ABOUT

Alexander Gaeta-Troutner (born 1996 in Las Vegas, Nevada) is an American labor analyst, economic commentator, and content creator. He is best known as the creator of the Urgently Firing channel on YouTube and as the author of the Zero Weeks’ Notice newsletter.

Alexander began researching, consulting, and teaching about the job market in 2017. Prior to going independent, he served as an Executive Board Member for the Utah Career Development Association, as a Career Specialist, Instructor, and Employer Relations Manager for Utah State University, and received numerous research grants and awards for his contributions to workforce development.

CAREER

Alexander’s career in job market analysis began in 2017.

After several years of working blue-collar jobs to pay his way through college, he became a Peer Advisor in the Career Services office at Utah State University. There, he reviewed student resumes, helped organize on-campus career fairs, and collected employment outcomes data for NACE’s First-Destination Survey.

Upon graduation, he received 2 full-ride endowments to research and teach at the University of Nevada, Reno. At UNR, Alexander researched the evolution of tech sector job markets in North America and East Asia, and served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for classes on Economic History.

In 2020, pandemic-related lockdowns and budget cuts forced Alexander to depart from UNR prior to the completion of his master’s degree.

Returning to Utah, he began managing rural workforce development for Cache County School District under the GEAR UP Grant. In that role, he ensured that rural, low-income high school students had access to vocational training, full-time employment, and/or higher education upon graduation.

At the end of that grant, Alexander was recruited back to Utah State University to serve as their Interim Employer Relations Manager during a 9-month gap in Career Services leadership. In that role, he managed all employer partnerships, internship postings, and on-campus hiring events under the direction of the Executive Vice Provost.

Once those vacant leadership positions were filled, he transitioned into a Career Specialist and Instructor role within the newly-named USU Career Design Center.

During his professional tenure at USU, Alexander provided career services to over 8,000 Engineering majors via 1:1 career coaching, guest lectures, and on-campus hiring events.

As a Career Specialist, he conducted over 700 career coaching appointments, reviewed over 1,400 professional resumes, gave over 100 guest lectures, organized over 40 on-campus career fairs, and helped bring over 1,600 companies to recruit students on Utah State’s campus.

As an Instructor, Alexander taught ISTU 3010 “Career Exploration and Design” every Fall, Spring, and Summer semester to over 700 students, serving as the capstone course for the Integrated Studies major at USU. He also developed curriculum for 5 other career literacy courses at the university, and for the award-winning online modules, “Career Tutorials for Students.”

As part of the broader professional and academic community, Alexander served as a Co-Chair for the USU Internship Coordinator Council, a Co-Chair for the USU Career Champions Program, and on several committees for the Mountain Pacific Association of Colleges and Employers.

In 2024, he was recruited to serve as an Executive Board Member for the Utah Career Development Association. In that role, he consulted Utah’s politicians, business leaders, university partners, and vocational programs on how to respond to changing labor conditions in the Intermountain West.

In late 2025, Alexander left his role in Higher Education to become independent and pursue content creation full-time, now managing the Urgently Firing channel on YouTube and the Zero Weeks’ Notice newsletter on Substack.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

In 2024, Alexander served as a Co-Collaborator on a $1M National Science Foundation grant for BioTech Workforce Development.

In 2024, Alexander was invited to serve on the Executive Board of the Utah Career Development Association.

In 2023, Alexander’s team received the national “Career Innovation Award” from the Career Leadership Collective for their development of “Career Tutorials for Students,” a series of online career literacy modules.

In 2023, Alexander was named one of Utah State University’s “50 Influential Aggies” for significantly scaling students’ access to internships and in-person hiring events.

In 2019, Alexander received the Wilbur S. Shepperson and James Hulse Endowments in History from the University of Nevada, Reno to research the evolution of tech sector job markets.

EDUCATION

Alexander pursued a master’s degree in History (with an emphasis in Economic History) from the University of Nevada, Reno, which was ultimately cut short due to pandemic-related budget cuts.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies from Utah State University.

In high school, Alexander received scholarships to do summer college programs at George Mason University in Washington, DC. There, he received college credit in American Intelligence, Diplomacy, and Defense (which were transferred to USU), and was chosen to represent Nevadan youth at the 2013 Presidential Inaugural Gala.