Your "Strange" Career Path is Your Superpower
No one's journey is a straight line.
Behind the scenes of every successful career path is a very messy and non-linear adventure of emotional and financial ups-and-downs. Unfortunately, modern resumes are not well formatted for winding roads. The current resume format, which is a chronological job list with clear bullet points and job titles, was standardized in the 1970s. (I recommend reading the history of resumes on Wikipedia for more insight.) That was a time when the American economy expected and rewarded a single industry career with multiple roles within it. A time before technology was changing so rapidly and modifying the lives we live, the work we could do, and the ways we can spend our time on a nearly daily basis.
And yet, many of us feel like indecisive fuck-ups when we we look at our past and see nine different job titles across five industries. We fear someone will ask in an interview about our meandering journey and how we got to today. We struggle to tell a coherent story that feels satisfactory. And we're positive our seemingly disjointed backgrounds will undermine our chances of ever getting a new job in an area we want to work in but don't have perfect qualifications for. So, we try to hide or diminish that work, ashamed that we haven't hit the perfect, obvious, upward path that we assume everyone else has had and that we think every hiring manager, recruiter, and/or AI resume-reader-bot is looking for.
But these strange career paths also make you...you! They make you unique. And unlike every other applicant.
The thing about business is that it is complex. Companies of every size have weird spaces they need specific experience for—like a new area of work that hasn't been done before or a role left open by someone who brought a rare mix of skills or a cross functional position that needs experience in multiple worlds. For companies looking for that needle-in-the-haystack, you could be the pointest needle they've ever seen!
I know this from experience; that’s exactly how I got my job at Netflix. They were looking to fill a role with the title of Program Manager for Inclusion in Digital Experiences. That is a job with a long title. The title was long because it needed to cover the many types of background a candidate would need—project management, product or web, and diversity/inclusion. Within the job description there were even more breadcrumbs of weirdness: ability to build a team from scratch, ability to work with and influence creatives and engineers, ability to lead workshops and have 1-on-1 conversations, ability to explain technology and race in the same sentence, and so much more. This role was open for 8 months before I applied for it. Thousands of people with years of project or program experience applied. From that applicant pool, they interviewed a very small group of people and didn't find the right fit. To my manager, my resume was magic. It was all the perfect ingredients for a cake she didn't have the recipe for. And once she knew that, she was willing to pay a lot and wait a bit for me to start. People pay a high price for rare gems!
I also know this because it is how I have chosen people to hire (as consultants or full-time) at every stage of my career.
Here’s the trick: lean into the unique quality of your path and tell the story correctly for the role you want. Highlight the portions of previous work that make you an ideal candidate for this new work. Spell it out for people because your job titles aren't going to do it for you. Focus on looking for jobs and companies that will value and appreciate that combination of expertise and experience that makes you the best and only person for the job. Look for excitement in their eyes when they hear about your background. Watch it click as they realize they have finally found the perfect fit for the role.
So, what are you going to do when you find that you are the perfect rare gem for a role?
Besides asking for a higher salary, that is. ;)
