The Becoming Forever Employable Program is an intensive, 10-week live online course and coaching cohort designed by Jeff Gothelf for mid-career professionals in product management and UX design who want to future-proof their career and monetize their experience and expertise.
Based on Jeff’s book, Forever Employable: How to Stop Looking for Work and Let Your Next Job Find You, which has sold nearly 10,000 copies in its first year of publication, the Becoming Forever Employable Program lays out the tactics and, more importantly, the continuous learning mindset he used to build his own 7-figure thought leadership platform on product management, Agile, digital transformation, UX, and career development.
“In Forever Employable, Jeff Gothelf blows the lid off of secrets to a path of personal and professional fulfillment. Jeff speaks from experience and provides practical steps to building your own platform.”
— Nir Eyal, bestselling author of Hooked and Indistractable.
The future (and future-proofing) of career growth
Becoming Forever Employable isn’t your typical online education course.
The BFE program is designed to drive lasting change for professionals who want to change what the second half of their career could look like, create certainty in a world of increasing uncertainty, enhance their personal brand and build a thought leadership platform.
If you’re looking to ensure your ongoing viability in the product management and UX design marketplace and create a continuous inbound stream of opportunities—within or outside of an organization—the BFE program will get you there. This is the future of job hunting and career growth redefined.
Jump ahead
- Reinvent your career
- Apply for the program
- Was it worth it?
- Our learning model
- Frequently asked questions
The Becoming Forever Employable program is a live online career reinvention course
Founded in 2020 by bestselling author and product design expert Jeff Gothelf, the BFE program uses digital tools like Slack, Mural, and Zoom to engage cohorts of no more than 30 students in an intense, 10-week process. With the Forever Employable book reaching readers on nearly every continent (sorry Antarctica), cohorts bring together diverse product and design professionals from all over the world.
Every live session of the program is led by Jeff Gothelf and features:
- Individual as well as group work
- You publish every week with feedback on your work from your cohort
- Your fellow students provide feedback, accountability and amplification
- The program is synchronous with regular deadlines
- Live and asynchronous group discussions
- Face to face video calls
- Based entirely online with students participating from home, work or anywhere in the world
“You have the power to become forever employable. With this book [and program] you now have the tools you need to get it done. Use the tools Jeff has given you. Get it done.”
— Dorie Clark, Duke & Columbia business professor, HBR author, Thinkers50.
The tuition for the program is $3495 (interest-free payment plans available). Attending students will include:
- Managers
- Leaders
- Entrepreneurs
- Freelancers
- Individual practitioners
All of the students will come form the world of product management, UX design, Agile and will have at least 10 years of professional experience to share and build upon.
Becoming Forever Employable is for UX designers and product managers who want to create change in their life, take ownership of their career path and opportunities, and break out of the rut of continuously looking for the next job in a continuously changing industry.
Instead, successful BFE students flip that reality and create a world where jobs, opportunities and growth come to them.
Admission is by application only.
Every student walks out with:
- Usable tactics for leveraging past experiences to elevate your current professional self and increase confidence in your professional worth
- A clear path to breaking away from or improving upon your current role
- A foundation for your thought leadership platform and evidence for where to plant your flag
- Techniques for building an online presence and authentic thought leadership representative of your whole self
- Connections and resources from a broad and diverse network of guest speakers, fellow students and instructors
- Private reviewers and group sessions, course curriculum and materials, and a signed copy of Forever Employable
Apply for the Becoming Forever Employable program
Next program dates:
January 18, 2022 – March 29, 2022
Now accepting applications for our Winter 2022 program starting in January 2022.
Note: The first priority deadline for the Winter 2022 session is Dec 1, 2021.
The application takes about 3 minutes to complete. Program cost is $3,495 and we offer interest-free payment plans to spread the cost over 6 months.
is it worth it?
Becoming Forever Employable is a guided sprint — pushing you to build momentum to monetize your expertise in diverse and new ways. In 10 weeks, you and your cohort of 30 or fewer professionals will work together, sharing your work, learnings, successes and failures with everyone moving in the same direction: career stability.
The notion of an intensive, life-changing experience, of leaning in and committing to a new way of thinking about your work and your value, means the BFE program is not for everyone. It’s not for people who want a quick fix or a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s not for people who want to know the punchline right away. It will require persistence, time and effort.
“Forever employable is a book and program that can unlock your potential and unleash talents far beyond what you have been imagining for yourself.”
— Sabrina Braham, Coach and Founder womensleadershipsuccess.com.
Our Learning Model
Here is how the Becoming Forever Employable Program is different.
Following a competitive selection process, BFE delivers a rich learning experience through individual efforts, collaborative teamwork, personalized feedback, coaching, curated readings, and most importantly doing — shipping new ideas and experiments to market every week — ensuring you leave the course with a foundation of new skills and a body of work to build upon.
Course outline
Week 1: Define your Ikigai (your reason for being)
Week 2: Determine where to plant your flag(s)
Week 3: Identify target audience and content channels
Week 4: Determine success criteria and construct content hypotheses
Week 5: Design experiments to test your content hypotheses
Week 6: Synthesize data from experiments and pivot/kill/persevere your hypotheses
Week 7: Refine experiments and focus on next level of platform investment
Week 8: Identify and build outreach plan for secondary reach/revenue streams
Week 9: Synthesize results from secondary outreach work and determine next steps
Week 10: Demo day — recap the program’s journey, growth, learnings and ongoing collaboration with cohort
During and in between each week’s session participants share back with each other, receive feedback, collaborate and grow their network and learning together.
You will walk away with a portfolio of work that reflects your story, the ‘flag’ you’ve chosen to plant and a roadmap for building your thought leadership platform that starts driving opportunities to you over a 6-12 month period.
LEARN FROM THOSE WHO HAVE BECOME FOREVER EMPLOYABLE
Jeff Gothelf has learned how to become forever employable. In the BFE program, he challenges you to build a new ‘project’ every week, ship it, measure its results, and learn how to continuously improve your presence, relevance, impact and worth in the market.
COACHING
With small cohorts, Jeff is able to pay attention to each student and the work they create.
“A fantastic way to absorb wisdom from a highly experienced world class performer. I now have an immediate action plan for myself personally and professionally and also a better idea on how to navigate the rest of my life. Purpose and fulfillment are closer thanks to Jeff.”
— Rory Simpson, Chief Executive Learning Officer, Telefonica
LEARN BY DOING
In each weekly session we share resources, videos, articles, guest speakers and books. Specifically, we will provide:
- Templates for you to use so you don’t have to start from scratch
- Books to read that supplement our curriculum.
- Videos that show what good thought leadership looks like
- Guest speakers who bring diverse perspectives on monetizing expertise.
Transparency is one of our core values. Students will share their work with their cohort as well as more broadly with the full BFE student community to receive critique, learn and improve.
10-week intensive program done completely online
Launch at least one project or experiment every week, learn from last week’s work and iterate your tactics with direct coaching for improved results.
Intimate learning experience with your dedicated coach — Jeff Gothelf
Weekly cohort meetings for discussion, sharing, feedback and collaboration
Our curriculum is hands-on. More than 75% of your time is dedicated to shipping your work—content experiments that allow you to apply what you learn. Tuition is $3,495 and we offer interest-free payment plans to spread the cost over 6 months.
This is not a passive course. There will be homework, group work and active participation is required. If this sounds like you, we invite you to apply.
Questions? Email us and we’ll get right back to you.
Frequently asked questions (and answers!)
Who will be in my cohort?
While each cohort will have a unique group, our goal is to create diverse groups of design and product professionals with broad experience to share and learn from each other.
Is Jeff Gothelf actually participating in the live sessions or will there be a surrogate?
Each live session will be lead by Jeff Gothelf. That said, some sessions may also have additional guest speakers and teachers to share a broader perspective on the topic being taught that week.
$3,495 seems like a lot. Are there payment plan options?
Yes! Students can opt to pay in either 2 installments, one upon acceptance and one before the cohort starts, or you can choose to spread the cost of the course out over 6 monthly, interest-free payments. Just let us know which option you’d prefer when you apply.
What if I’m unhappy with the course?
We want you to be happy and more than that, we want you to be successful. If the course isn’t living up to your expectations and you’d like a refund, just ask.
How quickly should I expect to see results from the course?
Ideally, we start to see traction during the course itself. The reality though is that this process takes time, persistence and hustle. The experiments we build and launch during the course will inform every subsequent action you take. Within 2-3 months after completing the course we expect you to see a significant bump in your online presence, influence and inbound lead generation.
