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I can check off the boxes in the "Is building prestige worthwhile for you?" list for the segment of companies that I care about. (Not huge ones.) I've done a l
by throwaway_08932 3y ago
I can check off the boxes in the "Is building prestige worthwhile for you?" list for the segment of companies that I care about. (Not huge ones.)
I've done a lot of "public prestige building." But the things that actually got me to this point, quickly, were:
1. Being close to the money within the companies I worked at
2. Keeping up a habit of meeting and talking to people 1-1
I realized about five years ago that I enjoy meeting people 1-1 much more than publicly writing and speaking. You can say things a lot more honestly 1-1 without worrying about who might see it one day, and it makes me feel better than trying to turn myself into a public spectacle.
With folks getting much more comfortable meeting remotely, this has become even easier. I've met some great folks who I now have outside-of-work relationships with as well. Usually all it takes is asking someone if they'd like to meet again in three months or so; and, after a couple of these, asking them if there's someone they wouldn't mind introducing on a no-agenda basis.
I also genuinely don't have an agenda for this, other than that I like meeting people.
However, I also find this opening statement telling:
> Most months I get at least one email from an engineering leader who believes they’d be a candidate for significantly more desirable roles if their personal brand were just better known.
Most of us are bad at self-introspecting about our careers. I suspect a lot of the folks thinking this way need more than brand recognition, because this perspective (to me) would be a potential sign of lack of maturity that I would want in a senior leader. (This is a complex topic, and one that I think needs to be handled on case-by-case basis rather than recommending general approaches.)
- zwieback 3y agoAgree and in addition to enjoying meeting and working with people 1-1 I found that the single most effective thing I've done in my career is trying to help people solve their problems. This may appear counterintuitive in early career but it pays off massive dividends. Especially if you're not job-hopping anymore and have maybe settled down in a longer-term position. A lot of the people I've helped or cooperated with are now managers that remember working with me and even though I've stayed an individual contributor I have a lot of leverage.
- throwaway_08932 3y agoDefinitely. It can help a lot to get to know the details of what's going on and try to make things happen that improve the situation, rather than taking sides. There's a lot of knee-jerk fear reactions that people have to things that have never even happened to them, and they miss the details because of it. And sometimes, the people around the problems just refuse to collaborate. In those situations, I try my best for a bit, and then go look for something else. We only have so much time and energy, and we already inherit enough intractable problems that "must" be solved to go looking for more.
- chatmasta 3y agoThis is really a question of depth vs. breadth. Focusing on cultivating individual relationships is building depth of connections and experience, as any one of them will happily assist or recommend you. Focusing on prestige is building breadth because your brands can open doors to external people who haven't met you but see the brand as a proxy for some metric they're evaluating. While balancing the two of them is important, personally I'd prioritize building depth over breadth whenever I have the choice. You can only trade off your brand for so long. Shallow connections are good for bouncing between networks and climbing ladders, but eventually you'll need depth. Also, I'd rather work with people who value depth over those who treat shallow brand associations as a reliable proxy for qualities they find important in people with whom they work. Also IMO, in general, thinking about this kind of stuff is revelatory of a transactional attitude that many will find offputting.
- chrisweekly 3y ago"The best way to get what you want is to help other people get what they want." - provenance forgotten
- JohnFen 3y agoI think this is the primary key to all the success I've ever had, both professionally and personally. I usually say it a bit differently, though: "You get what you give", which has the advantage of also capturing the flip side of that coin.
- 3y ago
- Yhippa 3y ago> 1. Being close to the money within the companies I worked at This is the #1 bit of advice I give to people if they ask for it about jobs at companies.
- cas2325 3y agoCould you elaborate a bit on what this means?
- cbau 3y agoThere's usually a team that is directly responsible for the part of the product that generates revenue, and management loves them. Every other team is basically just support and may be necessary but they don't get as much attention.
- esafak 3y ago'coz companies are not good at estimating and attributing added value. It's genuinely hard.
- scottshamus 3y agoWork on revenue-generating projects/products. When push comes to shove, cost centers are cut first. If you work on search ads at Google, you have a lot of job security. I wouldn’t want to work on customer support tools there…
- JohnFen 3y agoThat's a valid approach. Another valid approach is to make sure that you're eminently hireable instead of worrying about corporate politics or job security. If you're that, then leaving a company (voluntarily or otherwise) is no big deal because you can always get job elsewhere.
- macintux 3y agoDuring a significant economic downturn, with lots of layoffs, there are no shortage of eminently hireable people who are still not hired.