Progression

The most common question I receive in a ‘career discussion’ with someone is: ‘how do I advance in my career?’.

In an interview on Stratechery, Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart, gave perhaps the perfect answer:

I had three things that I mentioned. The first one is don't take your current job for granted, the next job doesn't come if you don't do the one you've got well. The second piece of advice was be a great teammate - you learn how to lead, you learn how to influence by the way you interact with your peers, treat them well, help them, help them do a better job. And then the third one was volunteer for something extra, volunteer for something hard.

One of the reasons that I got the opportunities that I got was that I would raise my hand when my boss was out of town and he or she was visiting stores or something, and someone needed to pinch hit and go to a meeting, I would go, and if I knew the answer to the question that came up, l'd share it, if I didn't, I'd say, "I don't know, but I'll find out fast and get back to you." I then put myself in an environment where I became a low risk promotion because people had already seen me do the job.

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Resume

I see a number of resumes. The most common mistakes I see are:

-Long lists of activities
-Limited mention of impact (just activity)
-Lack of an clear objective

I saw this recently (don’t recall the source, although you can see a bit of watermark), and realized that it solves each of those issues and more.

If you are new to the job market, this is a great place to start.

Habits

It’s easy to start, yet hard to be consistent, in any new habit. James Clear recommends a few simple steps:

1) Pick one thing and do it well.

2) Make it relatively easy to accomplish.

3) Focus on behaviors, not results.

4) Create the right environment.

5) Embrace minimal progress.

The insight is simple: small things consistently lead to large outcomes. This is the power of compounding.