[acjohnson55]

100%.

People ignore the extent to which the signals they're using as input are simply correlated with the signals some previous gatekeeper used. Therefore, they vastly underestimate how much a person's resume is "all signal".

I'm a great case in point. At some point, scholarships I had earned became the justification for giving me more scholarships. Much of my early adult life was spent compiling signals and statuses. I absolutely tried to develop real capabilities along the way, but to say my "impressive" resume indicated significant real world value created outside my own life probably wasn't true until about age 30.

When I was a hiring manager, I tried to evaluate people on what they accomplished relative to what they were given.

[jackgolding]

haha this is very relatable - there are massive rewards for signalling