⚖️ Expanding the surface area of luck

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This is an ongoing series on career transitions, attempting to draw concrete suggestions from an abstract, nonlinear journey. Read the previous editions on the blog.

If you landed up in a different country without Google & Maps, what would you do to find your way? Hopefully- anything and everything. You don’t know where you need to be or how to get there. There will be a lot of things that won’t work, but eventually something will.

How do you do this in your career?

• Try new things: Keep having new experience. If one does not work out, look for the next one. As long as you are doing something or the other, you are likely to stumble on something useful. You miss 100% of the chances you don’t take. |
  

• Put yourself out there: This can be through doing thought leadership on LinkedIn on an area of your expertise, networking with people online or in person, make a cold pitch even if there is no job opening, or directly reach out to hiring managers of jobs you are interested in.
  

• Master the art of cold outreaches: The people you would like to receive guidance from are likely busy with a bunch of messages in their inbox for support- you need to grab their attention. Take time to research the person, what they do and care about- the effort matters because it is their first introduction to you. Share a brief about yourself and making a compelling case for why they should take out the time to respond.

  Pro Tip: Be persistent: Didn’t receive a reply? Craft follow ups that they can’t ignore.

The more you do, higher is the chance to get ‘lucky’.

Until next week,
Suvrita