(upbeat music) All right, we got a question here from Candace. Candace says, "Do you have any tips "for how to apply the deep work approach "to job seeking for a first job? "I'm feeling overwhelmed with all the options out there "and I don't know what metrics actually reflect "the efficiency of my search." All right, well, Candace, you're over-defining the word deep work.

This is a common theme on the show that people will expand the term deep work to capture all sorts of different things. But let's keep it really focused. Deep work means I'm working on something difficult without distraction, so I'm not context shifting and giving it my full attention. And the whole idea behind deep work is that is the most effective cognitive state to produce non-trivial or valuable work, is giving something your full attention and not context shifting.

That really has nothing to do with organizing a job search. What I think what you mean here is how do I do this in a way that is deep in the more general sense, meaning focusing on what matters, giving that intense intention and not wasting your time with things that don't.

That general application of deep, I think is quite appropriate here. What I'm gonna recommend is what years ago, I'm talking 2007, when I was blogging mainly at a student audience. And I'd introduced this notion called the textbook method where when you're trying to master something complicated and non-trivial, you should approach the challenge like you're writing a book about it.

Let me go gather information about this, organize my thoughts and actually write it out like a little book. Do that about your job search. I wanna write a book on, in your case, it's biomedical engineering, on how to get your first job in biomedical engineering. Won't be a long book, but something I feel good about.

Well, how am I gonna write this book? Well, I better go learn about how do you succeed in doing your first job search in biomedical engineering. Well, how do I do that? I guess I should go talk to people. Let me talk to the seniors from last year who were in my program and got good jobs.

Let me talk to three of them and walk them through their job process and then have them reflect what mattered and what didn't. If they had to do it again, what would they focus on? Why don't you go to the career services center at my university and talk through job searching for this.

Let me go to a career fair, maybe talk to one of the reps from one of these firms and say, let me ask you, when you're hiring, how's this work on the other end? What matters? What are you looking for? Get the real information and organize it and write it down.

Not a full length book, but like you're putting together a pamphlet that's evidence-based on here's the right way to job search in my field to get a first job and then go execute that. And that's almost always the key to taking this general deep approach to things in your life.

If you want to focus your energy intensely on what matters, not waste time on things that don't. You got to know what matters and that requires evidence. And keep in mind, reality is often not what you want it to be. If you say, I'm just going to make up what I want to matter for job searching, you will come up with something that you like.

It's hard, but not too hard. Doesn't, you know, whatever, but it might not have any connection to the real world and what really matters. So I really like this deep approach to almost anything, but it requires an evidence-based approach. So that's my advice, Candace. Basically go do the research to write a book on how to do biomedical job searching and then execute that plan.

That's how you're going to be confident that you're doing the right thing. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)