How to Break into New Opportunities
I've known Jitesh (name changed) for a couple of years now. I first met him through online workshops I used to conduct on innovation. Like many engineering students today he's trying to crack a job as a researcher in quantum computing. His problem is that these jobs are few and they don't visit on campus for hiring. Now he faces an enormous challenge of competing against everyone else out there. Jitesh and many like him need to stand out when they have little formal experience.
The biggest challenge we face in the world of AI is proving our differentiation.
In the sea of automation, Jitesh is going against the grain. He's busy reading research papers. Makes plenty of notes. After that, for the papers he likes, the authors are emailed. He offers his research assistance based on what he's marked as the next possible research areas.
When he told me of this method, I was beaming. I guess it's old school. Side note - some music albums I liked in college are now found in retro playlists. But more than that it's three inner refinement he's going through which will help him a lot.
He's learning by self, honing his skills. Not by choice, definitely. By reading papers, he develops his own understanding of the problem space. This won't happen at the first reading but after multiple reads, he'll get better.
Next is spotting new opportunities. His poring over papers will reveal gaps to address. This is a standard research approach. Usually students working under a professor learn this process. Jitesh and many like him are doing the same without much guidance.
The most difficult part is contacting the researchers. The first half of the challenge is knowing what to write. He wanted to pique their interest which leads to a research role. Knowing what to highlight in an email is an X-factor skill. The next phase is following up. It's a fine line between becoming a pest vs someone who drops an email and forgets about it. The researchers - academic or in the industry- are a busy lot. Getting them to respond is not for the faint hearted.
Btw, all these above steps can be easily automated today. AI tools such as LLMs can summarise papers, spot opportunities, and also draft emails.
Imagine the state of the email recipient. How will they know the wheat from the chaff. Or the desi expression of figuring out the doodh (milk) from the paani (water).
Thankfully, these tools are not perfect yet. We can tell when something is written by a machine. That won't be the case for long.
In the meantime, Jitesh is doing what he must. He's building his real intelligence. Trying to crack open opportunities.
His process will pay dividends. Just like the investment category, his is a long term game.
If you would like to connect with him, let me know. I'm happy to refer.
To Jitesh - lage raho. Keep the process going and the results will follow.
That's it for today.
Happy Ideating!
Hemang.