Best Career Advice: Explore, then Exploit

Most career advice is flawed. It is flawed because the world is too complex. There are millions of jobs, thousands of companies, different countries, people with different responsibilities, and an unending sea of bosses. How can career advice apply to everyone? It is impossible. That's why we tend to give advice with a lot of nuance and caveats. Some things will apply to you, others might not. Pick and choose to suit your needs.

Then there is the modern trend of Anti-Career advice. Some are reasonable arguments about quiet quitting, focusing on a healthy work-life balance. Others are antiwork dogmatism; all jobs are bullshit and capitalism is a fraud. Telling people that a satisfying career is a hopeless goal is not only false, it can be dangerous. Millions of people enjoy the work they do and are more fulfilled because of it. Being against work is not the solution. Finding a career that matches your style is the way to go.

Switching jobs is good for you - when you're young

Hopping between jobs in your 20s can be good for you. People who switched between jobs more when they were younger earn more and are more satisfied with their work in their 30s and 40s¹.

“Job-hopping is actually correlated with higher incomes, because people have found better matches — their true calling.” - Henry Siu, Interview with The Atlantic

Causality is hard to prove. Maybe people with a risk-taking and proactive personality earn more regardless of quitting. But it does open up some interesting questions.

Should you quit your job if you're not happy at work? Maybe it is better to stick with what you have and double down and become truly good at what you do. Mastery can also lead to higher job satisfaction.

Put differently: What is the best career strategy long-term?

3 steps to a new career

There are only three steps to take charge of your career path.

1. Take the personality career test
2. Unlock your career matches
3. Find a meaningful career

Hot streaks

My favorite career strategy comes from new research on hot streaks: the special burst of creativity and output that we know from sports, gambling, and financial markets. Researchers at Northwestern University wanted to figure out if hot streaks also applied to individual careers.

They found that most people experienced a hot streak in their careers, but very few experienced more than one. Hot streaks seem to emerge randomly, have a limited lifespan, and are not associated with productivity². That is good news, but how can you improve your chance of entering a hot streak? Researchers have been trying to figure out the relationship between age and amazing bursts of genius for a while³. But the researchers from Northwestern could not predict the onset of a hot streak, no matter what they tried.

They looked at age; maybe in your early or middle career is when you hit your stride. Nope. Maybe it's a numbers game and the more you produce the higher the chance of a hot streak? Afraid not. What about the 10,000 hours rule⁴, focusing on one single thing for years? Negative. Whatever predictor the researchers could come up with, nothing seemed to work. Hot streaks seemed to be random.

Until last year, when they discovered the "Explore, then Exploit" strategy⁵.

Explore, then Exploit

In a career you can generally focus on one of two strategies: Exploration or Exploitation. The idea comes from economics. A corporation can either focus on exploring new product ideas (R&D) or doubling down on - i.e. exploiting - a product they know is already working⁶.

All of us in our careers face a similar dilemma. Our time and energy are finite, while all possible career paths, for all intents and purposes, are infinite. Should you double down with the job you already have or quit and search around for new opportunities?

A good analogy is digging for gold. If you want to explore the territory, try many different sites before you commit to digging deep. Either strategy alone wouldn't be very effective. Only exploring won't do you much good, as you will always be abandoning your site before you've had the chance to find some gold. Likewise, committing and exploiting the first site you find will also probably lead to nothing. The chances are just too low that your first pick will be a hit.

Exploring in your 20s

Translating this into career advice could look something like this: Explore a lot in your 20s and once you found a good match exploit and double down. Use your 20s to try many different jobs and career paths. See what you like and what you're good at. It is ok to be lost for a while - keep exploring, keep learning, and keep growing. At some point, you will find something that is a good match, something that will come easy, something that you care about. This is the time to commit and exploit.

Exploiting in your 30s & 40s

Once you have found your spot, it's time to focus. Stick with the degree or job for many years and give it everything you have. Don't get distracted by new exploration in this phase. You want to put in the time and effort to achieve some level of mastery. Exploit the match between this career and your natural strengths and skills (Don't forget to have fun while you're doing it).

This seems to be a fantastic career strategy for most people. Not for everyone, but for many. As one of the Northwestern Researchers says:

“Our data shows that people ought to explore a bunch of things at work, deliberate about the best fit for their skills, and then exploit what they've learned." - Dushan Wang, Interview with The Atlantic

The dangers of just exploring

There are some dangers to this approach. You might get lost in exploration mode. Especially if your personality is naturally geared toward it. Often people with high Openness & low Conscientiousness fit that bill. Be careful not to fall into the trap of endless non-committal flakiness. It is easy to always quit your job when you encounter the least bit of resistance. Something doesn't go as planned and you quit and move on.

It can be the right thing to do, just be honest with yourself. Are you someone who always starts new projects but never finishes them? If so, exploration will come easier than committing - just be aware of your own strengths and weaknesses.

The dangers of just exploiting

There are equal dangers in the exploitation strategy. Maybe hard work and grinding it out come easy to you. You've always doubled down and grinding it out. In most cases that's a strength. But some people find it easier to commit than to explore. They will stick with the first thing they found and never try anything else. They are stuck with their first choice. More often than not, your first choice won't be the best match. Often people with high Conscientiousness and low Openness fit this particular bill.

The take-home message here is: Know your own strengths and how your mind works.

Explore vs Exploit mindset

Let us summarize the two different strategies. You want to start out exploring as much as you can in the beginning and once you struck gold you want to exploit and commit. Each of these has its own strategy, mindset, focus, and goal. The real trick is in knowing when to switch between exploring and exploiting.