One undeniable proof of work beats a Stanford degree

I’m not saying I’m the best. I have a fair share of knowledge of product management and marketing. I’ve just never written about it in public. I thought recognition would follow if the products won.

I was wrong. Apart from my boss and team, nobody knows what I can do.

Essentially, I have no network.

If you’re not from a reputed college or branded company, the probability of becoming successful is going to significantly drop. Your work is going to stay invisible by default unless your product become one of the overnight successes :)

A louder cover letter or a better resume is not going to change that. But, there’s a fix:

Create one piece of evidence so undeniable it travels without you having to vouch for it.

How a 15-year old Mongolian boy rang the bell to get into MIT

In 2012, a 15-year-old kid, Battushig Myanganbayar, signed up for a free online MIT course: 6.002x, Circuits and Electronics along with 150,000 people around the world.

He had no lab or teacher but just a laptop with internet. He got a perfect score along with 339 other students. But he was the youngest, at 15, from Mongolia!

He didn’t stop there. He built a device he called ‘Garage Siren’ and posted the instructions and a demo video to YouTube.

This proof of work caught the eye of MIT’s admissions office, and he got in. He struck the bell in Mongolia, and it was heard all the way at MIT.

The credential is one way to ring the bell but not the only one

It’s not a wonder HR, VCs, and recruiters filter by brands. It makes their job easy.

But there are other many options to show signal. Balaji Srinivasan has a phrase for this signal.

He hires for ability over experience, and what he wants to see is that you’ve “rung the bell” at least once. A degree from Stanford or MIT, a stint at Google or Meta are some signals.

If you don’t have that then an open-source project. A portfolio. A competition score. A HackerRank result. A HackerOne bug bounty.

The credential is sufficient but not necessary. But, the proof of work is necessary. If you’re on the internet, it’s now sufficient too.

How to build a world-class proof of work?

Now, don’t get alarmed when I say world-class proof of work. Let’s define what world-class is:

World-class is to produce one thing that proves you can do the work at a level your resume can’t fake.

For a software engineer that might be an open-source library people actually use, a top finish on a programming competition, or a security writeup on HackerOne.

For a designer, a portfolio that ships a point of view.

For a writer, an essay someone links without being asked.

For an AI-native product manager, it can be a portfolio that demonstrates the ability to do market research, build prototypes, and ship.

The proof-of-work condenses the interview into the artifact. You don’t have to convince anyone you’re smart when the artifact already did.

I missed out doing this early career. I’m not gonna missout now.