Looking for a job? Highlight your ability, not your experience | Jason Shen

TED Talks Daily

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 15 August 2019

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Very few of us hold jobs that line up directly with our past experiences or what we studied in college. Take TED Resident Jason Shen; he studied biology but later became a product manager at a tech company. In this quick, insightful talk about human potential, Shen shares some new thinking on how job seekers can make themselves more attractive -- and why employers should look for ability over credentials.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to a special archive presentation of TED Talks Daily.
0:05.6	This talk features entrepreneur and talent expert Jason Shen, recorded live at TED Residency 2017.
0:15.4	You know who I'm envious of?
0:18.1	People who work in a job that has to do with their college major.
0:23.6	Journalists who study journalism. Engineers who studied engineering. The truth is, these folks
0:30.2	are no longer the rule but the exception. A 2010 study found that only a quarter of college
0:35.1	graduates work in a field that relates to their degree.
0:38.9	I graduated with not one, but two degrees in biology. To my parents' dismay, I am neither a doctor nor a
0:47.0	scientist. Years of studying DNA replication and photosynthesis did little to prepare me for a career in technology.
0:56.0	I had to teach myself everything from sales, marketing, strategy, even a little programming on my own.
1:04.0	I had never held the title of Product Manager before I sent my resume into Etsy.
1:10.0	I had already been turned down by Google and several other firms
1:12.4	and was getting frustrated.
1:14.9	The company had recently gone public,
1:17.2	so as part of my job application,
1:19.1	I read the IPO filings from cover to cover
1:22.2	and built a website from scratch,
1:24.1	which included my analysis of the business
1:26.1	and four ideas for new features.
1:29.2	It turned out the team was actively working on two of those ideas and had seriously considered a third.
1:36.0	I got the job.
1:39.3	We all know people who were ignored or overlooked at first, but went on to prove their critics wrong.
	...

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