Good article, reflects my experience hiring at a small services firm, too.
One thing I'd add re: "non-obviousness." There are also tarpits; people who make you think "I can't believe my luck! How has the market missed someone this good!?" At this point, I have enough scar tissue that I immediately doubt my first instinct here. If someone is amazing on paper/in interviews and they aren't working somewhere more prestigious than my corner of the industry, there is often some mitigating factor: an abrasive personality, an uncanny ability to talk technically about systems they can't actually implement, a tendency to disappear from time to time. For these candidates, I try to focus the rest of the interview process on clearing all possible risks and identifying any mitigating factors we may have missed while getting the candidate excited to work with us assuming everything comes back clean.
Great point, definitely a possibility. I think I've gotten lucky in the past here where either the process caught that kind of abnormality early in the funnel, or these folks just happened to actually be super early in their careers and just hadn't had anybody take a chance on them.
Do you find that in the tarpit scenario they will typically have a work history hinting at these quirks?
Thanks for writing this. As an IC, I read this more from a perspective of "how can I be better at my job and derive more satisfaction from work".
Personally, I think my biggest gaps are around "hunger" and "agency"... I have these things at times, sporadically, but I have difficulty sustaining them long enough to become a really high performer at most jobs. Eventually I get kind of burnt out and stop really giving my all, then transition to something else within a year or so.
I have a high-pedigree CV, so people generally want to hire me, but I often don't live up to their expectations because of this.
So hard to say in abstract without knowing more. I always wonder if this is something you can fix through process and habits, or if this is something you just need to feel intensely first, and only then will the right behaviors will emerge.
For example, if you're feeling comfortable and handsomely compensated at your current job, and you have the sense of security that you'll keep being hired forever, why would you burn the midnight oil and go the extra mile? Is your lifestyle going to change at all if you get to that next level? You might work longer hours, experience more anxiety and stress, and get barely any upside in return.
My hunch is that the human brain is efficient. It won't make you work any harder than you need to if you have obtained the thing you already want.
Maybe the real question here is whether you truly desire to be this aspirational high-performer, or if that's an idea you're romanticizing, something you feel you should aspire to, but you don't genuinely crave it. You end up fighting between the idealized you and the practical you. Which may explain why you're burning out and losing steam eventually, you can only force yourself to do something you don't feel like doing for so long before the body rebels.
Thanks, this might come in handy. Currently, 4 years in the business. Working for an S&P500 company at the moment, but I am considering running my own thing or joining a startup as the next stop.
I would love to learn if many of these ideas are applicable in the S&P500 world, and if not, why that is the case. A little outside of my first-hand experience for me to have an opinion there.
Centigonal|1 month ago
One thing I'd add re: "non-obviousness." There are also tarpits; people who make you think "I can't believe my luck! How has the market missed someone this good!?" At this point, I have enough scar tissue that I immediately doubt my first instinct here. If someone is amazing on paper/in interviews and they aren't working somewhere more prestigious than my corner of the industry, there is often some mitigating factor: an abrasive personality, an uncanny ability to talk technically about systems they can't actually implement, a tendency to disappear from time to time. For these candidates, I try to focus the rest of the interview process on clearing all possible risks and identifying any mitigating factors we may have missed while getting the candidate excited to work with us assuming everything comes back clean.
akurilin|1 month ago
Do you find that in the tarpit scenario they will typically have a work history hinting at these quirks?
titanomachy|1 month ago
Personally, I think my biggest gaps are around "hunger" and "agency"... I have these things at times, sporadically, but I have difficulty sustaining them long enough to become a really high performer at most jobs. Eventually I get kind of burnt out and stop really giving my all, then transition to something else within a year or so.
I have a high-pedigree CV, so people generally want to hire me, but I often don't live up to their expectations because of this.
Any tips on how to cultivate these traits?
akurilin|1 month ago
For example, if you're feeling comfortable and handsomely compensated at your current job, and you have the sense of security that you'll keep being hired forever, why would you burn the midnight oil and go the extra mile? Is your lifestyle going to change at all if you get to that next level? You might work longer hours, experience more anxiety and stress, and get barely any upside in return.
My hunch is that the human brain is efficient. It won't make you work any harder than you need to if you have obtained the thing you already want.
Maybe the real question here is whether you truly desire to be this aspirational high-performer, or if that's an idea you're romanticizing, something you feel you should aspire to, but you don't genuinely crave it. You end up fighting between the idealized you and the practical you. Which may explain why you're burning out and losing steam eventually, you can only force yourself to do something you don't feel like doing for so long before the body rebels.
unknown|1 month ago
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kekqqq|1 month ago
akurilin|1 month ago