Career opportunities

I recently had a chat with a friend about career paths, and the framework of thinking required for figuring out which direction to go.

For years I’ve gone with the advice from So Good They Can’t Ignore You, encouraging people to dig down into what they’re good at and keep follow their skills instead of their passion. The premise then, that so long as the work doesn’t go against your morals, is sufficiently challenging to push you, and contains a strong degree of autonomy, feels solid.

Follow what you’re good at, and good things will happen. There’s caveats, of course, and the book dives into these. But as a whole it’s advice I’ve followed and shared iwth others.

Something has changed in the last few years.

First COVID, and now AI threatening to unsettle so many roles that felt stable.

What then, would I advise a young person to pursue in terms of career opportunities? Frankly, it hasn’t changed.

Keep diving into your skills, keep iterating and pushing based on those skills and adjusting as needed.

It’s what I’ve had to do my entire career, and it’s what I’ll continue doing going forward.

Now, a question I’ve wondered about my own career—if I wasn’t in the design field would I still pursue it?

Yes, with a caveat.

I would focus on people connections, solving problems that are hard for AI and hard for people, and figure out how to be closer to the decision making of a business rather than the implementation.

I would encourage deeply understanding the craft, how it can help people, and being willing to always learn and add new data as needed to improve.

But then again I’m deeply biased. I had a fork in the road twenty years ago where I was debating between medical and tech. The decision, it turned out, was no decision at all. Due to logistical challenges I really only had one option, so I seized it. I don’t regret this road one bit, the only question is what I’ll dow ith the next twenty years.