I recently read this piece on meritocracy—rung quite true to me from personal experience. I work with a guy of similar ability to me, but I think I would beat him on most technical and simple people skills. However, he still gets ahead from being more ambitious and upfront than I am, and while he’s a bit more qualified on paper it’s used to far better effect. (No bitterness, he’s still a good guy to work with and I know it’s up to me to be better. Also I’m in kind of mid-level finance rather than coding.)
I think that article is a bit bitter. It probably applies to some organizations, but I think most places at least manage to consider competence as a substantial part of the mix in promotion decisions.
Which is not to say signaling ambition isn’t valuable (I absolutely believe it is). Just that the article is bitter.
I recently read this piece on meritocracy—rung quite true to me from personal experience. I work with a guy of similar ability to me, but I think I would beat him on most technical and simple people skills. However, he still gets ahead from being more ambitious and upfront than I am, and while he’s a bit more qualified on paper it’s used to far better effect. (No bitterness, he’s still a good guy to work with and I know it’s up to me to be better. Also I’m in kind of mid-level finance rather than coding.)
I think that article is a bit bitter. It probably applies to some organizations, but I think most places at least manage to consider competence as a substantial part of the mix in promotion decisions.
Which is not to say signaling ambition isn’t valuable (I absolutely believe it is). Just that the article is bitter.