I’m rejecting the career ladder metaphor in favor of the career river. Here’s why:
1. The ultimate goal of the career ladder is: reach the top.
The ultimate goal of the career river is: reach your ocean - a thriving, wide-open ecosystem fed by other rivers to explore. /
When I was at Google, my very first promotion from Eng 1 to Eng 2 got rejected after 2 years in the role. The feedback from the promo committee was “work on more impactful projects”. I was disappointed, but I also learned that “I’ll just do what I’m told and I’ll get promoted” is simply not true. I needed to rethink my approach.
Impact is so much more important than doing your job right. Based on a LinkedIn post by Irina Stanescu
Obama's career advice for young people --
Just learn how to get stuff done. What I mean by that is I've seen at every level people who are very good at describing problems, people who are very sophisticated at explaining why something went wrong or why something can't get fixed. But, what I’m always looking for is,... See more