Career capital: how best to invest in yourself

Abstract

A key strategic consideration is ‘career capital’ — the skills, connections, credentials, and financial resources that can help you have a bigger impact in the future. Career capital is potentially a vital consideration because people seem to become dramatically more productive over their career. Our impression is that most people have little impact in their first couple of jobs, while productivity in most fields seems to peak at age 40–50. This suggests that by building the right career capital, you can greatly increase your impact, and that career capital should likely be one of your top considerations early in your career.