CMV: Creating/publishing things is the best way to progress in your career

Creating your own work (eg: a blog sharing your thoughts, software projects, side projects etc), is the single most effective way to grow your career (eg: get more responsibility at your existing job, get a promotion, get a better job somewhere else, and so on), because it is:

• Proof of what you can do - a resume/CV is not nearly as effective as a real product in terms of what you're capable of (eg: showing someone an app you made is far more effective than a simple resume saying you know how to make apps).

• Reciprocity at scale - if you also solve a real problem for your audience (eg: you write something that solves a real problem in your industry), it's just like providing a "gift" to many people at once. Some of them are bound to reach out and offer you opportunities (eg: speaking at conferences, jobs, consulting etc).

• An enhancement to all networking - Walking into a networking event (or cold emailing someone) always works better if you're working on something exciting you can tell them about. It also gives others the opportunity to contribute (eg: a podcast that they can be interviewed on)

• The best way to learn skills - every skill is only valuable to an employer if it helps with some kind of long-term result (eg: writing is only good for an employer if it leads to a book, blog post, email etc). Therefore, focusing on end projects is the best way to pick up useful skills, and fill skills gaps (eg: if you create a blog, you'll need to learn about writing, getting traffic for a website, analytics etc).

• A way to get unlimited responsibility - there is no limit to how big you can make your side project (but there is a limit to your responsibility & the scope of your role for most jobs). Therefore, a side project is the ultimate way to learn and apply as much knowledge as you want.

Therefore, other methods (eg: networking alone, working really hard at your job) to advancing in your career aren't as good as they would be if you also had a profile and created things.

Creating things related to your field is the single most effective career "hack".

CMV.

This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules. If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views**! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us. Happy CMVing!