Its that time of the year again huh. The times for unfilled news years aspirations.
If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)
51–60 of 270 posts
Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)
#52I planned to get out of my current company and stop wasting my life two years ago. The job market and my visa status meant that it's either impossible or I need to make significant sacrifices. So that's life.
Wondering if working as a contractor is any different. you won't stay longer than 6-12 months on a project and you can safely say goodbye without having to explain a gap in your resume
Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)
#53My favorite lens on this comes from Hamming: > It is well known the drunken sailor whos taggers to the left or right n independent random steps will, on the average, end up about sqrt(n) steps from the origin. But if there is a pretty girl in one direction, then his steps will tend to go in that direction and he will go a distance proportional to n. In a lifetime of many, many independent choices, small and large, a…
I think the beauty of this quote is working more than its content. Most people, even when they do not sit down and think about it, follow one of the two career paths: - Some people will actively pursue the next logical progression (senior, lead/manager, head/vp, exec). - Some will happily stay in their position unless the next one is offered to them. Being deliberate will always work better compared to being random,…
> would even guess that for the vast majority of successful careers, competency and luck played a much bigger role than being deliberate about it.
I think this is true. I had a while where my career was doing really well constant steps up, I was learning, getting promoted, was working on great projects and problems that were engaging and led to easy promotions. Then I got a new manager and it was downhill. Then I got a new job and the problems are insignificant and there's no room for growth of any kind. If my latest job was earlier in my career my career would be very different.
Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)
#54Also see Feedback Analysis, by Peter Drucker from Managing Oneself - https://hbr.org/2005/01/managing-oneself
Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)
#55The main thing missing from this IMO is an element of chance or randomness, the ability to incorporate “unknown unknowns” into your life. The most interesting people I’ve come across have had a variety of jobs, many of which they knew absolutely nothing about when starting out. There is a genuine value add when you’ve worked beyond the same white collar profession your entire working career. In other words, the probl…
In a society where everything needs to be optimal, randomness is seen as a mistake.
Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)
#56My favorite lens on this comes from Hamming: > It is well known the drunken sailor whos taggers to the left or right n independent random steps will, on the average, end up about sqrt(n) steps from the origin. But if there is a pretty girl in one direction, then his steps will tend to go in that direction and he will go a distance proportional to n. In a lifetime of many, many independent choices, small and large, a…
Ok but how do you know that the pretty girl isn't a succubus?
That's just a bonus.
Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)
#57My favorite lens on this comes from Hamming: > It is well known the drunken sailor whos taggers to the left or right n independent random steps will, on the average, end up about sqrt(n) steps from the origin. But if there is a pretty girl in one direction, then his steps will tend to go in that direction and he will go a distance proportional to n. In a lifetime of many, many independent choices, small and large, a…
I have generally had strong vision in my career but this year due to external forces at play at work I have been much more reactive to the chaos and generally felt off the whole year, this was a nice mental model to step through, liked the visualization.
Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)
#58The main thing missing from this IMO is an element of chance or randomness, the ability to incorporate “unknown unknowns” into your life. The most interesting people I’ve come across have had a variety of jobs, many of which they knew absolutely nothing about when starting out. There is a genuine value add when you’ve worked beyond the same white collar profession your entire working career. In other words, the probl…
>The main thing missing from this IMO is an element of chance or randomness, the ability to incorporate “unknown unknowns” into your life.
100% this. When I started working in recruitment, it was literally intended to be a temporary means to an end. I stumbled across Hacker News back in 2010 and accidentally uncovered a niche (tech startups) that has resulted in a career where over the past 15 years has evolved into holding VP level roles at YC startups to now running my own successful recruitment and HR advisory business for startups. I can legitimately attribute that entire path and growth to accidentally stumbling across this website and couldn't possibly have guessed the impact it would ultimately have on my career.
Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)
#59“The crime which bankrupts men and nations is that of turning aside from one’s main purpose to serve a job here and there.”
As a former career contractor who took probably 7 commercial jobs I didn’t care about for every 1 creative job I wanted to do but for which I was underpaid, this feels deeply true.
Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)
#60The main thing missing from this IMO is an element of chance or randomness, the ability to incorporate “unknown unknowns” into your life. The most interesting people I’ve come across have had a variety of jobs, many of which they knew absolutely nothing about when starting out. There is a genuine value add when you’ve worked beyond the same white collar profession your entire working career. In other words, the probl…
In a society where everything needs to be optimal, randomness is seen as a mistake.
Yeah and even if you’re totally uninterested in “having an interesting life” and just want to maximize income/job prospects, I think you can make the argument that a little bit of randomness is actually the optimal path because it increases your luck surface area.
For example - working in a well-rated fine dining restaurant over a summer while you’re studying computer science seems totally unrelated and not optimal. But maybe that unique experience is what stands out on your resume, and maybe the knowledge about wine or food you acquired there builds a connection with an investor or manager, years down the line.