Tag: jobs

What Homeschoolers and Startups Know About Learning…

Check out this post on the Praxis blog, where I make the case that homeschoolers and self-directed learners already embody the learning style that is the future of hiring and professional development.

From the post:

“Classrooms don’t prepare young people for success in life and career.  They’re slow, expensive, often boring, the incentives are all wrong, the setting is dull, customization is almost non-existent, and lack of real choice means peers and professors alike aren’t the most valuable people to add to your personal network.

Home educators and self-directed learners know this.  They eschew the conveyor belt approach to education.  They step out of the classroom and into the world.  They understand that real learning is a lot more fun, varied, and valuable than chasing the same paper as everyone else.”

I share the three things that homeschooling an apprenticeships have in common:

  • Interest vs. credentials
  • Doing vs. memorizing
  • Being around vs. reading about

Check out the post.  It’s good.

Sixteen Big Myths About College and Success in Your Early 20’s

I don’t normally write long posts, but it needed to be done.

Over at the Praxis blog I address just about every stupid bit of advice young people routinely get about their education, career, and future.

All these myths are based on the Conveyor Belt Mentality, which is as dangerous as it is dumb.

If you’ve heard any of these bits of advice about college or jobs it’s probably time to call bullshit and build better reasons for taking the path you choose…

  • “It’s worth it”
  • “It’s free so you can’t turn it down!”
  • “Only drop out if you have a billion dollar idea”
  • “You’re already this far, so it only makes sense to finish.”
  • “Don’t burn any bridges.  Keep your options open.”
  • “Build your resume”
  • “Follow the rules”
  • “Pick a good major. Pick a growing industry”
  • “It will be good to have just in case”
  • “Find companies with job openings and apply”
  • “Get qualified and certified so you can do X”
  • “Get a good starting salary”
  • “Get something with your degree”
  • “Make your parents proud”
  • “Earn and invest your money”
  • “Get a job with a good future”

Read the full post with my explanation for why the above are false here.  Then share it with a young person in your life.

 

Five Steps to Epiphany

Over at the Praxis blog, I challenge anyone interested in education, entrepreneurship, career success, wealth, happiness, or personal growth to read five books this summer.

Each book is described with an endorsement from someone in the Praxis network.  Check out the article.

The books are:

  1. The Education of Millionaires
  2. The End of Jobs
  3. The Last Safe Investment
  4. Zero to One
  5. How to Find Fulfilling Work

See the full text for details and links to the books.

In Less Than One Year Get a Startup Job at $40k – No Degree Required

Learn more at Praxis!

The idea that you should spend four years and six figures in classrooms, shielded from the real world of opportunity, and cross your fingers and hope it gets you some kind of job is absurd.It’s time for a new era in education and career.  If you’re good you can prove it in the market without going into debt or dying of boredom.

That’s why we created Praxis, and that’s why we’re making it better every day.

Over at the Praxis blog is a description of current opportunities with business partners in Austin, Atlanta, Charleston, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, and San Francisco where we’re placing participants.  If you get in, you not only get paid to apprentice there, you get a job at $40k+ when you graduate.

From the post:

“Participants accepted into the Praxis program get an intense bootcamp where they gain the skills needed to succeed in their careers.  After the bootcamp they begin a paid apprenticeship with one of our business partners.  These aren’t dull corporate internships.  These are dynamic startups and small businesses where participants get a chance to create real value and do real work.  Entrepreneurship is the most valuable skill in the emerging economy, and there’s no better classroom than alongside entrepreneurs in the real world to learn it.

While apprenticing, participants get weekly coaching, access to a rich resource library, tailored modules to improve hard and soft skills, a world-class network, and a portfolio to showcase their work.

Upon completion of the program, graduates get hired full time with their business partner at a minimum of $40k/year.

That means in less than a year and at zero cost you begin your career.  No debt.  No wasted time.  No blasting out resumes to jobs you’d hate.  No fretting over GPA’s for four years just hoping it results in a job.  You join an amazing team doing meaningful work immediately.

Here are some of our current business partner opportunities, and we’re adding all the time…”

Check out the post to see what kind of companies we’re placing participants with.

A great career won’t come from classrooms or generic resume blasts.  It will come from you taking charge and going out and building the mix of experience, knowledge, network, skills, and confidence that can only come from working with dynamic people in real companies.

Applications are now open.

 

Stop Telling Good Arguers to Become Lawyers

I’ve met a lot of bright young people planning on law school or in law school.

I’ve also met a lot of unhappy lawyers.

I suspect lots of these young people will end up unhappy lawyers too, and I’ve got a theory as to why.

Lawyers are often “successful” in terms of external indicators and cultural prestige.  They tend to make good money and are held in esteem (lawyer jokes notwithstanding).  And, of course, lawyering is a perfect fit for some people.  I know some very happy lawyers.

But it seems a large percentage of the profession consists of unhappy people.  People who don’t particularly enjoy doing divorce or merger and acquisition paperwork.  Many who wish they could escape.

How did they end up there in the first place?

Because the educational conveyor belt doesn’t know what else to do with truth-seekers.

Everyone is motivated by a lot of things.  But most of us have one core value that, when push comes to shove, trumps the rest.  For some it may be freedom, for others security, adventure, or in the case of many an unhappy lawyer, truth.

Those whose dominant core value is truth are rather relentless.  They’re smart.  They like to argue, and they tend to argue well.  They want to get to the bottom of things.  They want to find the right answers.  They want correct facts and knowledge of right and wrong.  They are willing to examine and explore multiple sides of issues and ideas in the process.

Similar to those whose highest value is independence, they’re comfortable questioning authority.  But the freedom-seekers tend to be more willing to disobey or ignore the rewards and punishments of the education system.  They might rebel against assignments or good grades.  Truth-seekers on the other hand, though happy to question the status quo, are typically comfortable following basic rules and getting good grades as well.  They see winning at the grade system as a way of finding whatever truth is to be found there.

Herein lies the problem, and the beginning of their disproportionate and often unfortunate pursuit of careers in law.  The school system doesn’t know what else to do with them.

There are few ways to channel their truth-seeking desires in school.  There’s little in the way of philosophy, history doesn’t do as much debating as fact-spitting, and even the sciences pre-graduate level don’t really spend time questioning anything fundamental.

What’s left?  Debate and forensics.  Truth-seekers do well here.  They love it.  Most high school debaters will tell you it was the absolute highlight of their educational experience.  They finally got to question everything, look at all sides of issues, argue without being offensive or reprimanded.  And they got to “win”.

Parents and teachers of young truth-seekers are so conditioned with the conveyor belt mindset that they struggle to see beyond an easily identifiable handful of job titles.  The work/identity trap is also strong, so whatever junior likes must immediately be mapped onto a business card.  A focus on external indicators of success furthers the tendency.  The common refrain for young debaters is, “You’re always arguing.  You should be a lawyer!”  What other possible avenues for all this truth-seeking could there be?

“I get to search for the truth?  I get to debate it?  I get to make everyone proud of a prestigious career?  I get to make good money?  Yeah, I guess I do need to go to law school!”

So lots of them do.

And lots of them end up wishing they hadn’t.  They find out too late that most lawyer jobs have little to do with truth-seeking.  The law itself isn’t primarily about truth, and most law jobs are even less so.  They’re about navigating bureaucracy and nearly impenetrable wordplay to help people do very simple tasks like buy and sell things, move money, end or begin professional or personal relationships, or draft up “just in case” language.  It’s a fundamentally conservative endeavor, concerned with protection from liability more than the caution-to-the-wind pursuit of truth that landed them there.

Law requires attention to detail, a high degree of literacy, and plenty of patience and problem solving.  Those things are perfect for some people.  But those whose core value is truth aren’t often among them.

Because their desire for truth was so quickly tracked and careerified, they never had the chance to explore.  Law school is particularly problematic then, because of its astronomical price tag.  Upon completion, more doors have been closed than opened.  There are only so many jobs that pay enough to service the debt.  And by now they’re closer to marriage, kids, and other financial obligations that make lower starting pay gigs tougher.  After law school, they kind of feel like they have to be a lawyer, even if it doesn’t scratch the itch for truth.

A decade later and the debt burden might be gone, but the golden handcuffs replace it.  Quality of life seems locked in.  Mortgages, cars, schools, and prestige can’t easily be downgraded, even if they are unhappy most of the day most days.  It’s lifestyle slavery, and it kind of sucks.

Where else might these truth-seekers have gone with their passion?  Perhaps philosophy.  Not just in the academic sense, which often comes with its own bureaucracy and BS, but more generally.  It’s true, you can be a philosopher and a lawyer or a philosopher and a great many other things.  Your source of income and who you are need not be the same.  Seeking, writing, researching, fact-finding, and questioning are such general and generally valuable traits that a true philosopher can apply them in myriad careers.  But law is a career that makes being defined by anything else particularly hard.

How many authors, podcasters, coaches, mentors, counselors, investigative reporters, or entrepreneurs are at bottom truth-seekers?  Truth as a core value is applicable in a great many areas.  Most of all, someone with the freedom to follow their passion for truth is likely to discover or create a career we can’t even yet imagine.  Sadly, the school conveyor belt tends to corral more than its fair share into law.

So here’s the takeaway: Stop telling good arguers to become lawyers.

Let them explore the world fully and freely.  Let them try a lot of stuff.  Let them follow their questions.  If after real exposure to the day to day reality a career in law appeals to them, great.  They’ll choose law school.  But don’t obsess about placing them on a list of predefined career categories and channeling their core values into it before they know what’s what.

I’m a parent.  I get it.  We worry how our kids will feed themselves and build a life.  If they love something, our mind immediately tries to formalize and monetize it.  My son loves video games and comics and superheroes, and more than once I’ve begun formulating ways to turn this interest into a career as a video game designer or illustrator and set him on that path now.

Fight that urge.  Open the world up to them, not just the few aspects of it that come with a title and salary today.  But everything that it is and could be tomorrow.

This leads to another good question…what are some other career tracks that young people with other core values get placed on too early?…

Be Your Own Credential

We talk a lot at Praxis about building a better signal than generic degrees and institutional imprimaturs.  Whether or not you have a degree, you need to learn to 1) create value and, 2) signal your ability to create value to the world.  Degrees are a very weak way to achieve either.  You need something more.

I got an email today from a guy who decided to put that advice into practice.  Check out what Daniel Myers had to say:

Hey Isaac,

You know how Praxis always talks about creating value? About taking the entrepreneurial route in your work? Well, I decided to do just that, by writing a 44-page report on business and entrepreneurship for a venture capitalist firm here in TN. I had read an article this past Fall on the Praxis website about value creation for a company instead of just shooting a CV/Resume out to everyone and expecting it to do all the work. This report has been well received by the public and has truly allowed me to create a name for myself, rather than just being another undergrad with “some resume”.

All this said, I want to thank all of you at Praxis for what you do. I am continually inspired by all of you at Praxis and hope you all continue to be successful in all your endeavors. Again, thank you for your inspiration!

Best, Daniel

P.S. I’m reading Derek’s book on “How to Get Any Job You Want“. It aligns perfectly with what I did and will continue to do in my career.

Here’s a link to Daniel’s report on startups in TN.

I don’t know how long it took for Daniel to put together such an in-depth report.  But compared to what?  How does time spent creating a valuable resource like that compare to time spent sitting in a classroom, blasting out generic resumes, or waiting and hoping for a cool opportunity?

Daniel gained not only a great signal of his value creating potential, but a lot of knowledge, skill, confidence, and even some free PR along the way.  In short, by creating value now instead of waiting to be invited to with a formal job offer, Daniel became more of who he wants to be, instead of waiting for someone to tell him what to do.

Go start building now.  What are you waiting for?  And of course, if you need some help, a great apprenticeship with an entrepreneur, and an intense year-long experience in value creation, discover Praxis.

The Secret Weapon Young People Have on the Job Market…

Nothing better to do.

The only things that matter when it comes to succeeding in the marketplace are:

  1. The ability to create value for others.
  2. The ability to persuade others of your value creation potential.

It’s not your school, your grades, your network, your knowledge or anything else you may have been told.  Those things are only useful insofar as they help you do #1 or #2.

This should be an empowering revelation.  Value creation opportunities abound.  Yet it often makes young people feel intimidated.  After years in classrooms acquiring few real-world skills and gaining knowledge that is basically an inferior version of what experts possess, how are they supposed to create value for anyone?

Here’s where the secret weapon comes in.

Value creation is not about having an absolute advantage over others at some activity.  It’s about having a comparative advantage.  This concept, popularized by David Ricardo a few hundred years ago, is a powerful tool to understand and seize opportunity as a young person.  It reveals the secret weapon called ‘nothing better to do.’

To have a comparative advantage at something simply requires that your opportunity cost is lower than others.  What you have to give up to engage in that activity is less valuable than what they have to give up.

Young people with few skills and little experience don’t have a lot of high value options for how to use their time, so their opportunity cost tends to be very low.  This makes their value creation potential high.

How does it work?

Imagine a CEO who is incredibly organized, detail-oriented, and something of a wizard at scheduling, logistics, travel planning, and utilizing all the best productivity apps and tools.  She’s many times better at this than an aspiring 18-year-old.  Yet for every hour she spends planning her travel and meetings, she gives up the ability to spend that hour selling a new client or planning the marketing expansion.  Those are high-value activities, say with the potential to bring in another $30,000 in revenue.  How much is excellent travel planning worth?  Something, but less than that.  Her opportunity cost is very high.

That 18-year-old, on the other hand, has nothing better to do.  Even if it took him three hours to do the travel planning she could do in one, he would be giving up a lot less.  He could no longer browse Facebook, read a textbook, watch Netflix, or play basketball.  There is nothing bad about those activities, but none of them likely have the potential to create $30,000 worth of value for him.

If our 18-year-old realizes this, he has a powerful weapon.  He can offer to take over scheduling for the CEO and free her up to do more valuable work.  She might be reticent because it’s possible that he could actually create more work if he’s really bad.  To reduce risk further, he can go all in and offer to do it for free and demonstrate his ability by planning one mock trip to show her.

This requires no special skills, just a touch of creativity, persistence, and Googling.  Yet if he lands the gig, even unpaid, he will be exposed to the world of a CEO and probably learn more in a month than he could in a year sitting in classrooms.  He can observe the company and identify other areas to create value – other areas where his opportunity cost is lower than others – and potentiall parlay this into a really cool role there or at another company.  Maybe he can even learn how to start his own.

So few young people try anything like this.  They’re stuck spending endless hours and countless dollars getting a piece of paper that makes them identical to every other young person.  They accumulate debt and expectations that make them feel the need to enter the professional world at a level of pay that, frankly, they can’t yet justify with their limited skill and experience.  They feel it would be beneath them, after getting an expensive degree, to work for free or low pay to get a foot in the door.  They are completely nuetralizing their greatest asset, their low opportunity cost.

If you’re young and have little in the way of monthly expenses or valuable opportunities in front of you, rejoice.  This means you can explore and test and try a great many things.  Your ability to create value is tremendous if you look for places where others have a high opportunity cost and you do not.

Get off the conveyor belt.  Break the mold.  Go do some cool stuff.

If you want a paid apprenticeship with an amazing entrepreneur + rigorous personal and professional development and coaching, check out discoverpraxis.com.

An Interview Question

A got an email survey recently asking what I thought it was an interesting question.

“If you could ask one question in an interview, what would it be?”

My response (maybe it would change if I thought more about it) below:

“What’s one thing you do better than anyone in the world?”

I think it reveals what level of self-knowledge and confidence a candidate has and whether they are aware not just of generic skills, but truly unique aspects of their personality and experiences, and how those can create value for others.

Episode 59: Taylor Pearson on the End of Jobs

Is accounting the riskiest career?  Is entrepreneurship the safest?  Today’s guest says yes, because the world is changing and “jobs” are being replaced by the ability to adapt and create value outside preset rules.

Technology has dramatically reduced transaction costs when it comes to education and employment. Taylor Pearson, author of a bestselling book The End of Jobs, joins me to talk about risk and antifragility when it comes to jobs and occupation.

Beyond entrepreneurship, we discussed the ongoing democratization of tools of production and creation of new markets.

Visit his website taylorpearson.me

If you want more than a job, check out show sponsor Praxis for a one-year apprenticeship with an entrepreneur and life-changing projects and challenges.  discoverpraxis.com

This and all episodes are also available on SoundCloud, iTunes, YouTube, and Stitcher.

How to Get Ahead

Want to get ahead in your life and career?  Here’s a really simple way to think about and approach it:

Find something someone is currently doing that you can do better.  Convince them to hire you to do it for them.

That’s it.  That’s pretty much how every job and customer has ever been won.

So how do you do it?  First you need to observe.  Look around and see what people are doing.  Look within and discover what you do well.  Look for places where the quality gap between what you can do and how most people are doing it is large.

Then you need to convince.  This part seems pretty hard.  It’s actually fairly straightforward, though it takes a lot of grit and determination.  There are really only two ways to convince someone to give you a chance to do something for them:

  1. Demonstrate beyond a doubt that you can create value for them.
  2. Be so cheap they’re willing to take a chance on minimal evidence.

Many people get stuck on number one.  They think it’s a catch 22.  How can you prove your ability to create value if you need proven ability to get the chance?  That’s where number two comes in.  Make yourself so cheap – minimal to no money, minimal instruction and maintenance – that it’s hard to say no.

Once you get the chance to create value for someone for free, you’ve got a calling card.  You’ve got proven value creation.  Now you can go to the next opportunity and prove that you can do whatever they’re doing (or paying someone else to do) better.

Every one of the best people I’ve worked with began working for free.  I had a hunch they could create value for me, but it was a risk.  They mitigated the risk by offering to work free until they demonstrated how valuable they were.

This advice, if you take it to heart and really apply it, will get you further than any degree or credential you can buy.

How to Search for a Job

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From Life Learning on Medium.

A lot of people are looking for jobs. The thing is, not all job searches are equal. “Looking for a job” might actually mean hoping someone finds your resume online, shooting out a few emails, or posting unsolicited comments on Facebook pages that say, “Are you hiring?”

If you want a job — really want a job — you’ve got to go level five with your job hunt. And call it a hunt, not a search. You’re not hoping to stumble into a pot of gold, you’re tracking your prey and bagging it.

Let’s take a look at how to do it.

Level 1: A Good Resume

While most of the best jobs you’ll get in life will be gotten without a resume, if you’re job hunting you should have one on hand. I don’t particularly like them, but a lot of people expect them. A good resume will never get you a job, but a bad resume could lose you one.

For a resume to actually convey something, serve as a starting point for interview questions, and keep you from being dismissed out of hand, there are really just two main features: Nice appearance and outcomes-based content.

For appearance, keep it simple, clean, a single page, uniform use of line breaks or bullets, not too many indents and sub-sub points, and a clear order top-to-bottom of what’s most important. (Hint: experience is more important than education to most people, even if you assume otherwise). Oh, and get your spelling and capitalization triple checked.

For content most people simply list credentials they have and activities they engaged in. This is boring and conveys a lot less about your ability to create value than what kind of outcomes you produced. Don’t just list that you were a digital marketing intern and ran email campaigns. Show that your A/B test improved open rates by 10%.

Even if you were waiting tables, see if you can demonstrate value created. “Server at Applebee’s” is less interesting than, “My section consistently brought in 15% more tips than average sections.”

Anyone can have a title and do a task. The good ones create value and can show positive outcomes.

Level 2: Good Profiles on LinkedIn, etc.

Whether you like it or not, LinkedIn is hugely valuable in the working world, especially for those making hiring decisions. Have a profile. Have a decent headshot that actually looks like you. Have accurate information. Keep it up to date.

Your LinkedIn profile should be consistent with your resume, but it is not the same thing. It allows you to go a little deeper into who you are, what drives you, who you’ve worked with, what you did, etc. Same goes for Twitter, Facebook, and whatever else you kids are using these days. Be you, but use good judgement. If someone only ever found your online accounts, would they have an accurate idea of who you are and what you want to be known as?

Many people fear all social media and online presence because they think of it as a liability. Some people try to stay undiscoverable online as a protective measure. This is a terrible idea. First, always assume if some hacker wants to find your stuff bad enough they’ll find a way, regardless of your settings. But more importantly, seeing social media as a liability blinds you to the fact that it can be a huge asset. There is no neutral. It’s either helping you or hurting you. Being completely anonymous online hurts you. Take charge of your online presence and make it an asset.

Level 3: A Personal Website

It’s easier than ever to setup a personal website. If you’re serious about finding a great job, just do it. Go over to WordPress and get started. In a few hours you can have a clean, simple website that serves as a repository of all the things you enjoy and want to be known for.

A personal website gives you far more control than profiles on third party sites. You can feature whatever you wish, you can blog, share video, include a longer bio, express aspects of yourself you wouldn’t cram into a LinkedIn profile, and really use the blank canvas to create whatever you wish.

But more than what you have on your site is the fact that you have one. Anyone who has put together a basic, neat, up to date personal website stands out. Not many people do, despite how easy it is, and if you do you’ll have something that gives you far more cred than just a decent resume in a pile.

If you really want to gain an edge, overcome fear, build confidence, and become a better communicator and thinker then take the next step and blog on your site regularly. I recommend blogging daily, but if that’s daunting, try weekly. You can always hide bad posts, but the act of doing it and knowing it can be seen by others will do more for your creative capacity and productive power than any other simple activity I know of.

Level 4: A Portfolio of Projects

If you’ve already setup your personal website here’s a way to really beef up the value. Beyond a nice homepage and about page with a bio your website can feature projects you’ve completed.

Remember when I said the resume should show outcomes instead of just telling about activities? A portfolio allows you to show in much greater detail what you’ve created. It’s especially easy for those with skills in art or coding or engineering to share publicly what you’ve produced. You may think that your management or communication or sales skills can’t really be put into a portfolio that shows what you’ve done, but it can.

Go to a freelancer website and pay someone $50 to design a nice one-pager that shows the results of that event your organized and executed. Have someone build an interactive graph tracking your fundraising or sales campaign. Show articles you’ve written and clicks they received.

If you can think of nothing tangible that you’ve completed to put in a portfolio it’s a good sign you should get cracking! Writers and photographers know that their portfolio of work is what really matters. If they have none, they start out just doing things for free to build it up. You can do the same. Just get started creating something and share the results. Do projects for free that will help you get something under your belt.

The great thing is, the success or failure of your projects is less important at this stage than that you completed it. I’ve talked with tech companies who say they’d rather hire someone who built a cheesy, non-innovative notepad app than someone with a stellar resume who never built and “shipped” anything at all.

Level 5: Unique, Stand-Alone Websites, Videos, InfoGraphics for Your Target Company

Here’s where the great stand apart from the very good. If you really, truly, deeply want to work for a company why not devote yourself to studying them in depth and presenting your unique take?

Remember Nina, whose resume was lost in the heap at AirBnB? She went level five and became internet famous. She put together an impressive site that deserved attention, still it’s telling of just how low the bar is among job-seekers that a simple website was such a viral sensation. No one is doing this. But you can.

One thing employers will tell you when sifting through job applications is that too many people talk about themselves and too few talk about the company they claim to want to work for. “I’m Joe and I’m great at XYZ” tells me nothing about why Joe applied specifically for my company. Does he just want a paycheck, or is he passionate about my business? Does he even know what we do and what we value?

There’s no better way to demonstrate your knowledge and passion for a company than to dig into the industry, business model, customer base, competitors, and build something unique that describes what you love about and what you would do for the company. Don’t think about what would make you look good, think about what would actually be valuable to the company.

I guarantee spending 30 days doing a deep dive on your target company will be more valuable than spending an entire year getting a second major and more clubs to list on your resume. If you can create something of value to the company before you’re even working for them that sends a strong signal that you’re a person they want on board.

What Are You Waiting For?

One of the reasons I launched my company Praxis is precisely because so few young people realize that they have the power to create their own professional future. There are more tools available than ever and more opportunities but so few realize it. You can’t sit on the conveyor belt and expect it to drop you at a fulfilling job.

Look, I’m not saying it’s easy. But don’t tell me there’s no way to get a great job if you aren’t willing to push yourself to level four, or ideally level five. You can probably think of ten more things I didn’t even list here if you really try.

The days of buying a degree and hoping it buys you a job are over. Be your own credential and prove through the work you do that you can create value.

Income Is Not Automatic

Ernst & Young no longer requires degrees for entry level jobs.  A lot of people shared articles about the change on Facebook.  On one thread I noticed the following comment:

“[T]his is great but it could also be an excuse to pay people less.”

The word “excuse” stuck out to me.  Why would EY need an excuse?  If they want to offer less pay they can do so at any time.  Of course any potential hire can just as easily refuse the offer and only agree to work for more.

Employers want the best workers for the lowest possible price and workers want the best jobs for the highest possible pay.  “Best” and “highest” of course include the entire bundle of compensation, benefits, work environment, etc.  Both parties have an incentive to bargain.  Both parties have an incentive to only agree if they don’t think they can get a better deal elsewhere.  It’s a bet on the value they’ll receive from the other party.

The comment reveals a bizarre but common belief about work.  There’s an idea that jobs and income are an automatic and deserved reward for moving on the conveyor belt and jumping through all the right hoops.  It implies that pay is based on a rigid credential scale and companies can only adjust pay if they adjust the hoops to jump through.  It implies that, with ironclad causality, a degree will automatically entitle the holder to higher pay and the only way to pay less is to hire those without one.

A degree has never made someone more valuable.  What you can do determines the value you can create and demand.  The degree is only a signal that, with more or less accuracy, tells employers that you are likely to be better on average than someone without the degree.  That signal is no longer working for EY because the reality isn’t backing up the assumed correlation.

EY does potential employees a favor to announce and implement this policy.  The degree is not signalling enough value to distinguish those with it from those without.  Degrees are very expensive.  Everyone who buys one assuming it will bring them a good EY job is buying under false pretenses.  They need to create value to get hired.

EY is saving potential employees money and time by telling them what’s always been true: it’s about the value you can create, not the paper you have.  The paper was used because it often correlated and it was a quick and dirty way to eliminate some weak applicants.  Now the applicants with degrees are not sufficiently better than those without.

This represents not an excuse for companies to pay less, but an opportunity for young workers to pay less.  You are not required to spend four years and six figures poured in cinder block walls with fluorescent lights to take tests on things you mostly have no interest in.  You are free to learn to create value any way you can.

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Make a List of the Jobs You’ve Had

The other day I was thinking about the various things I’ve done to earn money, skill, and experience from about age 8 or 9 onward.  I tried to come up with a complete list and found it to be a really fun and enlightening exercise.  It was rather encouraging and exciting to see how little of a pattern there is, and how nothing like a linear path emerged.  I’ve found that at every unknown juncture, worries about a job have been overblown.  I got married very young and returned from my honeymoon with a mortgage to pay and no job.  The thing that has worked best for me is just to keep working, even while looking.  I did every random, laborious job I could, and it always eventually led to more interesting things.

It’s a cool exercise, and has led to some fun stories with the kids. (Kids are always so fascinated by their parents past failures, hardships, and embarrassments).  Give it a try!  Here’s my list, probably missing some, mostly but not perfectly chronological, and with plenty of overlap:

  • Snow shoveler/leaf raker/lawn mower
  • Weekly ‘Flashes’ delivery
  • Babysitter
  • Dog walker
  • Paper delivery (this one continued for years)
  • Construction/excavation grunt (paid in Gatorade and Swiss Cake Rolls)
  • Golf course grounds worker/pro-shop/concessions/grunt/bathroom cleaner
  • Grocery store carryout and shelf stocker
  • House framer/random cut/cleanup guy
  • Telephone and data cable installation (eventually managing field operations)
  • Guitarist/vocalist in various bands (sometimes I even got paid!)
  • Co-founder of international humanitarian nonprofit (unpaid)
  • House flipper (it was pre-2007…everyone was doing it!)
  • English teacher abroad (unpaid)
  • Medical clinic assistant abroad (unpaid)
  • Electrical worker
  • Co-founder and field manager for datacom startup
  • Landscaper (because the above wasn’t making too much money!)
  • Landlord
  • President of taxpayer advocacy group (unpaid)
  • Legislative intern (unpaid for two weeks)
  • Legislative assistant/aid
  • Legislative “Chief of Staff” (“Staff” included me, one other employee, and an intern)
  • Political Science teacher
  • Creator/director of “Students for a Free Economy” program at the Mackinac Center
  • Random marketing/educational consultant (occasional side gigs)
  • Policy Programs Director at IHS
  • Speaker/lecturer (paid and unpaid)
  • Writer (mostly unpaid, but some steady paid gigs)
  • Education Director at IHS
  • Copywriter (side gigs, paid and unpaid)
  • Sales (some commission-based side-work)
  • Major Gifts Officer (fundraising) at IHS
  • Praxis

A World of Kramers

Nobody knew what Kramer actually did.  He was always doing something, but it remained a mystery how he obtained the resources to pull of his schemes, let alone pay for rent and food.

Kramer had a brand.  He was the crazy, out of the box guy who’d help you overcome a problem in an unconventional way.  He was a fringe entrepreneur and occasional activist.  He was relentless in pursuing whatever was his latest fancy.  He somehow made a living just being himself.  This is increasingly possibly, even for less quirky types.

I can think of at least a dozen people I know personally who somehow live a good life, despite the fact that I’m not really sure where their income originates.  It’s so easy now to sell a product, start a business, market and distribute ideas, and connect with partners, customers and investors.  It’s entirely possible to draw a circle around the stuff you care about, become the guy or gal who’s known for doing and talking about that stuff, and with enough hard work, get a living out of it.  It starts by giving your audience things they like.

If you’re known for providing something others value – even if it’s just good jokes on Facebook – you can generate a following.  You can offer to write a book, if your fans will pledge the money via Kickstarter.  You can ask for donations to keep producing whatever it is you produce.  You can sell your services to people all over the world with very low transaction cost.

Before long, apartment buildings could be full of people who don’t commute to an office every day, but instead spend their hours doing an assortment of bizarre and interesting projects.