Welcome to Smart Like How! I decided to start this blog because I saw a lack of good guidance for people who are just beginning their careers. Despite a preponderance of books on seemingly every business topic, I saw none that addressed the challenges inherent in starting your career – a period where you want much, are given little, and have little to no experience to fall back on. When I began my career ten years ago, I had just graduated from a highly rated university and thought I was “smart”. Yet I found it incredibly challenging to set myself apart from my peers. Everyone was smart and worked hard, and it felt like it took an awful lot of energy just to keep pace, much less distinguish myself. And I’m not alone in feeling this way. More people are graduating from college now than at any point in human history, which means that it has never been harder to set yourself apart by being smart and educated. The people who accelerate through the first stages of their career, I’ve noticed, are excellent at creating opportunities for themselves, among other things. After years of being blessed with terrific managers and mentors along with my own experience, I want to explore how people at the outset of their careers can master the subtle skills that speed up the process of moving up. This is not a blog about business or management per se. It’s about understanding the human, subjective elements that have an outsized impact on your career progression – while always keeping the unique challenges of this initial phase in mind.
By the way, when I’m not writing I am a senior product manager for an enterprise software startup based in the Washington, DC area. So if you ever want to geek out on software development and analytics in particular, I’m always happy to talk shop. You can reach me at christian@smartlikehow.com with your thoughts on the blog; I would love to hear your comments and suggestions. I usually post new content to the website on Tuesdays, but I post additional items to the Smart Like How twitter feed (@smartlikehow) as I find interesting content to share. For those of you on Quora, you can also follow my regular posts there.
Happy reading,
Christian
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