Income To Wealth

Build wealth through multiple income streams

How Companies Hire For Junior Positions

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The hiring processes of companies at the junior level are often hard to understand. Obviously companies want the best employees, but how do they choose who to interview and hire when most people have similar backgrounds?

Job interview

 

The ugly truth about hiring at junior positions

Recent university graduates are very hard to differentiate. They all have a degree and either zero or very little professional experience. So hiring managers judge candidates based on school quality, internships, GPA, and extracurricular activities.

Unfortunately (or fortunately if you are one of them) some students can be very weak on paper but still score great positions. 90% of the time this hiring is done because they have a connection at the company.

People’s networks are made up of their connections. People with bigger and stronger networks will get better opportunities. This is not only true of professional opportunities, it is true in every area of life. Humans are social creatures and we like to help each other, especially our family, friends and people that are like us.

 

What you should do

When you are looking for an entry level position the best place to start is to see if you have any friends or family in the industry. Talk to them and express your desire to work in their industry. Don’t directly ask for a job from them, be subtle and try to learn about the industry from them. When an opportunity comes up they will let you know.

This is the most common form of hiring for entry level positions. Since candidates are all so similar the ones with connections to the company will be given priority over candidates with no connection. This may seem unfair to people who aren’t connected to an industry. Life is unfair, and it is more difficult to find a job but there are ways to increase your chances. Generally speaking there are 4 ways to find an entry level job.

 

 

The 4 ways to find a job

Let’s look at the 4 possible ways to find jobs, they are ranked from the most impersonal to most personal:

  1. Apply to a job ad that is posted on a site like Indeed or LinkedIn
  2. Unsolicited applications (letters of inquiry)
  3. Use a recruitment agency or a head-hunter
  4. Develop a network of people to access the hidden job market

 

Online job applications

Let’s say you choose the first option. Sending in a resume and cover letter through a job site does not even guarantee that a person will read it. Companies receive hundreds of applications so the use software to cut down the number of applicants.

These are referred to as application tracking software (ATS) and they are used to scan resumes for keywords. You could be the perfect person for the position but if your resume doesn’t have the right keywords a real person will not even see it. The job posting may require knowledge of a software that you can’t learn on your own because of the cost. You may be able to learn it quickly on the job, but the screening software does not know that.

This is why it is so important to tailor your resume for each job you apply to online. If there are 500 applicants, you want to be one of the 50 or 100 that get sent to human resources after the ATS screens them. HR will then sort these resumes for candidates they fell would be the best for the role. If you don’t have the experience they feel is necessary for the position you won’t get an interview.

Passion and genuine interest in a position are hard to judge from the single piece of paper that is your resume. If you are inexperienced or stronger in person than on paper you might want to try a different method.

The unfortunate thing about applying online – a lot of positions that are posted are already filled before they are advertised. Companies know who they want to hire but need to post the position because of compliance/legal reasons. This is a hard pill to swallow for a lot of people. Hiring practices are always uglier than the reality human resources tries to create for PR reasons.

 

Letter of Inquiry

The second method for finding a job, a letter of inquiry can be hit or miss. They show that you are interested and proactive enough to reach out independently about potential positions. A job hunter will send a letter of inquiry to decision makers (not HR) at companies they are interested in working at but that do not have any advertised job postings.

If your resume and letter of inquiry are average then your success rate will be much lower than if you had a great resume and great letter of inquiry. If a decision maker reads your letter of inquiry and thinks “this is exactly the candidate we need” because of your stellar background you should be sending letters of inquiry out. If your resume is average then you can still send out letters of inquiry because often hiring managers love your initiative.

 

Recruiters and Head Hunters

The usefulness of recruiters and head-hunters will vary from place to place and by industry. It never hurts to reach out to recruiters but try to target ones that are either

  1. Industry specific
  2. Focused on junior employees

Industry specific recruiters will be able to offer great insight into the job hunt and will have more specific opportunities than general recruiters. They may also be able to provide additional insight into how hiring occurs in your industry. This may involve suggestions about networking, resumes, cover letters, and online applications.

Befriending recruiters is also a fantastic long-term networking strategy. You will be able to help people in your network by sending them to the recruiter when they are a good fit for an opportunity. Recruiters appreciate this as well because they are payed based from filling positions.

This allows you to help 2 people simultaneously in your network and curtail good favor from the recruiter who may be able to pass on opportunities to you later in your career.

 

Networking and coffee chats

The fourth option is the best option for people who are stronger face to face than on paper. Correction, networking and coffee chats are the best option for anyone. It is basically a shortcut to the top of the stack of resumes when an opportunity arises. Additionally, it opens up doors that you didn’t know existed. There is a commonly quotes statistic that a large percentage of jobs are not advertised publicly. These are only advertised through people’s network – who they know!

These jobs exist in what is referred to as the hidden job market. Often these are the best jobs because they are so in demand they do not need to be advertised. When these opportunities arise, they are filled by people who are connected to people in the company.

This isn’t magic and if you aren’t well connected it isn’t too late for you. Building a network is like planting a tree, the best time to do it was 10 years ago but the second best time is now. The coffee chat and networking guide will teach you everything you need to know.

Self Improvement and the Neuroticism Trap

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There is no point improving yourself if you lose your sense of joy. Self improvement is the act of making yourself better. You can work nonstop and martyr yourself to make a better world, but to improve yourself you cannot lose your sense of joy. You should be happy and optimistic when engaging in self-improvement. You are increasing the likelihood your future will be better than your present.

 

Cynicism Is The Kiss Of Death

There are a ton of bitter and cynical people in the world. You need to maintain your happiness and positivity to avoid becoming like them. This is particularly true of men who are middle aged and above. So many men 50 years and older walk around scowling in public it is shocking. If you are a man and don’t think this can happen to you, you are naive. Avoid this outcome at all costs.

 

Neurotic Self Improvement Man

 

Self improvement is important for psychological health. People need to work towards their future ideal. Having a conception of your future ideal is vitally important. Jordan Peterson built a very interesting program called the Future Authoring Program. It helps people answer the often neglected question – “What do you hope to achieve in your life and what kind of person do you want to be?” I would highly recommend checking it out.

 

The Self-Improvement Recipe

Self improvement builds peoples confidence and gives them a sense of optimism. If you’re improving yourself your future will be better than your past. The simplest form of self improvement involves two things: 1) Removing unproductive activities 2) Adding productive activities

The two need to be done together. A lot of people try to get rid of bad habits but don’t replace the bad habit with something productive. This leaves them with far too much free time and likely to ‘relapse’ into their bad habit.

The solution is to always try to add positive to your life when you remove a bad habit. For example if you want to stop watching TV, you can start playing chess on your computer instead. Chess is active instead of passive, and provides entertainment as well as a feeling of accomplishment as your skill and rating improves.

 

Marginal Benefits and Neuroticism

When adding productive activities to your life there is a marginal benefit to each activity you add. This marginal benefit decreases as you add more activities.

Think about how much pleasure you get from eating a chicken wing. As you eat more chicken wings, with each wing you eat you get slightly less pleasure from it. Eventually the pleasure you get from eating chicken wings becomes negative if you eat enough to make yourself sick.

Think about this with productive activities. As you add more productive activities to your life, the benefit of each incremental activity you add is smaller and smaller. Eventually the benefit of adding productive activities will be negative. You will not have enough energy to work at all these activities and you are at greater risk of making yourself mentally sick.

This occurs because the more productive activities you engage in, the more likely you are to become neurotic. A short exert from the Wikipedia article on Neuroticism.

Neuroticism is one of the Big Five higher-order personality traits in the study of psychology. Individuals who score high on neuroticism are more likely than average to be moody and to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness.

People with high neuroticism indexes are at risk for the development and onset of common mental disorders, such as mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and substance use disorder, symptoms of which had traditionally been called neuroses.

That doesn’t sound like an ideal way of living does it?

 

Kratos Guide’s 16 Habits You Should Do Everyday

I read a post on a website a few years ago I still remember vividly. It is the number one post that would maximize both self improvement and neuroticism. It is titled 16 Habits You Should Do Everyday. It was posted on the now defunct site Kratos Guide, which has a ton of interesting content. Unfortunately the site no longer exists. I have tried to contact the website owner with no success. The link provided is a web archive version.

If you followed the prescribed 16 habits everyday you would likely become very neurotic. The other issue is your energy is split between too many different goals. Your energy should be focused on what you believe are the most important things in your life. You should be spending your energy on the 1-5 things that are most important to you.

You should also optimize your morning routine, to maximize your daily productivity.

 

Spreading Yourself Thin

This is something most people hate to admit. We don’t have unlimited energy reserves and there are only 168 hours in a week. The 16 habits are listed below. The habits I engage in are in daily are in bold.

1. Exercise
2. Meditation
3. Reading
4. Creative Recreation
5. Nutrition
6. Reasonable Spending
7. Brain Buster + Current Events
8. Social
9. Personal Management
10. Project 1, 2 or more times a week
11. Podcast/TED Talk/University Lecture
12. Language
13. Plan the next day
14. Sleep
15. Professional Development
16. Journal + Research

So I do 10/16 of the recommended habits. That looks like a lot but if you deconstruct it I avoid the activities that I feel have low value for me at the moment. Particularly, that would be 7. Brain Buster + Current Events, 11. Podcast/TED Talk/University Lecture, 12. Language. These three activities would likely require 1.5-2 hours of time. This would either spread me too thin, my efforts on things I care more about would be watered down. Also, knowing myself I would become more neurotic and I would sacrifice my social life for all the “productive activities” I was engaging in.

 

Never Give Up

You will likely spin your wheels a lot on your journey to where you want to be. This is a right of passage that everyone needs to take. Some people figure their life out earlier than others, and some people never figure theirs out. If you find yourself grinding continuously and getting no pleasure from your work it might be a good idea to change your lifestyle or mindset.

I really enjoy Joseph Campbell’s idea of following your bliss. You will know when you are on the right path.

 

 

 

Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth

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“The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” – Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie in a Tuxedo

 

Philanthropy

Philanthropy is a popular topic for the ultra-rich. These people have worked hard to accumulate their wealth and they want to now use it to improve the world. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, two of the richest people on earth have created The Giving Pledge. It is a campaign to encourage wealthy people to contribute a majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes.

The issue is that there is no obligation to actually donate any money. When billionaires make the promise to donate 50% of their money it sometimes seems more like a publicity stunt than genuine charity. That is a rather cynical view, but it’s only because I have just read Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth.

 

Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist who made a fortune in the steel business. When he sold his company U.S. Steel to J.P. Morgan in 1901, he received the equivalent of $372 billion in 2014. Carnegie was one of the wealthiest men of all time, so when he writes about wealth distribution, people should read it.

Carnegie’s lifetime was a period of great social tension in the United States. Wealth industrialists and financiers such as John D. Rockefeller Sr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan, and Andrew Carnegie accumulated massive sums of wealth and often at the expense of the rest of the population. This period was the infancy of American industry. Naturally, the returns to the “first movers” would be large and lead to great fortunes.

 

The Administration of Wealth

Carnegie, like any good capitalist, realized that commercial advancement leads to advancement of civilization. However the social strife created by wealth inequality posed an existential threat to civilization. Carnegie wrote, “the problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship.” This quote rings true today, the statistics that are published about wealth and income inequality cause a lot of animosity towards the rich. Carnegie’s philanthropy of choice was building libraries.

 

Edinburgh Carnegie Library

Edinburgh Central Library

 

Libraries

By 1929, 10 years after Andrew Carnegie had passed away, there were over 2500 Carnegie Libraries. Public libraries allow knowledge and great books to be available to all people. Libraries do not discriminate because of wealth or age. This is a truly noble charitable cause, and these libraries are still providing benefits to their patrons. Carnegie placed great importance on charity that truly benefited society rather than made the benefactor feel good about themselves.

 

Charity For The World, Not The Conscience

This involved well thought out charitable acts. Carnegie detested charity that didn’t improve the world, and created a danger or net-negative. Carnegie was greatly influenced by the philosophy of Herbert Spencer, Spencer coined the term “Survival of the fittest” and applied evolutionary theory to the fields of sociology and ethics. Spencer’s ideas provided a philosophical backbone for Carnegie’s brash business practices and massive accumulation of wealth. Carnegie’s motto became “All is well, since all grows better” after he read Spencer’s work. This explains Carnegie’s belief about wasteful charity,

“It were better for mankind that the millions of the rich were thrown in to the sea than so spent as to encourage the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy.”

Carnegie believed the wealthy should use their wealth to improve the world and help the human race evolve. Carnegie’s philanthropy truly dwarfs any contemporary philanthropist. After reading Carnegie’s The Gospel of Wealth, The Giving Pledge is suddenly very unimpressive. These ultra-rich are making a moral commitment to give away at least half their wealth. A lot of them are probably planning to pass on a lot of wealth to their children. Carnegie warns of this when he writes;

There are instances of millionaires’ sons unspoiled by wealth, who, being rich, still perform great services in the community. Such are the very salt of the earth, as valuable as, unfortunately, they are rare; still it is not the exception, but the rule, that men must regard, and, looking at the usual result of enormous sums conferred upon legatees, the thoughtful man must shortly say, “I would as soon leave to my son a curse as the almighty dollar,” and admit to himself that it is not the welfare of the children, but family pride, which inspires these enormous legacies. 

 

 

Skill Stacking: The Ultimate Guide To Leveling Up Your Life

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To achieve any level of success in you will need to have skills. The name of the game is developing in demand skills and finding a unique way to stack them to demonstrate value. This is something that anyone can do, and if you are reading this article you have an internet connection, can read English, and you are obviously a smart person if you are reading this blog.

 

The 2 Paths Of Developing Skills

Depth or Breadth are the two ways of thinking about developing skills. You can become a jack of many trades or you can niche down and become an expert in something. For most people I recommend they focus on breadth more than depth, but there always cases where it is better to focus on depth.

If you are in school and you are great at mathematics and the sciences, but perform poorly in English and the social sciences you should opt towards an analytical career such as being an engineer or mathematician. At the very least you should choose an analytical career path, and not choose to become a novelist or historian. If you are exceptionally talented in an analytical field you should double down on these talents, pick a niche field and become in the top 1% in that field. If you have a particular talent in an in-demand field you should focus on this and try to become the best.

More well rounded people will have a lot more opportunities, but it will be harder to reach the top of the field of their choice. The best option for well-rounded people is to develop multiple skills and try to reach the top 20% of multiple skills. Stack 3+ high value skills together and you can start contributing major value and make serious money.

 

Scott Adams on The Talent Stack And Recommended Skills

Scott Adams, the Dilbert creator says it best in How To Fail At Everything And Still Win Big, “there are two ways to make yourself valuable. The first way is to become the best at some specific skill, the way Tiger Woods dominated golf. But not many of us can be Tiger Woods. So that path is unavailable to 99% of the world.

I recommend a different approach. Most people can – with practice – develop a variety of skills that work well together. I call this idea the Talent Stack.”

I think the idea of the Talent Stack is important enough that it merits its own article. This is an important message for people who don’t have a standout skill but are good at a wide range of things. Take this diverse set of talents and and reach the top 20% and with a bit of hard work (& smart work) and success is almost inevitable. Below is a quote from Scott Adams about the skills he recommends people learn,

“I made a list of skills in which I think every adult should gain a working knowledge. I wouldn’t expect you to become a master of any, but mastery isn’t necessary. Luck has a good chance of finding you if you become merely good in most of these areas. I’ll make a case for each one, but here’s the preview list.

Public speaking
Psychology
Business Writing
Accounting
Design (the basics)
Conversation
Overcoming Shyness
Second language
Golf
Proper grammar
Persuasion
Technology ( hobby level)
Proper voice technique”

 

This is a great list, and I encourage you to check out Scott Adam’s book to see his rational for each of these skills.

 

Income To Wealth Recommended Skills

  1. Economics. In a capitalist society you need to understand the system you are working within. If you don’t understand the economy you will always be facing an uphill battle.
  2. Accounting. This is the language of business, it’s useful whether you are running your own business or simply making investment decisions.
  3. Technology. You need to adapt to an ever changing world, whether it’s owning a business or being an employee you need to develop the skills that are in demand in the world. I believe everyone should try their hand at coding at least once, and know the ins and outs of the operating system they use (Windows, Mac, Linux)
  4. Digital Wellness. You can think of this as an anti-skill. In a world that is filled with push-notifications and information overload you need to be able to cut out the noise and be able to work in a focused manner for hours on end. Technology addiction is quickly becoming the Achilles heel of many otherwise successful people at minimum you need to use social media intelligently, in the extreme case you may need to get a dumb phone.
  5. Psychology. Humans are social animals that come in many different shapes and temperaments. Developing an understanding of psychology will allow you to understand yourself and others.
  6. Writing. Whether you want to start a website, write down your thoughts to better understand yourself, or simple be able to quickly and efficiently write business emails, you need to know how write well.
  7. Reading. Reading will always be the most efficient way for smart people to consume information. Developing a reading habit will allow you to learn more about the world and to learn more quickly.
  8. Strategic Thinking / Long-term Planning. Strategizing is a meta-skill, but it is often the difference between someone being a success and a failure in the long-term.
  9. Persuasion. Persuasions is any type of sales or “manipulation”. This could be the difference between a successful entrepreneur and a failure, but it could also be the difference between a parent raising a well adjusted child or someone raising a spoiled brat. Persuasion is an all encompassing social skill.
  10. Marketing. In regards to career development or business development this is the most important skill you can have. If you know how to market yourself well the world is your oyster. If you are bad at marketing no one will know you exist.
  11. Fitness. This is an all-encompassing health related skill that will improve every area of your life and needs to be taken seriously no matter what age you are.

 

Develop A Skill Plan

First of all you need to think of the skills that will help you in the areas of life you want to improve in.

If you are unproductive and easily distracted, the best skill for you to develop is digital wellness. Without the ability for deep, focused work you will find yourself unable to achieve any goals. When you have this skill of digital wellness nailed down, you need to think about where you want to be in 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years time. This is a a basic, rudimentary plan that will obviously change, but you need to think about the future you want to create. This will allow you to develop a better understanding of yourself (psychology) and strategic & long-term thinking.

The next thing you should do is think about what bad habits you have, and develop a plan to break those habits for good. This is a simple step but it is far from easy, and it will definitely require planning and may require blood, sweat, and tears. That is often the price you need to pay for an above-average life. The next step is to think about any serious weaknesses you need to handle before further developing your skills. These issues can usually be separated into three simple areas so they are easier to diagnose and target.

 

Health

Any chronic illnesses?

Are you underweight or overweight?

Do you get sufficient exercise?

How is your diet?

Do you drink enough water?

How often do you get acute sicknesses (colds, flu, etc.)?

 

Wealth

Do you have credit card debt?

Do you have student loans?

Do you have a plan to pay down your debt?

Do you have sufficient savings and/or multiple streams of income?

What is your plan to achieve financial independence?

 

Relationships

How is your relationship with your family?

Do you have high-quality friendships?

When was the last time you had sex?

How is your love life?

How is your relationship with your partner?

When was your last medium or long-term relationship?

 

Prioritize Your Skill Development

Now that you understand your weaknesses and areas you need to develop you can prioritize the skills you want to develop. Think about the skills you need to develop the most, and work on these until you are in the top 20% in theses skills. This isn’t an incredibly ambitious plan, and getting to the top 20% in any given skill is not particularly impressive.

The real payoff in skill development comes from skill stacking, and reaching the top 20% for multiple skills. You need to make a plan and have a system/goals (write it down with a pen and paper) for developing your skills. Writing your skill goals down will give you accountability. Make sure to set SMART (Specific Measurable Assignable Reasonable Time-Based) goals and constantly review them.

 

The Upside Of Not Being The Best At Anything

The name of the game is creating your own unique talent stack. Think about what skills you bring to the table at present and what else you can add to your talent stack to create a unique value proposition. There are so many angles that people can take that match both their personality and skills they can develop. There are a billions of ways you can create value in the world. I highly recommend you take this idea of stacking skills seriously, if you do it right it will inevitably change your life for the better.

The Illusion of Choice In Web Hosting

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Web hosting is a fascinating industry because of how insular it is. At least 90% of people that own websites do not understand what their web host does. They understand they need to pay a certain amount of space on a server but beyond that they know nothing. To most webmasters, web hosting is a black box where you put your website and then people can access it from their browser.

Since the industry is so hard to understand the internal workings of, how do you make an informed choice about what hosting provider to use? For most people the answer would be to search “best web hosting” on Google and click on one of the top results. They would then choose one of the hosts that has a top recommendation in that search result. Unfortunately these top results are dominated by marketers and corporations that have a conflict of interest between making money and giving quality advice. Naturally they always choose to make more money.

A smart person would scan these Google results and realize this isn’t the best place to find information. They would likely go to a social network such as Reddit or Twitter to find what people are saying. This would narrow down their choices but they would still have to deal with marketers spreading bad hosting information in hopes of earning affiliate commissions.

 

What Companies Get Recommended?

The most recommended hosting companies are companies that provide mediocre services but have great marketing. Great marketing includes being a large company so you can easily spread your message, and having high paying affiliate commissions. High paying affiliate commissions are necessary because that is the incentive hosting companies give webmasters to promote their services on their websites. Web hosting is such a competitive industry that no average person would ever hear of a web host if they didn’t have a high paying affiliate program.

Several companies get recommended the most in the search results and by “start making money blogging” websites. These companies include Blue Host, Hostgator, and iPage among a few others. The only issue is that these three choices are all owned by the same parent company. Endurance International Group (EIG) is one of the world’s largest web hosting providers and has grown through the acquisition of smaller hosting companies. EIG owns and operates numerous hosting businesses and their total brand count is 83.

Many other web hosting providers also have numerous subsidiaries which creates the illusion of choice in web hosting. These web hosting providers look like separate companies but they have the same parent company. Very few industries are as confusing for beginners as the web hosting industry. The introduction to web hosting outlines the best web hosting companies for different amounts of traffic.