The real problem with career top 10 lists

As a follow up to yesterday’s post about career top 10 lists, and all cute/shocking titles aside, I wanted to point out the real danger in looking for career advice in top 10 lists.

In approaching any career issue, you can choose to view it from one of three perspectives: functional, social, or political.

The functional perspective is the most fundamental, and functional solutions are generally concerned with what work gets done. Functional solutions look and sound like more/better/faster/smarter.

The social perspective is the next higher level perspective, and concerns itself with how work gets done. Social solutions generally involve a handshake, either literally or figuratively.

The political perspective is the highest level perspective, where people are concerned with the stage on which all the what and how plays out. Political solutions have to do with “controlling the frame.”

The real danger with career top 10 lists is, even when they address social and political subjects, they are very frequently written from a functional perspective. This is by design, as functional solutions tend to have the broadest appeal. (Social and political players will also appreciate quality functional work, whereas a functional player may not appreciate social or political work.)

This also means that top 10 lists are the weakest form of advice.

If I am armed with a top 10 list of dos and don’ts, and you are armed with subject matter knowledge, you’ll win, every time. For instance, I just came across a list of questions to ask in an interview. It’s a great list… except that if I came into an interview with you and asked you her great questions, I’d probably fail the interview. Making questions work requires more than reading what’s written on a sheet of paper! In reality, I’d ask a question, you’d push back, and I wouldn’t know how to respond, because I wouldn’t have a deep enough awareness of the question to carry it any further. The conversation would suffer an awkward pause, into which I’d throw my next question from the list. Like this:

You, the interviewer: “Do you have any questions?”
Me, with Great Question #1: “Yes, I do. How long have you been trying to fill this position?”
You: “About three months. Why?”
Me, suddenly caught off-guard: “Well… I… Is that considered a long time?”
You: “It’s an important position and we want the right person. We don’t intend to rush the hiring decision.”
Me, still off-guard and hoping I didn’t offend you: “Of course. That makes sense. Ha, ha.”

Dead spot in the conversation.

Me, with Great Question #2: “Ah, what does daily life in this job entail?”
You: “Oh, there’s never a dull day! I’m not sure there’s such a thing as a ‘typical’ day, but from the outside, I’m sure our work is not too dissimilar from other offices, with projects, phone calls, number crunching, coordinating, and the occasional meeting.”
Me, looking for more specifics: “Right, but what would I actually be doing?”
You cock your head and look at me, then check my resume, suddenly wondering if I’ve ever held a job before. “I’m not sure I understand your question. You’ll have responsibilities for part of a project, and you’ll be doing the things you need to do to accomplish your goals. Sometimes that’ll mean sitting at a computer working, sometimes you’ll be emailing and calling others to coordinate work, sometimes you’ll be identifying and solving problems. Is that what you mean?”

Dead spot #2.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

One more of those, and you’d politely show me to the door.

Next time, don’t settle for a top 10 list. Don’t let someone else do your thinking for you. Get to the heart of the matter yourself! How do you do that? That is an answer that is different for everybody. That’s the stuff I help you figure out when I’m wearing my career consultant hat.

Jason Seiden is Co-founder and CEO of Ajax Social Media, a training company that shows professionals how use social media to work more effectively.