• Finding what makes you ‘exceptional’ key to success

    Date: 2008.11.16 | Category: Columns | Tags: ,

    It’s actually been more than a month since I wrote this column, which follows rather directly from my previous two. My deliberations on the wonderful matter of how the financial crisis is impacting the job hunt, and the need to find the right fit, led me to what is perhaps the logical next step: When you find a job you think you want, how do you stand out in order to get it? Maybe just being a good fit isn’t enough.

    My thesis is that what makes a person exceptional is, to quote the column, to be “at least a little bit above average in an interesting combination of ways.” It doesn’t necessarily matter what that combination is, as long as you can find the way to make use of it in a way that gives you a leg up.

    The difficult part is, of course, that it isn’t always obvious how you can usefully combine, say, chemistry and economics. Many people go through life without discovering what that is. Sadly, it seems that like with many of the other things I’ve written about this semester, I have thoughts and not answers. I wonder if that makes me a bad columnist?