And also, to continue beating this drum, it lets you link to an article as a proof of work in an initial reach out to a hiring manager or process, which is muuuuuuuch more effective than the typical email or cover letter.
Resumes exist to be thrown away. Essays do not. Most people apply for jobs using the one that is designed to be ignored. This is exploitable.
Have a resume, sure, but give it to a human with a name who has asked you for it and will want to see it advance in the process.
n.b. Since you don’t need anyone’s permission to write an essay you can use it to perform work that you haven’t been gatekeepered into yet.
For example, if you wanted to be a PM on a fintech product but haven’t worked in fintech before, you could do an annotated walkthrough of products which do exist and explain how they work, what likely internal rationale is, compare/contrast, etc.
Don’t know that? Talk to three fintech PMs; write up what you learned from those conversations.
“I don’t know any fintech PMs.” I mean name three firms now pivot to LinkedIn and Twitter; knowing how to talk to right person a fairly key skill for your future.
“They won’t want to...” Oh believe me this is a job which selects for people with lots of energy for geeking out.
“They won’t want to...” Oh believe me this is a job which selects for people with lots of energy for geeking out.
“I don’t know enough about...”
If you could do any software PM job, you’re capable of learning enough to be dangerous in any retail-facing fintech product category in about six weeks.
If you could do any software PM job, you’re capable of learning enough to be dangerous in any retail-facing fintech product category in about six weeks.
A comment you could make about a lot of fields:
A lot more thought goes into the design of a checking account than most people appreciate, but if you try to think of all the sentences you can say about checking accounts, you’ll run out of interesting ones pretty fast.
A lot more thought goes into the design of a checking account than most people appreciate, but if you try to think of all the sentences you can say about checking accounts, you’ll run out of interesting ones pretty fast.
(I mean that is also one way to get a job interview: “Hello person professionally involved with checking accounts. I have discovered a new interesting sentence. Here it is: ... Now by the ancient rites of the society of checking account enthusiasts you owe me coffee.”)
