The secret to unlimited opportunities and doing work you love
Sharing what you’re already working on is a career hack anyone can do, and it’s also a tool to figure out how to pursue what you’re proud of.
I have learned it’s very hard to get opportunities you do not ask for.
I’ve also learned that, in the age of social media, “asking” has evolved. It’s simpler and more serendipitous than ever.
Instead of cold-emailing hiring managers or tapping your boss on the shoulder, you can instead turn to the internet and share the work you’re already doing. What used to be a private interaction between you and another individual has transformed into an open, unpredictable marketplace where the best ideas are amplified.
Take LinkedIn. It’s not only a place to search for job postings, it’s a tool anyone can use to broadcast expertise. With roughly one billion users on the platform and only a fraction of them posting content, every time you publish puts you in front of an eager audience.
The same is true of Twitter, Medium, Reddit, and other sites.
I, for one, share ideas from my blog and the finance reporting I do for work. I also write about what it’s like being a journalist and building a personal brand.
Over several years, this has led to countless inbound messages for jobs and contracts. The practice has also put me in touch with interesting, like-minded individuals.
To be sure, the old formula of direct, private outreach still works. But it’s very hard to scale and it requires more targeting and research.
I prefer to simply share what I’m already working on, and let those ideas make contact with the open market.
I also want to acknowledge that sharing work online may not be relevant to every career. For writers, journalists, marketers, and other creatives, I believe it is paramount.
The secret way to figure out what you’re most proud of
Sharing your work online is a new phenomenon, and I lucked out by starting my career as the trend took hold.
It’s actually how I became a journalist with zero reporting background — I began publishing essays on a blog in 2018, and the right person happened to notice and offer me a job at a newspaper.
Beyond inbound opportunities, I see two concrete benefits to sharing work online:
You get more comfortable with who you are
You learn how to do work you are proud of, more often
The first point is easier to grasp. I can’t express how nervous I was before hitting “publish” on my first blog post six years ago. That feeling didn’t go away for a long time.
But in opening myself up to the world, I realized no one pays attention anyway, especially when you first start.
Early ideas are rarely excellent, but that works in your favor — rookies get to work in obscurity while they hone their craft.
And even if you do take flak, criticism helps you improve. It thickens your skin and you become more comfortable receiving feedback.
Now, the second point is a new revelation to me.
My friend Evan Frolov creates videos for Morning Brew. He writes, produces, and acts in these videos with the aim of making people laugh (they are indeed hilarious).
To me, that’s as scary as it gets, as far as putting yourself out there.
He told me something this week that crystallized everything: If you’re doing work you’re proud of, you will indeed want to share it.
So yes, sharing work online is nerve-racking. If you overcome that but still hesitate to share what you’re working on, perhaps it’s a signal that you aren’t doing work you are proud of.
Then the question becomes how to do more of the work you’d be proud to share and less of the stuff that doesn’t interest you — and solving that will bring far more than inbound job offers.