The Side Door: Gatherings
The job market has changed. AI screens your resume before a person sees it. Layoffs keep restocking the candidate pool. And your professional network?
Is also being filtered by an algorithm. It is time to use the side door.
The Side Door is a community gathering Place for professionals navigating career transitions, consulting pivots, long-term job searches, and the daily reality of building what comes next.
Post a gathering or Find one near you.
Upcoming Gatherings:
Browse what is happening near you or virtually. Click Connect on any listing to reach the host directly.
Walk & Talk: Careers in Motion
A loop through Central Park for honest conversation about industries in flux, AI in hiring, and what comes next. Movement makes the hard talk easier. All paces welcome.
Central Park- Central Park Reservoir | Monday, June 8th | 10:00 a.m. 
Virtual Growth Gatherings
Link provided after registering. | Wed, June 17th | 9:00 a.m. A facilitated virtual session for up to 10 professionals navigating career transitions, job searches, or practice-building. Join our working conversations where we share our present, what we are working toward, and what is standing in the way.
Seats are limited to keep the conversation substantive.
Coworking + Accountability Block
Time and Location TBD2-3 hours hours of heads-down work alongside other people building something. Applications, decks, manuscripts, job materials, whatever you are avoiding. We start with intentions and close with what got done.
Talent Management Gathering: What's Next for L&D
A virtual gathering for up to 8 learning and development leaders to discuss what the talent management function actually needs right now. This is a working session, not a panel. We will examine current frameworks, assess what is holding up under pressure and what is not, and strategize collectively on what comes next for the function. Whether you are leading L&D at an enterprise, building a people development practice, or navigating what AI means for your team's capability stack, this room is for you. Seats are intentionally limited.
Link provided after registering. | Wed, June 24th | 3:00 - 4:00 p.m. Hosting a coffee chat? Running a virtual check-in for professionals in transition? Organizing a coworking session or a walk in the park? Post it here. All submissions are reviewed before they appear on the board — we curate for quality and intent to keep this space genuinely useful.
All you need is a title, a date, a city, and a connection link, i.e. a Zoom link, a Google Form, an email, whatever works for you. People will reach you directly through that link.
Whether you are a workforce professional, a career coach, someone between roles, or just a person who believes that showing up for each other still matters — this board is yours to use.
Host a Gathering
Why A Side Door?
We are living through a time where automated screening tools filter out the masses and workplaces have become increasingly and aggressively less human in approach. The Side Door is our opportunity to create our own career architecture.
Every displacement cycle in the historical record (from deindustrialization in the 1970s and 80s to the dot-com bust to the 2008 financial crisis) rewards the same behavior: building connections outside your collapsing ecosystem. The people who rebuild fastest are the ones who maintained relationships beyond their immediate industry.
The Side Door exists because showing up is still the most reliable way to find what an algorithm will never surface: the opportunity that was never posted, the introduction that changes the trajectory, the conversation that reminds you that your experience has value even when the market cannot see it.
The Side Door: Gatherings
is a community tool from Geneèn Wright HQ. | Human-curated.