ThemeSkills & Growth
CardCard 1 of 66
Questions5 to explore

Advantages

What gives an advantage over others

The things that set you apart are not always the most obvious ones, and identifying them honestly is more useful than any job title.

An advantage is anything that puts you in a better position than others competing for the same opportunities: a skill others rarely have, a combination of experiences that is genuinely unusual, access to a particular network, or a way of working that gets results. Most people have more of these than they recognize, and some of the most valuable ones come from corners of life that seem unrelated to work.

The tricky part is that advantages shift. What made you stand out five years ago may be table stakes today. Staying useful means paying attention to what the people around you are actually struggling with, and noticing where you reliably step in and help. That gap between what others find hard and what comes naturally to you is often where your real advantage lives.

It is also worth separating the advantages you were born into or stumbled into from the ones you built deliberately. Both count, and being honest about the difference helps you understand what you can replicate and what you might need to compensate for.

How to work on it

Practical ways to reflect on and develop this dimension of your working life. How it tends to look at different stages of a career, and where to put your attention.

Early career

Ask people around you what they come to you for, even informally. You may not see it yet, but the pattern is already forming.

Mid career

Look at where you get asked back, promoted, or recommended and trace what those situations have in common.

Late career

Consider which of your advantages are transferable to new contexts, and which ones are tied to a specific industry or role that may be changing.

Any stage

Map out your advantages explicitly, including the unconventional ones, and notice which you are actively using and which you are leaving idle.

Questions to explore

Use these on your own or in a group. There are no right answers, only better conversations.

What do people regularly ask you for help with that they do not ask others?
Which of your experiences or skills are genuinely rare in the rooms you tend to be in?
What advantages do you have that you have never fully used in a professional context?
How have your advantages shifted over the last five years, and what does that tell you about the next five?
Which of your advantages came from circumstances rather than effort, and how comfortable are you naming them?

Things to notice

Confusing advantages with credentials: a certification is not the same as a genuine edge, and the most durable advantages are often harder to put on a CV.
Taking your advantages for granted: what feels obvious and easy to you is often precisely what other people find difficult, and that gap is worth paying attention to.
Staying attached to advantages that have expired: the market shifts, and an edge that served you well in one era may need to be replaced rather than defended.