[monkeyfacebag]

I don’t think this limited to careers in academia. I see similar kinds of survivorship bias in leadership seminars and talks in industry where they trot out the folks at the top of the pyramid to discuss their career trajectory and dispense wisdom to the rank and file.

Of course, you can still get paid well as a rank and file employee in industry, so the harm is not the same.

[seibelj]

If your goal is to make it to the top, then it is wise to hear from the people at the top how they got there. Inevitably it comes down to innate talent, passion, hard work, and luck. Luck is the element you can't control, but without hard work any luck presented would be useless.

Even if you never get lucky, the character traits of high-ranking people in your field can still be useful to you. Unfortunately there is no guaranteed path to success, and you just need to keep trying and hanging around if you want to become top-tier in whatever career you choose.

[monkeyfacebag]

> without hard work any luck presented would be useless

Can you say more about why you’re convinced this is true?

[seibelj]

It is self evident. If you meet someone at a conference who opens a door (like an interview), but you didn't work hard enough to pass the interview, then you got lucky but didn't put the work in.

I view "the hustle" as the hard work. You need to constantly try and improve your craft while simultaneously networking and putting yourself out there. When the stars align you meet the right person who can help translate the skills you developed via hard work into success.

There are exceptions to every rule of course, but I find the general premise of working hard and trying to make your own good luck to be a reliable success indicator.

Being born into good fortune helps tremendously, but I have met rich kids who became nothing as well as poor kids who became absurdly successful. Life is simply what you make of it, and there is no "one true path" to follow.

[monkeyfacebag]

I mean, not to discount the value of working hard or anything, but you describe this as a self evident truth when it can't possibly apply across the board. I am an existence proof. I've had to work relatively little for my success, including in interview situations. Again, this is not to say that I believe hard work has no place, but to frame hard work as some kind of self-evident key to success is exactly the disingenuous framing I expect from leadership seminars.

[seibelj]

I work in an industry that is more merit-based than most (tech startups) and being good in your job is heavily dependent on hard work and success. This is across the board in all departments. If you find a job that pays a very high compensation without any hard work, I think you hit on the very high-end of luck.

[monkeyfacebag]

I think you're just wrong about how merit-based our industry is. I don't think it is meaningfully more merit-based than other industries, nor is it more challenging, despite the fact that it is often presented as both of these things.

I doubt there is anything I could say to convince you of this, so I guess we should call this one a draw.

[dnautics]

Yeah but everyone already knows the rest of the job market is fucked beyond belief. There is an active false narrative that becoming an academic researcher is about doing good science. At best the cynicism goes "get published in a good journal"/grantsmanship deep. Nobody talks about the "don't be ugly", "Theranos-level oversell your research", "over interpret your data" strategies as positive factors in academic advancement.

[monkeyfacebag]

> Yeah but everyone already knows the rest of the job market is fucked beyond belief.

I’m not sure what you mean.