The career game you didn’t know you were playing

Some of the most talented people I know can't find work. Meanwhile, others with seemingly average skills keep landing amazing opportunities.

This used to confuse me until I realised they're playing entirely different games.

The game everyone plays

Most of us were taught a simple formula for career success:

1. Get good at something

2. Make a nice resume

3. Apply to lots of jobs

4. Hope for the best

When this doesn't work, we double down. More applications. Fancier resumes. Higher degrees. More certifications.

But it's like showing up to play basketball while everyone else is playing football. No wonder it feels so frustrating.

That's because there's another game happening. One where opportunities come to you instead of you chasing them.

This isn't some "manifestation" nonsense. It's a practical reality that took me years to understand: the best opportunities rarely go through formal channels.

So what's this hidden thing I'm talking about?

It's one where you become the natural answer to someone's problem rather than an applicant in their inbox.

When you're one resume in a stack of 1000, you're playing a terrible numbers game. Even if you're amazing, the odds are stacked against you.

Think about how you make decisions in your own life. Do you find a dentist by reading 1000 dentist resumes? Do you find a plumber by browsing a database of thousands?

No. You ask someone you trust: "Hey, know any good plumbers?"

Hiring often works the same way. Before a job is ever posted, the hiring manager asks around: "Know anyone good for this role?"

If they get a strong recommendation, the job posting becomes a formality. By the time you're applying, they've already got candidates they're excited about.

You're not losing to better candidates. You're losing to a better system.

The three kinds of professional visibility

There are three ways to be visible in your field:

1. Credential visibility: Having the right degrees, certifications, and work history. This is what everyone optimizes for. It's necessary but not sufficient.

2. Network visibility: Being known by the right people. This is what "networking events" try to create, usually poorly.

3. Thinking visibility: Showing how you approach problems, what you're curious about, and how you learn. This is the rarest and most valuable type.

Most people focus entirely on #1, occasionally on #2, and almost never on #3.

But #3 is where the magic happens.

When you make your thinking visible - through writing, projects, conversations, or experiments - you create a totally different kind of signal.

You're no longer just a list of credentials. You're a thinking human with distinct patterns and approaches. You become memorable in a way that resumes can never achieve.

I've seen this play out repeatedly personally and through others. Someone starts sharing their learning process - not even finished work, just what they're figuring out. Suddenly opportunities find them.

Why? Because hiring managers are desperate to find people who think well.

They can teach you skills. They can't teach you how to think.

The simplest way to start

The most common objection I hear is: "But I don't have anything impressive to share!"

That misses the entire point. The most compelling content isn't polished expertise - it's authentic exploration.

Write about what confuses you. Document what you're learning. Share the unexpected connections you notice.

The goal isn't to impress people with answers. It's to engage them with questions. To show your process, not your polish.

Here's what happens when you do this consistently:

1. You create a serendipity surface area - more chances for the right people to find you

2. You demonstrate how you think, which is what people actually hire

3. You build relationships based on shared interests rather than networking obligations

Here's a personal example: A while back, I wrote an article that barely got any traction. And I didn’t care because that wasn’t the goal.

But then, out of nowhere, I got a DM.

It was from a designer I’d followed for years. Someone I respected but never had a good way to start a conversation with.

They reached out because of that post. They told me they loved it. And suddenly, we were talking.

That single conversation could lead to opportunities down the line. But even if it doesn’t, it proved something important: the right people are paying attention, even if they don’t always hit ‘like.’

This is what thinking visibility does - it opens doors you didn’t even know were there.

Why most people won't do this

If this approach works so well, why doesn't everyone do it?

Because it feels vulnerable. Sharing in-progress thinking means risking being wrong in public. It means showing curiosity instead of certainty. It means stepping outside the standard professional script.

It also requires patience. Unlike sending out 100 applications, which feels productive immediately, building thinking visibility compounds slowly over time.

Most choose the immediate gratification of action over the delayed gratification of compound interest.

Moving from passive to active

There's a fundamental shift in mindset required:

Passive career mindset: "I hope someone picks me."

Active career mindset: "I'm creating conditions where the right people naturally find me."

This isn't about "grinding" or "hustling." It's about alignment. When you share your authentic interests and thinking, you naturally attract opportunities that match who you actually are, not who you're pretending to be.

The most successful people I know don't have more willpower or luck. They've just set up systems where opportunity finds them rather than the other way around.

So, if you want to switch games, start small:

1. Pick one tiny aspect of your work you find interesting

2. Document what you're learning about it

3. Share that documentation somewhere publicly

4. Do this consistently for six months

Don't worry about building a personal brand or growing an audience. Focus on showing your thinking.

Most people quit after a few weeks because they don't see instant results. And by doing so they miss the entire point. They want immediate payoff when this is about creating conditions where unexpected opportunities become probable over time.

I'm not saying traditional applications never work. You should still run that process.

But I'm saying there's a parallel game happening that most people ignore, and it produces better results with less competition.

The choice is yours: keep competing with thousands of others in the formal channels, or start playing a different game where opportunities find you.

It might feel strange at first. It might not deliver results immediately.

But eventually, you'll find yourself in a completely different position - one where you're choosing between opportunities rather than looking for them.

And once you start playing this game, you’ll wonder why you ever played the other one at all.

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Stay Connected

I’ve spent a decade helping designers at companies like Netflix, Google, Amazon, and OpenAI navigate their careers, land jobs, get promoted, and make smarter career moves. At On Deck, I built the Design Fellowship. At InVision, I scaled global design communities. Before that, I was a recruiter, helping 100s of designers land roles.

Now, I’ve built something new: The Two-Week Reset: a step-by-step system to break out of job search limbo and land real opportunities. Simply a proven system that I’ve been using for more than a decade. Good market or bad.

🚀 Try it out here → Backchannel

I also run:
✔ Free career navigation & layoff office hours: Small group sessions, every Thursday. Book a spot here
✔ Coho: A peer matching system for senior designers tackling challenges together. Beta waitlist here

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