Let's talk about an unbeatable combo of just two things: Skills and Connectedness.
Skills are important, but they aren’t really that rare. They're table stakes for any decent job.
The real career catapulting happens when connectedness is layered on top of skills.
Within the overlap of skills and connectedness exists a fortune of possibility. Learning, excitement, fun, and financial abundance.
The biggest problem I see in the current landscape of jobseekers is a complete lack of connectedness. Scan LinkedIn for 5 minutes and you will see a snapshot of this:
Candidate lives in Timbuktu. Applies for 756 jobs. Cannot fathom that there would be any other frontrunners besides him. Cannot process the reality of being “rejected” for all 756 of them. Takes it personally. Blames the recruiter. The job market. The government. Writes an angry post about it. Can’t find any fault with himself. Points to his “qualifications”. Gets praise in the comments, tens of thousands of reactions. Yet the green banner remains.
This whole situation is normal and expected for 90% of candidates. Most people are looking for sympathy and engagement, not a big new challenge.
But for high caliber candidates like you, different story. No truly excellent candidate should be applying to hundreds of jobs. They should have job possibilities swirling all around them. Their whole existence should be planted firmly in the worlds where those possibilities abound. Geographically, spiritually, socially. They should be confronted by opportunity on a daily basis.
Are there injustices occurring rampantly in the job marketplace? Yes. Are recruiters mostly self serving and discourteous? Yes. Do companies take ridiculously impractical approaches to hiring? Yes.
But these are all just convenient distractions from the real problem. The real problem is that on an island, excellence starves. The solution is connectedness.
Everybody wants a resume makeover. It's a low-hanging fruit; a way to increase your odds from the comfort of your own couch. But fortune doesn't visit you on the couch. The people handing out opportunities give them to people they hang out with in real life.
Career excellence is a result of desire meeting environment. You might not immediately know how to be excellent, but if you desire it and then place yourself amidst it, only two things can happen:
A) You rise to the level of your new environment, or B) you don’t.
If you ever feel scarcity of opportunity in your life, think about new environments. Think about connectedness and the many different ways it can be cultivated:
You might need to level up your social circle. Go to an office. Co-work with enthusiasts. Get some coaching. Move somewhere else. Pursue a hobby. Learn how to learn. Switch careers. Write a newsletter about architecture. Start freelancing. Become an olive oil expert. Start a whisky club.
If no one is throwing the party you want to attend, throw it yourself. Find a way to get around people who have what you want; who live the way you want to live.
You have excellence within you, and it will emerge when you connect yourself to an environment that demands it.
