Nice, I think this is a great perspective. One comment on “becoming known”: I used to think trying to become well known was mostly zero-sum—you’re just competing against other candidates for a fixed pool of jobs and marketing yourself to beat them. That’s definitely part of the story, but it misses a key positive sum benefit of becoming better known.
Employers have a pessimistic prior on job applicants and struggle to tell whether someone is truly excellent, so making your skills legible (e.g. by writing in public, getting credentials building relationships with domain experts who can vouch for you) allows employers to hire you when they otherwise wouldn’t have the confidence to hire anyone. From the perspective of an employer, one candidate known to be very good is often better than a bunch of candidates who might have better skills in expectation but whose skills are extremely difficult to verify, because you can actually hire the first person whereas you might not be able to make a hire from the second pool.
Nice, I think this is a great perspective. One comment on “becoming known”: I used to think trying to become well known was mostly zero-sum—you’re just competing against other candidates for a fixed pool of jobs and marketing yourself to beat them. That’s definitely part of the story, but it misses a key positive sum benefit of becoming better known.
Employers have a pessimistic prior on job applicants and struggle to tell whether someone is truly excellent, so making your skills legible (e.g. by writing in public, getting credentials building relationships with domain experts who can vouch for you) allows employers to hire you when they otherwise wouldn’t have the confidence to hire anyone. From the perspective of an employer, one candidate known to be very good is often better than a bunch of candidates who might have better skills in expectation but whose skills are extremely difficult to verify, because you can actually hire the first person whereas you might not be able to make a hire from the second pool.