How to Get Your GitHub Profile Ready For Job Applications
If you are going out for a development job or any sort of technical job, especially if you don’t have a lot of professional experience in the field, the best thing you can do is put some of your work on display. GitHub is the most popular place to do that. Here are the guidelines […]
Never Apologize For Flipping Burgers
“Take pride in your work at all times.” -Ford Frick I’ll begin with two brief quotes from two separate friends: Quote #1: “As a hiring manager, Chik-fil-a was always a slam dunk. Everyone I ever hired who had worked for them was awesome.” Quote #2: “It’s better to have to answer “100 happy meals” than […]
Exercise Your Brain Like a Muscle
Even though your brain is an organ rather than a muscle, the practices you set up to strengthen your muscles also work to increase your brain power. My preferred system is: Fuel, Resistance, Rest, Repeat. Fuel In the same way that you’ll “bonk” or “hit the wall” at the end of a marathon if you haven’t […]
How to Get Work Done: A Primer
Here are the three pillars of getting work done. If you are having trouble with staying on top of your work, chances are that it comes back to one of these three main areas. This is common advice for our participants as they complete their challenging apprenticeships at growing startups. 1. Know what you need to […]
Your Problem is You Don’t Have Enough Problems
The more action you want to take, the more solutions you want to gain, the more you want to achieve, the more problems you’ve gotta have. Problems lead to questions, questions lead to discovery, discovery leads to progress.
2 MORE reasons not to go to college
We’ve written on the Praxis blog a number of times about why you should rethink college. One of our most popular articles, by Praxis CEO Isaac Morehouse, makes among other points the case that college no longer signals what it used to and that most people have no idea what they want out of the […]
5 Skills I Acquired Working at a Tech Startup
The following is a repost from the blog of Praxis participant Nicholas Kleinhuizen. A couple of months ago, my life drastically changed. I went from being a college dropout who lived at home to working at a tech startup across the country. Over the past few months, here are 5 lessons I’ve learned. Lesson #1: The […]
3 Reasons Why You Should Learn Out Loud
You’re in the middle of an interesting online course. You just started reading a fascinating new book. You stayed up all night watching a series of talks by a provocative lecturer. Nobody knows. It’s a secret between you and your brain. One day, however, you’re going to surprise everyone. Maybe you’ll make an appearance on […]
Building a career bottom-up
We learn in school to take what I like to think of as a “top-down” approach to building your career. When it’s time to pick your first job, you think about a broad, top-level category like “PR,” “Marketing,” or “Engineering,” and then you try to find jobs or projects that match that category. While this […]
Why You Can’t Find Your Dream Job
You won’t find your dream job on Indeed.com or any other job board. You won’t find a job description that ticks all the boxes you are interested in. If you are waiting around for the perfect job to appear, you will be waiting a long time. To get a dream job you have to start […]
Do You Have What it Takes to Opt-Out of College?
There’s a popular idea that the only people good enough to succeed without college are Steve Jobs level geniuses. This video makes that case that you’re not good enough to opt-out by presenting various statistics and averages of aggregates. I pointed out a few of the logical fallacies in that kind of argument here. The […]
Your Skills Are More Transferable Than You Think
You tell me you want to be an athlete. I say, “Awesome! What sport?” You tell me you don’t know yet. I say, “That’s cool. I get it. A lot of athletes play multiple sports, experiment, switch sports, and settle where the returns to their skill are highest. College football stars have ended up playing […]
Four Reasons to Stop Despising Your So-called Menial Job
“I Apologize for Wearing a Goofy-Looking Hat While I Take Charge of My Life” In the past several years that I’ve spent interviewing, coaching, and training young professionals, I’ve spoken with thousands of people who worked in the following kinds of jobs: maintenance, fast food, retail, dine-in restaurants, and daycare. Most of them have been […]
5-on-5: Beginning Your Career in New City
In our 5-on-5 series, We ask five Praxis participants to give their answers to five questions on a single theme. This week’s topic will focus on the rewards, challenges, and lessons that come with beginning a career in a new city. 1) What were you doing before Praxis and where did you move after starting […]
How to Work Weekends Without Burning Out
My wife and I work at least one day each weekend. Why? As we say regularly here at Praxis, when you are young you have lots of time and few responsibilities. You need to take advantage of that. Amanda and I don’t have kids yet, so we made the conscious decision to spend our time […]