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 […]
Monday Morning Begins on Sunday Evening
Desperately clinging to your beer and the last vestiges of the weekend, you refuse to give in to Monday stress on Sunday night. Still, it’s in the back of your mind putting a subtle damper on your evening. The next morning, as you clear the cobwebs and crank up the brain for work, everyone can […]
How to Make Your Reading More Productive
A reader of the Praxis blog recently asked me “Derek, you seem to read a lot. How do you do it more productively?” This struck me as an odd question at first until I remembered that school has a way of reading into a tedious process of checking off academic boxes instead of the selfish […]
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 […]
The Four Tendencies
Something we’re passionate about at Praxis is creating value for our customers. It’s incredibly difficult to make an impact at a high growth startup when you have little to no experience in the workplace. That’s why our application process is so challenging. We don’t take money from applicants if we’re not confident they won’t thrive […]
Guidelines for Putting Your Projects on Display
We emphasize the importance of working out loud throughout our curriculum. Each of our participants make portfolio sections on their websites where they collect projects they’ve built. How you package and present your projects matter as much as the projects themselves! Here are some general guidelines for what makes a good project write up. Not […]
Turn Your Defeat Into a Growth Story
Here is a question I came across last week on Reddit: I was recently fired from a part-time bookkeeping job and replaced by someone with more experience who can do the job faster than I could. I graduated and am now looking for a full-time job in accounting. What do I say about this previous […]
10 Steps to Becoming a Manager
I recently saw this question on Reddit: I recently graduated with a degree in business management, but I’m having a hard time finding a management job. I’m not getting any interviews because I have no experience. What can I do? The tough reality is that degrees don’t land you jobs nearly as much as they […]
What Are You Running From?
I recently had someone tell me they were questioning their love for writing. When I asked for a reason, they said it was because they didn’t write enough. “If I really loved writing” they said, “then I would be more consistent with it.” Well, I guess I don’t love reading then. For my entire life, […]
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 […]
Never Say “Family Emergency”, Keeping It Professional on Social Media, and More | Office Hours Podcast
This week on Office Hours, TK and Isaac talk about why using “family emergency” as a reason to miss things can be problematic, how to balance professionalism with social media as a resource, moving away from home, and simple ways to come up with more ideas. Questions: What’s the right balance between using social media […]
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 […]
Three Critical Soft Skills for Young Professionals | Forward Tilt Podcast
This week on Forward Tilt, Praxis COO Cameron Sorsby guest hosts to share three key traits that separate great young professionals from the pack. These are skills that are extremely valuable and set you up for long-term success, but don’t require a degree, a good job, or any gatekeepers permission to learn. No matter what you […]
What To Do When The Hiring Process Is Dragging On
This post is about what to do when you’ve applied to a job and the employer is taking a long time to make a decision. This is more common than you might think because most people, even if their initial application is good, are helpless when navigating the process. They hit it off in their […]