication Adweek described her hair as "ramen noodle-like" and "usually out of control."

Wasserman Schultz's experience reflects a broader bias against women with hair like hers in professional settings, research shows.

A 2023 study from Lindenwood University in Missouri found that straight-haired women were rated significantly higher than curly-haired women on job characteristics that are important to professional positions.

Black women are especially likely to face bias when they don't straighten their hair. A 2021 paper from researchers at Duke University and Michigan State University concluded that Black women with natural hairstyles were perceived to be less professional, less competent, and less likely to be recommended for a job interview than Black women with straightened hairstyles and white women with either curly or straight hairstyles.

Lawmakers have sought to address the problem through legislation, such as the 2019 CROWN Act, which bans race-based hair discrimination. But Anand said on her podcast that people with curly hair — regardless of their race or gender — continue to face prejudice. She said many curly-haired professionals go out of their way to hide their curls, pointing to how former first lady Michelle Obama said in 2022 that she straightened her hair so the US could adjust to a Black family in the White House.

"This idea comes up all the time, that curly hair is for some reason not professional," Anand said.

During the interview, Wasserman Schultz said that in the early 2000s, she let a hairdresser convince her to temporarily straighten her hair while she was serving in Congress. She said she quickly regretted the move.

"I went to the House floor because we had votes that day, and people went berserk," she said. "They thought I looked completely different, but also they said, 'Wow, you should wear your hair like that all the time. You look amazing.' "

The implication, Wasserman Shultz continued, was that they thought she didn't look as attractive as when she wore her hair naturally. "It was kind of an insult. They didn't realize it," she said.

Making matters worse, Wasserman Schultz said that around this time, she was named to a list of the 50 most beautiful people in Congress by The Hill newspaper. It made her feel "cruddy," she said, because it implied that she wouldn't have been selected had she not straightened her locks.

Wasserman Schultz, who is Jewish, has since stuck with her curls and come to appreciate them even more. She said she has given talks at Jewish organizations such as Hillel and B'nai B'rith, and had girls in the audience pull her aside to thank her for wearing her hair curly in public.

"I would never, ever, ever change my hair now," she said. "It's not the most consequential issue, but how you look — and especially growing up and being teased about it — it certainly matters."

• My partner and I took an overnight train ride from London to Scotland on the Caledonian Sleeper.
• We splurged on the Caledonian double en-suite, which came with a shower, a toilet, and a bed.
• I didn't get much sleep, but this beat a flight. I'd do it again, but only under a few conditions.

In my opinion, there's something alluring about the idea of an overnight train ride — watching picturesque scenery while winding down with a dram of whisky, then being rocked to sleep by the motion of the carriage, resting until you wake up at your destination.

At least, that's what I envisioned when my partner and I booked our tickets on the Caledonian Sleeper, a famous train that links London with several destinations in Scotland.

We took the eight-hour route from London Euston to Glasgow and booked the most expensive suite option. Here's what our overnight train journey was like.

Although we decided to splurge on a suite, several tiers are available for booking.

We booked the priciest room, a Caledonian double en-suite for £445, about $587, one way.

Our room tier includes station lounge access, priority boarding, priority access to the club car, and breakfast on board (served to our room or in the club car).

When we booked, the second most expensive option was the club en-suite room with twin bunk beds and similar perks, priced at about £420 for two travelers.

There's also a classic room with twin bunk beds and a washbasin that would've been about £330 for two. There's no breakfast included in this tier, but travelers can pay extra for it and have it delivered via the included room service.

Lastly, we could've gone with the cheapest option — two seats in the coach car for £168. Though they offer adjustable headrests and footrests, these seats only recline 10 degrees … and I doubted our ability to sleep in a sitting position.

At the start of our trip, we made the most of the free snacks and drinks in the station lounge.

We arrived at Euston at 21:30 — well ahead of our departure at 23:30 — to check in, get our cabin keycard, and explore the station lounge.

It felt a bit busy at times, but there were enough seats for everyone. The two roomy showers and bathrooms off the lounge seemed to be in near-constant use.

We appreciated the help-yourself bar with tea, coffee, and soft drinks, including Irn-Bru — a bright-orange soda that's considered one of Scotland's national drinks. Plus, there were complimentary cookies, cakes, and chips.

We could've also purchased alcoholic drinks and other hot meals and snacks while in the lounge.

Once we boarded, we quickly located our compact double room.

Luckily, getting to our room was pretty easy.

However, the corridors on the train felt really narrow — probably to maximize the space in the rooms — so I was glad we'd only brought backpacks with us.

This might be a tight squeeze for anyone trying to wheel bigger suitcases. On the bright side, though, they won't have far to go as all rooms seem to be fairly close to a carriage door.

Our first impression of the room was quite positive.

As soon as we opened the door to our room, we saw a neatly made double bed with pristine-looking white sheets.

Arranged on top of it were Scottish treats — including an Arran Sense of Scotland toiletries set and honeycomb chocolate — plus sleep kits containing earplugs and fetching tartan eye masks.

The room didn't have much decor beyond a framed graphic and a bit of wallpaper, but I'd probably describe it as "modern business hotel with accents of tweed."

It was nice to control the lights and have plenty of outlets.

The rooms felt well equipped with free WiFi, several USB ports and power sockets, control panels to adjust the room's temperature and dim the lights, coat hooks, and under-bed storage for stowing bags.

The space felt compact yet cleverly designed.

We found our sink located by the bed (beneath the window) and our private en-suite bathroom (stocked with hand and bath towels) behind a small door.

I wish our window had been bigger, but my visions of gazing at rolling landscapes from my bed in the morning didn't work out anyway because it was too dark out during our trip.

We traveled in early November and didn't see daylight until we hit the outskirts of Glasgow.

We began our journey with a nightcap in the club car.

We left our bags in the room and headed to the club car in the next carriage for a drink.

The club car features cozy booths and swivel seats, functioning as a lounge with table service for dining, drinking, and unwinding. It's not available to those travelling in coach seats, and priority access is given to those staying in our cabin class or a club room.

Fortunately, the car wasn't busy at all when we visited, and we had our pick of seats to choose from.

We didn't want to eat that late at night, but our drinks went down well.

The onboard menu has a decent selection of mains, desserts, drinks, and light bites for an additional cost. It was especially nice to see Scottish-style fare like haggis, neeps and tatties, and a venison stew on offer.

Neither of us could stomach food that late, so we opted to check out the wine list instead. We paid extra for small bottles of wine and prosecco, which were lovely.

We also placed our breakfast order for the next morning.

Before bed, we filled out cards to choose which breakfast we wanted the next morning and handed them in to the staff.

A full Scottish cooked breakfast was available alongside options such as pancakes with fruit and yogurt, bacon and sausage sandwiches, and porridge pots.

Eventually, we headed to bed for the night.

We'd chosen the double room over bunks because we're both tall—6'0" and 6'3" —and my partner has broad shoulders.

However, walls surround the bed on three sides, and with my partner on the fourth, I felt uncomfortably boxed in.

On the bright side, the double bed was complete with a Glencraft mattress, literally fit for royalty. (The Scottish company has supplied mattresses to the British Royal family's Balmoral Castle for years.)

I did get some sleep, but it was broken and fitful. I woke up at least a dozen times throughout the eight-hour train ride. The complimentary earplugs and eye mask were a godsend.

In the morning, I showered in our en-suite bathroom.

I tried taking a photo of our shower area, but it seemed impossible due to the room's angle and how the door opened inward, obscuring the view of what was inside.

Even so, the bathroom felt cleverly designed to switch from a toilet to a shower wet room with the closing of a lid that creates a shelf on which you can sit while showering. I chose to stand, and I still had plenty of space.

The water was hot, the pressure felt surprisingly decent, and the Arran toiletries smelled heavenly.

Then, we enjoyed hot coffee and a tasty breakfast.

Though we could've had our breakfast delivered to our room, we opted to eat in the club car, hoping we might enjoy some nice views through its large windows.

Unfortunately, it was still quite dark out, and rain obscured the little we could see even more.

Still, we enjoyed drinking our hot coffee and tucking into deliciously crispy bacon and sausage sandwiches with ketchup and brown sauce.

We were grateful for the extra half hour we got to disembark.

Our train arrived at Glasgow Central on time at 07:30, but we were given until 08:00 to get off.

We took advantage of this buffer because, frankly, we both felt wiped out after a night of broken sleep.

After this ride, I really see the appeal of this train.

I understand why the Caledonian Sleeper is a popular and sensible option for business travelers.

After all, it's extremely efficient to travel while you sleep (provided you can sleep). The late departure and early arrival mean your workday, or time at home before you travel, is maximized.

Some people also prefer to book the sleeper because it can be cheaper than booking a standard train ticket and a hotel room. However, this isn't always the case.

For example, the night after our ride, we booked a room at Novotel in central Glasgow, 15 minutes' walk from the train station, for £123 — and our stay included breakfast. The next morning, we could've taken the standard off-peak train from Glasgow to London for around £166.

All in all, that's over £150 less than we'd pay for a suite on the sleeper train.

However, this may not be the case if you're taking the overnight train in the other direction from Glasgow to London, where central hotel rooms are typically far more expensive.

Ultimately, I'm glad I tried this train ride.

Though flying might've taken me under two hours and cost less than £200 a ticket, I prefer the ease and simplicity of the sleeper train.

It was nice to stretch my legs and avoid the stress of navigating airport security and packing for budget-friendly flights.

This route has also long been on my wish list, and I had quite the adventure. However, because the ticket is priced so high, I'm not exactly in any hurry to re-book.

If I decide to splurge on this suite on the Caledonian Sleeper again, I'll travel alone so I can sleep diagonally across the double bed and be more comfortable.

I'll also try to travel in the summer when the days are longer — hopefully then I could enjoy some of the panoramic views I was sad to miss.