I’m a career consultant. I help people grow in their careers.
As someone who’s spent quite a time in recruitment, I’ve seen tens of thousands of profiles - many of whom are very successful, hence they were headhunted by myself.
When you’ve met and interviewed so many brilliant people, you start to recognise patterns. I like to believe that it gives me a crystal ball into predicting victory (conceivably I think too highly of myself).
But if I could filter all my experience, and provide you just 1 piece of advice for acing your career, it would be this -
Understand your competitive advantage and play to your strengths.
In this highly competitive and globalized world, of course it isn’t enough to just be really good at something. You’ll have a job, but you won’t be insanely successful.
For you to be immensely successful, you identify your competitive advantage also get better at it than all of the other professionals who are trying to do it too, who are contending for the same prospect.
I give this patter to almost every person I speak to. It’s surprising to know that not many in the working world understands this fundamental. It’s a shame - it’s so obvious!
The fact of the matter is, nobody's great at everything - in fact even the most astonishing people are only great at a very trivial number of things – yet societies waste a lot of time trying to develop "well rounded" skillsets.
But food for thought friends..
Wouldn't it be better if you and your team members were sharp rather than round?