I recently read a brilliant book called The Black Swan and in it the author talks about some career advice he got at business school. He was told to do something scalable. This meant pick a career whereby the same amount of work could have vastly different results, like writing a book. It takes the same amount of time and effort to write a book that sells a million copies as it does to sell 1. By pursuing scalable careers you are therefore open to a situation in which the rewards for your work can be massive without actually having to work 'harder'. Financial trading is another example. Make a trade and the same effort has gone into it whether or not you make a million or nothing at all. This is all in contrast to more predictable careers whereby you're paid by the hour. A dentist for example, or a lawyer. As you're paid by the hour you can only earn more by working harder and/or for longer and given there are only 24hrs in a day there is a pretty set limit to the rewards you can achieve.

This strikes me as a pretty useful way to think about different graduate jobs. Especially as those that are suscepitible to scalability and those that aren't have other distinctions worth noting. One of the big things that the author observes is that scalable careers tend to be populated my giants and minnows. For every best selling author there are thousands of unknown writers. And unfortunately he makes a very persuasive argument that it's more likely to be luck than talent that separates the two. Non scalable careers on the other hand tend to be more middle of the road, with outcomes slightly less impacted by random events. 

So what kind of job would you want? One where your hard work could reap huge rewards or none. Or one in which you plod along doing very nicely thanks?

The author recommends sticking to non scalable careers. You can earn a healthy living (not many dentists on the poverty line) and your life and success is much more predictable. A quick survey of the CareerPlayer team has us in the scalable camp. Sure you might end up a small impoverished minnow but the excitement, the possibility of beating the odds and becoming a giant...we couldn't concentrate without it.