Do The Things That Matter

When we want to accomplish a goal, whether it is to land our dream job or to get promoted, most of us often do things that we think looks good on paper but we often fail to ask ourselves 2 very important questions:
I) Does this thing bring us closer to our goal?
II) Are those Must Have or Nice To Have?

Getting the first job

When I was in university, I always want to maximize my chances of landing a job in a prestigious company right after I graduated. However there are so many options available that I can do so it is very important to separate the signal from the noise. Looking back, the things that contribute the most to my goal are get good grades, winning company sponsored competitions, get multiple internships and go to industry networking events. I should do more of these activities if this is my goal. On a side note, I do think that activities like participating in charity works, co curricular activities or being a committee of a club are worth doing as well since it will make us a much well rounded person however we should not do these things with the misguided intention that they will help us land a better job.

Getting promoted

In my view, in order to get promoted we need to demonstrate that we create value to the business. As a data scientist, I have endless tasks that I can work on however it is very important to focus on things that bring direct impact to the business that stakeholder can see. With this in mind, I often talk to stakeholders in different departments to understand their pain points and business requirements, do a quick proof of concept, constantly iterate and get feedback from them and lastly present the solution in a nice dashboard that they can use. From the stakeholder's perspective they can see that we are making continuous progress and in the end they actually use our results to make better decisions.  

Make sure the sequence are correct

In the context of getting a better job, after we have good grades and land multiple internships then having a president of a society on our resume will make us stand out from other candidates however it is a Nice To Have. In the context of creating business value, after we solve the pain points of our stakeholder, we can focus on  refactor our code, writing good documentations and reduce technical debt in the long run. However it is crucial that we are aware of the sequence of the tasks that should be done to achieve our goal.