Entries Tagged 'passion' ↓

[Originally posted on what used to be a separate blog 'On jobs, work and careers' and later was merged into this blog.]

Marc Andreessen has a recent article on How to hire the best people you’ve ever worked with. If you are interested in maximizing the chances of getting that job interview, it is a good idea to read about what people like Marc look for in a candidate during a hiring process.

For Marc, it comes down to three main things: drive, curiosity and ethics. Drive and curiosity are closely related; they seem to be the direct consequence of passion.

Marc writes that you can see drive in a candidate’s background (read “resume”):

For the background part, I like to see what someone has done.

Not been involved in, or been part of, or watched happen, or was hanging around when it happened.

I look for something you’ve done, either in a job or (often better yet) outside of a job.

The business you started and ran in high school.

The nonprofit you started and ran in college.

If you’re a programmer: the open source project to which you’ve made major contributions.

Something.

If you can’t find anything — if a candidate has just followed the rules their whole lives, showed up for the right classes and the right tests and the right career opportunities without achieving something distinct and notable, relative to their starting point — then they probably aren’t driven.

And you’re not going to change them.

Motivating people who are fundamentally unmotivated is not easy.

Surprisingly enough, this drive part is missing from the vast majority of the new grad resumes that I review. I don’t know what is the reason for that. What I do know is that the few resumes that show evidence that the candidate has ‘done’ do stand out. And get at least a phone call.

[Originally posted on what used to be a separate blog 'On jobs, work and careers' and later was merged into this blog.]

Via a post on Zen Habits I find 10 Essential Steps To Get To The Top Of Your Field. The article recommends the obvious: learn, learn, learn, practice, practice, practice.

But the essential step to “getting to the top of your field” is none of the things that the article lists in boldface. The essential step to “getting to the top of your field” is a much more difficult one: choosing a line of work that you genuinely enjoy, something that you are truly passionate about.

If you really enjoy what you do, you will naturally tend to practice more (because you will enjoy the process of practicing), you will naturally tend to seek more learning opportunities (because you will enjoy understanding every day a bit more about the field) and you will naturally seek contact with like-minded people that you can exchange ideas with (and get feedback from).

If you feel like you have to talk yourself into practicing and improving in your field, then consider that maybe this is not the right field for you. Maybe you’ve lost interest and now you should redirect your career elsewhere. Maybe you are simply a happy person satisfied with their career.

Remember that, after all, what will make you happy at your job is not “being at the top of your field”, but truly enjoying what you do. Everything else will follow.

[Originally posted on what used to be a separate blog 'On jobs, work and careers' and later was merged into this blog.]

Everybody is reading today Turning Blogging From Hobby to Career. What seems most interesting to me is not so much the advice about updating your blog often and so on, but this bit:

So what does it take to turn blogging into a full-time living? Basically it takes a whole lot of hard work, knowledge and passion about the topic you’re blogging about, patience, and some ‘being in the right place at the right time’ luck.

If you are trying to build a career in any area, this is all you need: hard work, knowledge, passion, some patience and a bit of luck. This will get you there, eventually. And no, there are no shortcuts (see the patience bit).

Go read Seth Godin’s excellent Just one post note.

Seth is right: you have at least one post in you. And not just a blog post: I bet you also have at least one contribution to make in many other fields. So just go and implement it. Why not?

Found | Read, one of the GigaNET blogs, is running an article titled Passion spotting, which echoes one of the main points in my recent Stop “fine-tuning” your resume post: in a job candidate, evidence of passion is much more important than any hyped keywords in a resume.

Passion will tell me most of what I need to know about a person’s dedication and drive. In developing a great startup team, these two elements are the most important. Talent and abilities can be developed. The former are what foil, or leverage, the latter.

Not exactly groundbreaking news, but always worth reminding yourself.