I have a thought on this. It related to the level of effort from the advice giver, and the willingness to understand the recipient’s context. Often advice is given with only a few seconds of effort, or with the giver applying a sort of cookie-cutter template to their understanding of the recipient. That is when useless advice comes from. When the giver dedicates some time minutes toward understanding and exploring the receiver’s context, toward actually paying attention, then the advice is able to be of much better quality.
This is specifically fresh in my mind because a few days ago I helped John Doe review his resume. John told me that I was not the first person to help, several other people had looked at his resume and told him that is was pretty good. But I did more than merely glance at his resume; I read through it with a critical eye. I had a page full of notes for him. Some of the notes were preference/stylistic things, but plenty of the notes were ‘errors’ that other people hadn’t bothered to notice: the text used two different shades of dark blue, there was inconsistent formatting in the dates. John was amazed that multiple people had reviewed his resume, and nobody had noticed or bothered to tell him that he was using two different colors (it was not intentional on his part to use two different colors).
In contrast, I’ve heard and (heard of) plenty of career advice within EA that simply isn’t apt. Recommending a recipient with no interest in an area to pursue that area, or ignoring a recipient’s visa/legal status, ignoring a recipient’s financial constraints, etc. I was once told to treat people to coffee and to use my parents’ professional networks. Both of those things are true in general, but I don’t live within a hundred miles of a place where I could treat networking contacts to coffee, and my retired working class parents don’t have professional networks. It reminds me a little bit of trying to try; how much effort do people actually put into the act of giving helpful advice.
I have a thought on this. It related to the level of effort from the advice giver, and the willingness to understand the recipient’s context. Often advice is given with only a few seconds of effort, or with the giver applying a sort of cookie-cutter template to their understanding of the recipient. That is when useless advice comes from. When the giver dedicates some time minutes toward understanding and exploring the receiver’s context, toward actually paying attention, then the advice is able to be of much better quality.
This is specifically fresh in my mind because a few days ago I helped John Doe review his resume. John told me that I was not the first person to help, several other people had looked at his resume and told him that is was pretty good. But I did more than merely glance at his resume; I read through it with a critical eye. I had a page full of notes for him. Some of the notes were preference/stylistic things, but plenty of the notes were ‘errors’ that other people hadn’t bothered to notice: the text used two different shades of dark blue, there was inconsistent formatting in the dates. John was amazed that multiple people had reviewed his resume, and nobody had noticed or bothered to tell him that he was using two different colors (it was not intentional on his part to use two different colors).
In contrast, I’ve heard and (heard of) plenty of career advice within EA that simply isn’t apt. Recommending a recipient with no interest in an area to pursue that area, or ignoring a recipient’s visa/legal status, ignoring a recipient’s financial constraints, etc. I was once told to treat people to coffee and to use my parents’ professional networks. Both of those things are true in general, but I don’t live within a hundred miles of a place where I could treat networking contacts to coffee, and my retired working class parents don’t have professional networks. It reminds me a little bit of trying to try; how much effort do people actually put into the act of giving helpful advice.