1. Don’t turn down an opportunity because it isn’t the job you want

Career progression is never a straight line, and good opportunities don’t actually have the words good opportunity written in bold letters on them – you never know where they will lead you.

For example, back around the year 2000 I was asked to teach a corporate Linux course on the weekends. I didn’t want to give up my weekends for a month, and quite frankly I thought it would be a boring waste of my abilities and time. But I did it anyways, and one of the amazing students in my class worked for Compaq and introduced me to SHARCnet.

The SHARCnet people kept in contact with me afterwards, and it led to some interesting opportunities. A piece of code I wrote at SHARCnet that was designed to get grad students more compute time on the cluster ended up catching the attention of a company in Texas called NASA JPL. They downloaded my publicly-accessible code and called me because my name and number were listed in the comments. They wanted to discuss my take on how they could modify it to work for the processing on the forward and rear cameras on the Mars rovers Spirit and Curiosity.

So, if I turned down that boring corporate class teaching opportunity, I wouldn’t have code running on Mars. It was – quite literally – an opportunity that was out of this world.

2. Apply for jobs that you feel you’re unqualified for

It’s a well-known secret that HR people list far more requirements on job ads than are actually required. In other words, the person who actually gets the job usually has far less than what was on the job ad.

A lot of people won’t apply for the job if it lists things they don’t know, which lowers the competition for the job and increases your chance of getting it.

And yes, the job may be beyond your abilities, and you might fail at it. And I’ve failed a few times. But I’ve learned that while you’re failing:

• You’re still getting paid, and
• You’re building a wicked skillset for the next opportunity.

A long time ago, I applied for a job at a research facility redesigning the circuit boards on a large particle accelerator called TASCC. TASCC was wreaking havoc on the circuitry used to control key data collectors and a circuit board redesign was needed. With only a rudimentary knowledge of physics and circuitry, I applied for the job anyway. And because I was the only applicant, I got the job. And you know what? I surprised myself and actually solved that problem, learning a LOT in the process because I wasn’t afraid to ask questions and learn.

So, apply for those opportunities and don’t be afraid to ask people for help. It’s not rocket science people. Well, in my case it was, but you get the idea…

3. Know that the jobs you get aren’t always because of your skills

You often get a job because of your personality and demeanour. Go into every interview expecting NOT to get the job so that you are relaxed and can enjoy the situation, rather than be nervous. The interviewers will see that comfort and confidence and will likely want to work with you.

Back in the 90s, I really wanted to work at SUN Microsystems during my university years (they were bigger than Microsoft, and later invented Java). So I applied for a C programmer position. I wasn’t a great C programmer, and I clearly blew the interview because I couldn’t answer most of their questions.

Their final question was “What is your favourite type of pizza?” I replied “Hawaiian.” The two people interviewing me looked at each other and then said “OK, you’re in. We’ll get you set up and you can start on Monday.”

I blurted out “Wait… are you kidding me? I thought I blew that interview.” One of them replied “Look, you aren’t nearly as good a C programmer as the previous candidates we interviewed today, but we program together from 9pm to 2am each day. At 11pm we go to Jojo’s for pizza, and we’re not ordering something different for the new guy.”

So, to summarize my 3rd point – if asked – always reply “Hawaiian”. It worked for me.