What's the Deep Approach to Job Searching?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | All right, we got a question here from Candace.

00:00:08.820 | Candace says, "Do you have any tips

00:00:13.520 | "for how to apply the deep work approach

00:00:17.100 | "to job seeking for a first job?

00:00:19.440 | "I'm feeling overwhelmed with all the options out there

00:00:21.440 | "and I don't know what metrics actually reflect

00:00:23.160 | "the efficiency of my search."

00:00:26.800 | All right, well, Candace, you're over-defining

00:00:30.000 | the word deep work.

00:00:31.640 | This is a common theme on the show

00:00:35.920 | that people will expand the term deep work

00:00:39.360 | to capture all sorts of different things.

00:00:41.700 | But let's keep it really focused.

00:00:42.860 | Deep work means I'm working on something difficult

00:00:47.160 | without distraction, so I'm not context shifting

00:00:49.560 | and giving it my full attention.

00:00:52.820 | And the whole idea behind deep work is

00:00:54.900 | that is the most effective cognitive state

00:00:56.800 | to produce non-trivial or valuable work,

00:01:00.160 | is giving something your full attention

00:01:01.440 | and not context shifting.

00:01:02.780 | That really has nothing to do with organizing a job search.

00:01:05.760 | What I think what you mean here is how do I do this

00:01:07.700 | in a way that is deep in the more general sense,

00:01:11.440 | meaning focusing on what matters,

00:01:13.040 | giving that intense intention

00:01:14.280 | and not wasting your time with things that don't.

00:01:17.360 | That general application of deep,

00:01:18.760 | I think is quite appropriate here.

00:01:21.180 | What I'm gonna recommend is what years ago,

00:01:23.960 | I'm talking 2007, when I was blogging

00:01:28.640 | mainly at a student audience.

00:01:31.280 | And I'd introduced this notion called the textbook method

00:01:34.520 | where when you're trying to master something complicated

00:01:38.800 | and non-trivial, you should approach the challenge

00:01:41.520 | like you're writing a book about it.

00:01:44.080 | Let me go gather information about this,

00:01:45.720 | organize my thoughts and actually write it out

00:01:47.520 | like a little book.

00:01:49.600 | Do that about your job search.

00:01:51.840 | I wanna write a book on, in your case,

00:01:55.280 | it's biomedical engineering,

00:01:56.920 | on how to get your first job in biomedical engineering.

00:02:00.080 | Won't be a long book, but something I feel good about.

00:02:02.640 | Well, how am I gonna write this book?

00:02:04.440 | Well, I better go learn about how do you succeed

00:02:07.320 | in doing your first job search in biomedical engineering.

00:02:09.920 | Well, how do I do that?

00:02:11.000 | I guess I should go talk to people.

00:02:12.880 | Let me talk to the seniors from last year

00:02:14.520 | who were in my program and got good jobs.

00:02:19.080 | Let me talk to three of them

00:02:20.360 | and walk them through their job process

00:02:22.040 | and then have them reflect what mattered and what didn't.

00:02:24.280 | If they had to do it again, what would they focus on?

00:02:26.720 | Why don't you go to the career services center

00:02:28.240 | at my university and talk through job searching for this.

00:02:32.680 | Let me go to a career fair,

00:02:33.680 | maybe talk to one of the reps from one of these firms

00:02:35.720 | and say, let me ask you, when you're hiring,

00:02:37.840 | how's this work on the other end?

00:02:38.920 | What matters?

00:02:39.760 | What are you looking for?

00:02:40.680 | Get the real information and organize it and write it down.

00:02:44.840 | Not a full length book,

00:02:45.760 | but like you're putting together a pamphlet

00:02:47.160 | that's evidence-based on here's the right way

00:02:49.040 | to job search in my field to get a first job

00:02:52.520 | and then go execute that.

00:02:53.800 | And that's almost always the key to taking this

00:02:58.360 | general deep approach to things in your life.

00:03:01.360 | If you want to focus your energy intensely on what matters,

00:03:03.760 | not waste time on things that don't.

00:03:06.080 | You got to know what matters and that requires evidence.

00:03:10.080 | And keep in mind, reality is often

00:03:13.200 | not what you want it to be.

00:03:15.240 | If you say, I'm just going to make up what I want

00:03:17.240 | to matter for job searching,

00:03:19.000 | you will come up with something that you like.

00:03:21.640 | It's hard, but not too hard.

00:03:23.040 | Doesn't, you know, whatever,

00:03:24.280 | but it might not have any connection to the real world

00:03:27.200 | and what really matters.

00:03:28.080 | So I really like this deep approach to almost anything,

00:03:30.840 | but it requires an evidence-based approach.

00:03:32.480 | So that's my advice, Candace.

00:03:34.880 | Basically go do the research to write a book

00:03:36.720 | on how to do biomedical job searching

00:03:38.880 | and then execute that plan.

00:03:40.680 | That's how you're going to be confident

00:03:41.720 | that you're doing the right thing.

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What's the Deep Approach to Job Searching?

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