The best is the enemy of the good
When you retrain professionals from other fields into programmers, you notice an interesting pattern. People who have already worked somewhere retrain very willingly. And the longer their tenure outside IT, the harder they study. Students, however, sometimes openly slack off.
After talking to both groups, you may find that students believe until the very end in “magical employment” that awaits them right after graduation. Next, for those who still haven’t taken off their rose-colored glasses ...
A guide to the real world
Each of us has needs. The need for family, friends, a home, a job, a hobby, … But for now, let’s talk about one of the most important and always relevant needs — the desire to live well and earn well.
Most people share this need. And almost everyone tries to fulfill it through work, a profession, and a career. Achieving this goal through professional development and self-realization seems quite logical. Who wouldn’t want to become a top-class specialist, a professional of international level: recognition, respect, high income, great opportunities — it sounds fantastic.
And what is the action plan for all those millions and billions of future top-class workers? Quite often the plan looks like this: finish school, prepare for university, enter university, study, graduate, find a good job, work, build a brilliant career, retire.
This plan only seems right, but it isn’t. The difference between a right plan and a wrong one is that the right plan leads to the goal, and the wrong one does not.
The plan above ignores so many things from real life that it’s hard to say whether it’s primitive, outdated, or simply wrong. What does this “most common success plan in the world” fail to account for? Competition...
Competition
1. The winner takes all
The top 5% of specialists earn 50% of all the money. The top 20% earn 80% of all the money.
Some companies look for an employee who is better, and others — cheaper. The former aren’t afraid to overpay but want the very best for the money they have. The latter want to pay the smallest amount for the minimum quality that will do.
You will start your career/professional path from the far left part of the chart. But the best place to be is on the far right of it. You have a long road ahead. You need to move into at least the right half as quickly as possible. A specialist from the right side of the chart differs from one on the left by having experience — high-quality experience.
As long as you’re in the left half, the number of specialists like you on the job market is much greater than the demand for them. That means it’s a buyer’s market (the employer’s). And you have to compete with people just like you for the crummiest job opening.
But as soon as you gain enough experience and move into the right half, the rules of the game begin to change. Demand starts to exceed supply, and salaries begin to grow. Five years of solid experience can result in a tenfold salary increase. So think, look around, and learn.
Even better — get into the top 5% of specialists. Then your fees will be limited only by how much money your clients/employers have. If they want to hire the very best — they should pay better than everyone else. Just like at an auction.
A smart and hard-working person can get into the top 20% of specialists in five years. And in the next five years — into the top 5% of the very best specialists. Of course, that requires a lot of self-education and frequent job changes. Sometimes even overwork.
But you don’t need to work a lot (or long). The best specialist doesn’t do more work — they do the work better. Better than everyone. That’s why you can’t replace them with ten average employees.
If in a presidential election you get 48% of the vote and the second candidate gets 47%, you didn’t get the support of a majority, and you didn’t outperform your competitor twofold. You beat them by one — just one — percentage point! But you become president and get everything, while they remain nobody and get nothing.
2. The loser gets nothing
If you’ve already applied to a university, you may have encountered this: they accept 200 people, and 2,000 want to get in. Out of 1,000 applicants with a competition of 10 people per seat, only 100 will become students; the remaining 900 get nothing.
What do you think will happen when you graduate and start looking for a job? Competition will skyrocket!
Suppose you’re graduating this year from a law faculty in Berlin. Let’s say there are only 10 universities in Berlin that together produce 1,000 law graduates annually. On the market there are two openings with a salary of $80,000 per year, eight openings at $40,000, and thirty openings in government organizations with a salary of $20,000.
Reality check 1: 1,000 “lawyers” and only 40 openings. That is, only 40 out of 1,000 law graduates will get a job in their profession, and the remaining 960 people who spent 5 years studying at university will go work as “sales managers.”
Reality check 2: You’re one of the 40 best graduating lawyers — what are your chances of getting a job? Much less than 100%, because there’s also cronyism, family trades, getting in through connections, etc. Most of those 40 openings will be taken by the sons, nieces, and grandchildren of those companies’ top managers.
Reality check 3: You’re the best graduate of your year, but you still don’t have real practical experience. And people who have already worked in the field for 3–5 years will also be competing for the good openings. They’ve accumulated experience, built a reputation, and made connections. So you may have to start from the very bottom.
Reality check 4: You’ll have to work about 3 years at “unpaid” jobs for the sake of experience while also engaging in self-education, and only then will you be able to compete for good openings with prospects, valuable future experience, and a high salary. That stage should have taken place at university. But if you studied at an ordinary university, now you’ll have to do it all yourself.
3. You have nothing
All you have is a diploma, and in most cases it isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on in the eyes of your future employer. Most often, the employer knows the “real price” of your diploma and its microscopic value compared to real experience.
You have a higher education? Who doesn’t? There are lots of people with higher education. It guarantees nothing. It’s like a certificate that you’re not a fool, and that’s it. Universities don’t teach any cutting-edge skills. Typically, in one year on a real job you’ll learn as much as in four years at university. That’s life, whether you like it or not.
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