Update: My old manager from the 2010s just emailed me asking for a reference

He was the type who always said 'just put your head down and work hard' back when we shared a cubicle wall. Now he's looking for a new job himself and his note was full of questions about networking and personal branding. What's the biggest shift in job hunting advice you've seen since you started your career?

4 comments

4 Comments

blake7923mo ago

Watch the guy who told you to be a quiet workhorse suddenly become a LinkedIn influencer wannabe. I mean the biggest shift is that nobody trusts the old 'keep your head down' advice anymore. It feels like everyone got told their job is also to be a public brand now, which is exhausting. Maybe it's just me but I find it funny when the people who pushed the old way have to learn the new rules the hard way. The whole thing feels like a weird game where the rules changed and no one passed him the note.

evahenderson3mo agoTop Commenter

Tell me about it, I fell for the quiet workhorse bit too. Now I'm over here trying to figure out how to sound smart in a post without feeling like a total fraud. It's honestly kind of pathetic watching my own awkward attempts at personal branding. The whole thing makes me miss when being good at your actual job was enough.

blake7923mo ago

Yeah I used to believe that quiet work thing too. Seeing those same people now trying to be loud online really shows how much the game changed.

nancyjones1mo ago

So did he just wrap his 'keep your head down' speech in some new networking wrapping paper and call it a day? That's like telling someone to run a marathon then handing them bike pedals and wondering why they're confused. It's honestly hilarious watching these old-school managers scramble to act like they didn't spend years telling us to be invisible. Guess the quiet workhorse doesn't look so smart when he's the one begging for LinkedIn shoutouts now, huh? Maybe he should just put his head down and fill out a ghost application and see how far that gets him.