It’s the Peter Principle!

Last night I was reflecting on my working life, when I had this epiphany; my working life was a near-perfect example of the Peter Principle in action.  I fully expect that I will soon, once again, be invited to interview for a job that I have no hope of actually getting.  Sure, I’ll dress nice, and put on a good or even great show for the interviewers, but in the end, I know I won’t get hired.  Sounds defeatist, I know, and there are probably plenty of people that will say that is the reason I won’t get hired.  It’s a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.  But, I think it’s more like the Peter Principle.

The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong 

Simply put, the Peter Principle says that in a hierarchical organization people tend to rise to their level of incompetence.  So… when interviewing, there is a strong possibility that those conducting the interview are actually incompetent at interviewing.  As if that’s not bad enough, then there is the problem of “super-competence,” that is, a person working in an inappropriately low level job based on his abilities.

Now, I usually don’t like to go on and on about how good I am at what I do.  But, I’ve worked hard over my lifetime to truly understand things, regardless of the subject matter involved.  In college, I went beyond trying to memorize what I had learned in order to get a good grade on a test.  I didn’t party… I didn’t watch television… I didn’t play games.  I spent my time applying all that theory to the real world.  I tested theories against what was really happening in the markets.  And when things didn’t appear to work according to all the theories that I had learned, I worked to understand why.  And yes, I think in terms of competence it has paid off.  Not so much in terms of my ability to actually have a rewarding career though.

It used to be that I could at least get hired because I didn’t have proof of my competence.  I applied for jobs that required no experience in areas that I didn’t have experience.  I was hirable because there was nothing to indicate that I might be a threat to management’s incompetence.  But all that work I did in school has changed all that.  I won awards… graduated with honors… and now the record shows that I am, in fact, highly competent.  Nobody wants that.

So now, I suppose the trick will be to learn how to convince people that I am, in fact, not at all competent in what I do.  Once I learn that, I’m pretty sure my career will be right back on track.